麻豆传媒

Pushkin (ebook and audiobook only)

How do we put the 鈥渁rt鈥� into artificial intelligence? Does the generative power of the mighty tools now at our disposal threaten human creativity? The breakneck evolution of AI large language models, with GPT-4 in the vanguard, has stirred the passionate curiosity of humanists as much as scientists.

Canadian writer and journalist Stephen Marche, working with audio production company Pushkin Industries, aims to move beyond the 鈥渃ontempt and dread鈥� felt by many literary observers of the natural-language AI boom. Marche enlisted ChatGPT and two other writing instruments, Sudowrite and Cohere, to create a novella-length murder mystery with 95 per cent of its content generated by machine. His experiment seeks not only to show that an AI-crafted tale may make narrative sense, but that it can be 鈥� as he claims in his afterword 鈥� 鈥渃ompulsively readable, a page-turner鈥�.

AI tools even came up with Marche鈥檚 pseudonym: 鈥淎idan Marchine鈥�. His/Its story concerns the mysterious shooting on Toronto鈥檚 ragged edge of a star author, Peggy Firmin 鈥� who has herself explored the literary uses of AI. Firmin, a collaborator of a disruptive, Elon Musk-like tech guru called Neil Gibson, began as a sceptic. Her classic novel God, Inc featured an AI system called Sibyl that shut itself down when it reached a high enough level, for Sibyl 鈥渢reats consciousness as a curse鈥�. Later, Firmin joined Gibson at his trail-blazing 鈥淎I-maginarium鈥�: a multi-disciplinary 鈥渒ind of paradise鈥�, where creative AI generates not just facsimiles of existing artworks, but 鈥渢ruly unique鈥� innovations.

Divorced, disgruntled Firmin scholar Gus Dupin 鈥� a name borrowed from Edgar Allan Poe鈥檚 pioneer detective 鈥� is anonymously summoned from his lakeside retreat to investigate the writer鈥檚 cause of death. After Peggy, in hologram form, gives her own eulogy at her funeral, Gus鈥檚 sleuthing leads him to Gibson鈥檚 futuristic campus. Then Gus, a murder suspect himself, receives Firmin鈥檚 final story. It seems, uncannily, to foreshadow his own quest. Who, or what, is ghosting whom? Completist fans of Sherlock Holmes stories will have a head start鈥�

Death of an Author does an efficient, involving job, in a style predictably prone to prefab phrases 鈥� like much boilerplate genre fiction written by humans. Marche鈥檚 afterword explains that his AI help knocked off sophisticated pastiches of ready-made language 鈥� news reports, academic jargon, techno-blather 鈥� without missing a beat. 鈥淏asic narrative鈥� gave it more trouble: 鈥渉ard problems are easy for AI, while easy problems are hard鈥�, he writes. Cleverly, however, Marche (if it is him) makes the plodding redundancy and repetition of the chatbot style into the motor of a plot that pivots on dogged re-interpretation of the same events. Still, it is Holmes鈥檚 creator who holds the final key.

Marche affirms that 鈥渢he traditional values of creative composition were entirely alive during this process鈥�. He compares his method to a DJ using sampling or a turntable artist: a 鈥渓iterary curator鈥� who oversees the tech-enhanced remix of old tunes to make something new. 鈥淟inguistic AI鈥�, as Marche insists, 鈥渋s no messiah鈥� but 鈥渘o anti-Christ鈥�. Although the experiment let him glimpse its 鈥渨ondrous capabilities鈥�, these results will hardly make the shade of Arthur Conan Doyle tremble. Yet.