Sarah had a strange premonition. She felt like something was about to happen, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She decided to take a walk into town to clear her head. As she walked, she found herself in a dream-like state and she couldn’t shake the strange feeling.
Suddenly, Sarah heard a sound coming from a nearby record store that drew her to it. She walked in and saw a stack of old vinyl records. She was drawn to one in particular, and when she picked it up, she felt a strange energy emanating from it.
Sarah bought the record, took it home, and put it on her record player. As the music began to play, she felt herself slipping into a trance. She felt like she was being taken somewhere else, somewhere far away, but decided to close her eyes and go with the flow.
She found herself in a strange place. She was surrounded by a group of people wearing brightly colored clothes and dancing to the music coming from a nearby scud. She realized that she had been transported to a trendy underground club.
Sarah spent the night dancing and having a great time. As the night came to an end, she realized that the premonition she had felt earlier had come true. She had been taken to a place where she could be herself and have fun.
When Sarah opened her eyes she found herself in her bed wearing a sweatsuit and her favorite pair of socks, and smiled. She knew that she had experienced something special, even though it was just a fantasy vision, and she was grateful for the premonition that had brought her there.
Written for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One Word Challenge (premonition), My Vivid Blog (vinyl), The Daily Spur (trance), Your Daily Word Prompt (scud), Word of the Day Challenge (trendy), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (sock).
PLEASE READ THIS:
I have a confession to make. I did not write this post. I’ve been reading a little about ChatGPT, AI (artificial intelligence) writing apps, and I was curious if they were any good. I downloaded an app called Genie to my iPhone. Genie is an OpenAl ChatGPT powered by GPT-3. I opened up the app and typed “Write a story with the words premonition, trance, vinyl, scud, sock, and trendy.” This post is what Genie came up with. I’d be interested to hear your comments about this AI-generated post.
This, That, and the Other 
So, this is what we real humans have to compete against, now. I might just stop writing altogether.
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I guess Sarah really liked that Pink Floyd album. As far as the AI story, I think it could be used to start a multiple prompt story, but it is nothing that great and I think your own imagination could produce a better one.
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What I liked most was the context for the use of “scud” — my metaphorical ears were like, I gotta know more about what a scud is. So my intelligence has learned something about an approach to writing a story with several prompts.
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Yes, the way “scud” was used was a bit sketchy.
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I’ll tell you what I thought of the the first part of the story before I read the disclaimer. This ain’t like fandango. It reads like “content.” It’s simplistic, the language a bit sterile, the plot(?) kind of cliched and boring. I read the disclaimer, finished the story, and stick with my critique. If not for the disclaimer, I’m not sure I would have sat up abruptly and cried out, “This is written by AI!!”
Interesting exercise.
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I agree that if I’d written something using those prompt words, it would have been nothing like this. I think it was not very engaging or imaginative, and not witty at all. I think AI has a way to go before it can replace us. But it’s progressive frighteningly fast.
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It will certainly progress along some line or other. We talk about the singularity and consciousness, but I think the real test may lie in humor.
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I hate to admit it, but it was pretty good. I probably should hate it.
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It wasn’t terrible, but it lacked the human touch, I think.
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It made me giggle just a little bit to think that this post is now part of the database pool other AI agents will use to learn with.
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Isn’t that special? 😏
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I think it’s scary that this story reads like a person wrote it. What next????
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Indeed, what IS next?
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Don’t want to know!
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I have been playing with AI at home too. I don’t usually write fiction but was curious because another blogger had written a few posts about it. AI stories are interesting and mostly readable but they don’t sound natural, do they? The ending of this story is not what you would have written, I’m sure.
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Yes, it was an interesting story, especially since wasn’t composed by a human. But I definitely would have written a different ending.
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She still had a record player 😳
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There are still record stores?
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So I’ve heard (Hubby has a record player. I like to tease him about it)
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This could be the end of the dream, but I sincerely hope not!
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It seems a bit crazy with really no head or tail. But the writing isn’t bad. AI might just be getting out of hand…
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This is nothing like the hilariously wrong AI written stuff I usually come across, you seem to have found the only sensible robot.
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I thought it was okay, typical of many of our “stories” that try to cram in all the prompt words, though not as good as a real story where we aren’t concerned about prompts. I was jarred at “scud” though, as it felt wrong…
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Good point about the multiple prompt words. It’s probably a good test of an AI’s capabilities. People’s too, though.
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Yes, I agree that the context in which the word “scud” was used was weird.
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I thought it was pretty good, and if you hadn’t confessed I wouldn’t have known. Interesting deal to have something like this writing. I doubt I’d use it to pass as my own, but it could be fun just to see what happens. I’ve used something similar for poems, but always said so. 🙂
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You know the obvious comment: “I knew it was too well written to be you.” 🤣
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Oh ouch! 😏
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Just putting on my editor’s hat – the sentence structure is too repetitive . “She did this” and “She did that.” Otherwise better than I would have guessed from an app.
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I agree, not bad, but it, well, lacked humanity. 😉
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Geez Fandango your best work ever! Oh wait says it was written by your imaginary friend. And the Pulitzer goes to Genie, now can it write an acceptance speech.
Obviously I am kidding. I found the story it created rather pedantic and included a lot of unnecessary language.
Give me genuine Fandango any day.
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Thanks Greg. The only reason I even posted this AI-generated post was to see what people thought about it. I agree that it was rather unimaginative and lacked any genuine wit. But it was an interesting process.
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It’s the type of story the new-to-writing-stories writer would pen (maybe 12-15yo), full of simple sentences, tells, and an ending that didn’t gel with the overall style, question, or theme (all missing, except as an introspection of meaninglessness). No nuance, just lost meaning, adverb-ly, and undermined with repetitive structure. There is no meaning to the story, no subtext, no overt purpose, no question – and most of all, no action that leads to an epiphany experience.
I wouldn’t believe your expression to be this juvenile.
Or am I being elitist?
As an ex-programmer, I know the machine can only spit out what’s been put in and how the program is to use the information, and asking it to make sense means the program must link to everything, everywhere, and extrapolate the meaning before creating an updated and contemporary rendition.
Machine-learning works well if it’s machine-to-machine, but not otherwise.
Linking the output of humans isn’t enough to create a machine that thinks and creates like a human – I can’t imagine a cat barking, regardless of how many times it sees/hears/experiences a dog barking.
Maybe it’s too early in the morning for me to make the comment, but … well, maybe I like the sound of my own opinion.
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You make very valid points. As I’ve commented to others, the post lacks wit, it’s told matter-of-factly, and most of all, it lacks humanity.
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A good mix of comments and I found it a bit repetitive and ‘so so’. I missed a good punch line.
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I am late to this discussion. John Holton mentioned it to me so here I am. I have been on discord playing with an AImbot producing images. They are pretty phenomenal. I will write a post about it in the coming days. I tried to use CHATGPT but the servers were down. I have a friend that uses Jasper for blog posts. They feel a little forced to me. As far as this sample, it is okay. I find the human touch missing and I see that in some of the images, too. I will always prefer the human hand in both writing and art. That being said, they are fun to play with, but I cannot see using them for any extended purpose. That may change in the future as the technology advances.
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