Dynamic AI
Co-Creation
A Human-Centered Approach.
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In her seminal book "Writing Machines," N. Katherine Hayles contemplates how these successive waves of inscription technologies have reshaped what it means to write, to read, and ultimately to be human. As AI encroaches further into tasks once thought to be exclusively human pursuits, we are forced to reckon with how these tools redefine core aspects of our identity and existence.
From the earliest writing implements like styluses and quills to modern word processors, technologies that augment the human ability to write have radically reshaped our relationship with the written word. The printing press democratized the mass distribution of texts, while the typewriter ushered in an era of easier revision and editing. When personal computers and word processing software emerged, the drafting process was transformed once again - cutting, pasting, rewriting, and reorganizing became virtually effortless tasks.
Now, artificial intelligence promises to be the next great evolutionary leap in writing technology. AI language models like GPT-3 can generate fluent, coherent passages of text on virtually any topic in a matter of seconds. This raises profound questions about the nature of authorship and the human role in crafting the written artifacts that define our culture.
OBJECTIVE REWITE ....To explore the capabilities of AI writing assistants, I decided to create my own customized language model to aid in research and writing. Using the powerful GPT-3 as a foundation, I fine-tuned the model on a corpus of academic texts related to my core research interests around gender studies, critical race theory, and media analysis.
Through an iterative process of issuing prompts, evaluating outputs, and further refining the training data, I was able to shape the model to function as a knowledgeable research assistant. My "Research GPT" could quickly synthesize literature reviews, generate explicit hypotheses based on premises, articulate methodological approaches, and even draft sections of theoretical argumentation.
Of course, like any AI system, it had clear limitations. Its knowledge was fundamentally bounded by the data it was exposed to during training. It could make contextual leaps based on patterns in that data but had no capacity for true wisdom, creativity, or human-like general intelligence. And as a language model, it simply regurgitated plausible-sounding statistical approximations of text - it held no deeper comprehension of meaning.
Keeping these constraints in mind, Research GPT became a powerful drafting aid that could offload many of the more tedious and mechanical aspects of research writing. Using the AI meant that I could spend more time focusing on the intellectual work of shaping novel ideas and arguments. But I remained the ultimate arbiter of quality - evaluating, editing, and deciding which AI-generated components merited inclusion or embellishment versus outright discarding.
The integration of AI into essay writing for academic settings presents a double-edged sword. On one hand, students struggling with the mechanics of constructing a coherent, grammatically correct essay could leverage AI writing tools to get a solid draft in place - allowing them to focus more energy on ideation, research, and critical thinking.
AI could assist with tasks like outlining, structuring arguments, formulating thesis statements, incorporating evidence and citations, and maintaining consistent voice and organization. Rather than getting bogged down in writer's block or paralyzed trying to produce a perfect first draft, students could use the AI as a tireless idea generator and draftsman.
However, the risks of such tools cannot be ignored. Lazy students may be tempted to cheat by trying to pass off AI-written essays as their own original work. This threatens to undermine the entire point of the writing exercise, which is to develop critical thinking and communication skills. And like any technology, AI writing models can perpetuate societal biases and inequities if they are trained on datasets that reinforce stereotypical perspectives.
To harness AI's potential while upholding academic integrity, schools may need to adapt guidelines around proper AI tool usage for assisted writing, similar to existing policies around plagiarism, citation standards, and authorized learning aids. Rather than banning AI outright, we should explore ways to thoughtfully integrate it into the writing curriculum and leverage its strengths to become better communicators - not have it subvert the skills we aim to cultivate.
While AI writing assistants can be valuable aids for analytical and expository writing, they also open up novel frontiers for creative writing. By strategically leveraging the unique "logic" that underlies how AI language models generate text, writers can use them as co-collaborators in crafting inventive, avant-garde works.
Take for example the constraints of poetic forms like the Shakespearean sonnet - its strict iambic pentameter structure, 14-line length, and defined rhyme scheme. Feeding these specific parameters to an AI model allows it to generate new sonnets that adhere to the traditional guidelines while exploring utterly original themes, wordplay, and imagery that a human writer may never have conceived.
Similarly, AI can be a potent tool for reviving Dadaist, surrealist, and Oulipo literary techniques designed to undermine logical conventions. For the classic "cut-up" method popularized by William S. Burroughs, an AI could blend and remix passages from wildly disparate sources into startling new narratives and ideas. Or for Oulipo constraints like N+7, where every noun gets systematically replaced, the AI's proficiency in coherent language generation means it can produce strangely coherent-yet-absurd paragraphs primed for further manipulation.
Rather than eliminating the role of the human author, these AI-augmented techniques position writers as curators and sculptors - providing the raw clay for them to mold into refined creative works. The machine offers up an "exquisite corpse" of semi-coherent, semi-nonsensical gibberish, and the writer then rehabilitates it into something transformative through their authorial voice, selection, and compositional talents.
Box Mark Amerika, Box ?Beyond individual creative writing pursuits, AI can catalyze new forms of collaborative human-machine storytelling and world-building. One intriguing example is the AI-augmented revival of the Exquisite Corpse technique, the Surrealist parlor game where collaborators take turns writing sections of a story without seeing the full preceding text.
Using AI language models, writers could alternate composing sections with the machine - with each partner riffing off the other's contributions to craft a constantly-unfolding, unpredictable narrative that neither the human nor AI could produce alone. Like a form of improv fiction, the human authors provide prompts and constraints while the AI introduces random detours and imaginative plot swerves that keep everyone involved invested in where the story goes next.
This sort of human-AI collaborative writing dynamic has already begun emerging in experimental interactive fiction projects and even mainstream video games with procedurally generated storytelling elements. But we are only scratching the surface of what is possible as language models grow more sophisticated and writers become adept at choreographing the machine's strengths to amplify their own creative visions.
Perhaps most tantalizingly, AI collaboration could birth entirely new literary forms and genres that transcend the traditions of human culture. Hybrid human-machine fictions that contort narrative in ways that delight, disturb, and awe us with their alien logic and unconventional beauty. As we cede more autonomy to AI's role in the writing process, it will inevitably steer our creative journey into uncharted aesthetic territory.
To culminate our exploration of AI for creative writing, this unit's exercise will have you actively experiment with different AI collaboration and generation techniques. Working individually or in small groups, you will use an AI language model (such as GPT-3, custom models you've trained, or other available tools) to produce an original short story, poem, or other creative writing work.
The exercise can follow a structured series of steps:
Beyond just leaning on AI for generating drafts, the goal is to fully embrace the unexpected detours and surprising elements that emerge from interrogating the model's outputs. Don't be afraid to follow the strange rabbit holes the AI takes you down - that is where you'll discover the most innovative and imaginative ideas to shape into your finalized piece.
Ultimately, this exercise aims to have you transcend just using AI as a utility and explore how cooperative human-machine orchestration can spark new forms of creative expression. As AI's role in writing continues evolving, developing these skills for fruitful collaboration will be crucial for forging novel storytelling possibilities.