I had a few additional thoughts knocking around in my brain about the value of the stories humans tell each other. I touched on it in my previous post:

If I write something and put it out there, it’s because I want to connect with you. And you—presumably—are interested in hearing an odd twisty story that came from an odd twisty writer. Stories are how we connect. AI tools can’t write stories; they can generate output. And no matter how lifelike their output, it’ll never be about human connection.

And I stand by that, but there’s more to say.

AI-generated output—really, LLM-generated output—could be classified as procedural output. And we see this kind of thing in other domains, like 3D rendering and gaming. Specifically, in gaming, there’s a category known as the “roguelike,” which is a kind of procedural game where each session is generated based on a handful of predefined rules and constraints. They’re loosely based on tabletop role-playing games, but even those are centered around a social component (you can’t play those alone in your room). I’ve played a few roguelikes, and they provide a momentary experiential thrill, but never enlightenment.

(I’m not dismissing games, by the way. Though one could argue that games are branching wish-fulfillment engines, the top titles have credits that tend to run 5-10 minutes long at the end. Humans sweat over those! At least for now.)

Anyway, going back to storytelling: is there a place for push-button-generated books? Well, someone who can be thrilled by the arrangement of fridge magnets would find a similar thrill in such books. But without the creator’s hand, reading just becomes a mechanical exercise—the same as the process that spawned the words—without connection or enlightenment. Casual games scratch the same momentary itch, providing a narcotic, onanistic way to kill time in a waiting room, without the distractions of purpose or advancement.

Personally, would I choose a King-esque block of text over something penned by King? I can’t see why.

Lonnie Busch, a writer friend of mine, recently had this to say about a challenging book he was reading:

So if I find it challenging or difficult, it's an opportunity for me to drop the walls and learn. That’s why I will finish Cloud Cuckoo Land, right to the last page…

I think this illustrates very well what I was saying about readers seeking a connection with storytellers. If you were reading an AI-generated work (for the sake of argument) and it lost you somehow or went off the rails, there would be no reason to stick with it. Because the text itself is inherently pointless, the product of probabilistic sequencing, and not the flawed, hopeful, ecstatic, sometimes misguided attempt to reach through the page to convey meaning to a kindred spirit.

And now that I’ve beaten this horse to death, I’ll place the pummeling stick whence I found it.