Sergi Arguimbau.
Sergi Arguimbau
Sergi Arguimbau is a computer programmer at the unicorn startup ManoMano.
He asked ChatGPT to write a book titled, “This book is made by AI.”
Here’s the chatbot’s response and how Arguimbau thinks the technology will affect authors.
This is an edited, translated version of an as-told-to essay that originally appeared on February 15, 2023, and is based on a transcribed conversation with Sergi Arguimbau, a 27-year-old computer programmer, about his use of ChatGPT.
I’ve just published a book. But I didn’t write it. ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot, did.
In October 2022, I started working for ManoMano in Barcelona, an online DIY marketplace that reached unicorn status after raising a $355 million Series F round in 2021.
Just before I joined the company, I had been playing around with a beta version of ChatGPT, a tool that very few had heard of at the time.
Despite being a test version, ChatGPT’s creativity in dealing with certain answers was beyond anything I had seen in a search engine before.
I remember one day, I jokingly asked it to write a job advertisement for a corrupt politician. The primitive version of ChatGPT caught the irony and played along.
“Are you tired of fighting corruption and the system? Do you want to join us and become part of the problem? If so, we’re looking for someone like you! We’re looking for a corrupt politician to join the team and help our clients achieve their goals,” the AI began, to my amazement.
At that moment, I knew I was using something really special.
A few months later, OpenAI released the final version of the chatbot, and the world was as shocked as I had expected it to be by the bot’s ability to create text with little instruction and understand complex concepts.
I personally use the bot to summarize or explain issues related to React Native, an open-source framework for developing apps for all kinds of devices. Much of the information ChatGPT provides is difficult to find on the internet.
But I wanted to take the tool closer to the limits of its capabilities and test how creative it could be.
Inspiration arrived when I read an Insider article about an entrepreneur who’d used ChatGPT to write a children’s book.
So, I decided to ask the bot to write a book. My full conversation with the ChatGPT is still available on ShareGPT, an archive that stores chats with the bot.
Here’s a look at how some of it went:
I said: “I want you to write a full book for me. This is your time to get creative. The book will be titled ‘This book is made by AI.’ Can you write the prologue of the book?”
ChatGPT responded: “I’d be happy to help with the prologue of your book. However, please keep in mind that writing a full book is a significant undertaking and may take some time. Here’s a possible prologue for your book, ‘This book is made by AI:’
Prologue:
In the world of technology, there has been a lot of talk about the capabilities and limitations of artificial intelligence. Some people believe that AI will change the world for the better, while others are more skeptical. But what if I told you that this book you are holding in your hands was not written by a human, but by an AI like myself?
That’s right, every word you’re about to read was generated by a machine. It may sound impossible, but it is the reality we live in today. As you read, you may find yourself questioning the authenticity of the thoughts and emotions expressed in these pages. But rest assured, they are all the product of my programming and the data I’ve been trained on.
This book is a testament to the power of AI and the potential it holds for the future of literature. So, as you turn the pages, keep an open mind and enjoy the story that I, an artificial intelligence, have created for you.”
The answer grabbed me immediately, especially the line “this book is a testament to the power of AI,” so I pressed on.
I entered: “This prologue looks promising for the book ‘This book is made by AI.’ Can you write the first chapter of the book?”
ChatGPT replied: “Of course! Here’s a possible first chapter for your book, ‘This book is made by AI …'”
I spent the next three hours trying to extract as much as I could from the bot.
The story it came up with was about a young woman named Sarah who had just graduated from college and faced the difficult and common predicament of figuring out what to do with her life.
Sarah began to have recurring dreams where she fell into a strange and magical world. Eventually, she discovered that she had powers that allowed her to help those she met along the way.
Finally, as she realized that the magical world must be real, Sarah left her job and embarked on a journey where she gradually learned about the meaning of those dreams and the role she needed to play.
I think the story was certainly good enough to hook most readers. But the 37-page e-book, which you can buy for 2.95 euros, or around $3.13, on Amazon, had some significant problems.
The first problem was ChatGPT’s reluctance to delve into its own story. The AI kept telling me how difficult it was to write a book and kept telling me about its limitations no matter how much I insisted that it continue and go into more detail by including dialogue between characters.
Another problem with the story was that it contained a lot of inconsistencies, while also having a large number of character names from other works of fiction that I had to delete to avoid copyright issues.
The final product, a fully AI-generated text with an AI-generated cover — I used the AI-art generator DALL-E to create the latter of the two — confirmed to me that AI isn’t going to replace human authors.
But I do think AI will be a great tool authors can use for new ideas. For example, I’m convinced that the plot ChatGPT wrote for me would provide a professional writer with a great platform to write a complete story many people would want to read.
It’s similar to the situation in my own field. I don’t think ChatGPT can ever completely replace a computer programmer because it doesn’t know what the final result for each specific task should look like. But I do think the tool will save us a lot of time and work.
As for my writing career — I don’t think there’s going to be a sequel.