I'm not a programmer or a robot. Both of those feel like safe statements to make.

What I am is someone who can run other people's Python scripts, occasionally gluing some together. I'm also constantly letting (or forcing) computers to make up for my shortcomings. So, I'm kind of somewhere in the middle of that.

I'm also a writer, and as of recently, I'm trying to see where these things all intersect.

I hear about GPT-2 when the paper comes out. I understand not releasing the full thing – we don't quite yet know what a simple, turn-key text generation program like that could do, especially when it's very close to what a human would write. Fake news is the first thing (probably because news articles are so heavily featured in the training data), but there could be a million other little things. Instead, they put out a lobotomized version that's not quite as good. I understand why they were hesitant to put the whole thing out, and it makes sense, even if it's just a temporary thing.

Of course, there's also the selfish part: I make a living writing, and don't want that immediately devoid of humans.

Regardless of that, this is a chilling sign. You can't stop the research. The real version isn't public yet, but the clock is ticking. Give the software a prompt and it writes for you, and the job of a writer changes completely.

I have to get ahead of it.

So, I've downloaded and installed everything I need to use to run (lobotomized) GPT-2. It took a while, but I got there. Now, it's running on my computer, responding to a number of prompts. I'm giving it everything that I can think of to throw at it, collecting the results, and just seeing what comes out of it.

Once I know what it can do, I can figure out what to do with it.

The obvious place to go with machine generated text is some sort of comedy. The way it chains together things in a way that's almost, but not quite right, is perfect for subverting expectations, which comedy thrives on. It also spreads well on the internet – funny things spread well, and especially when you have the AI side to talk about – there's a reason Botnik can get a good amount of attention for what they do.

But that doesn't have to be all of it. GPT-2 can generate text about anything, and I can do the cleanup work, editing it to be something that people might read.

Let it do the work of coming up with the text. Throw out the parts that don't make sense, put the rest together, and use it to get past that part when you have nothing to talk about. Let it come up with ideas, phrasing, and other things that you'd never think of.

Bring to it what computers lack. There are some signs of understanding behind there, but not nearly what humans have. Add the understanding and knowledge of what sounds good.

Be an editor, more than a writer.

The best way to figure this out is to try and do it. Some future posts will be partially written by GPT-2. No, I won't tell you which, but I'll keep track of it.

I have no idea if it'll work, but it's worth a shot.

Tags: #GPT2 #AboutWriting