A deep dive

'As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.'

That's an excerpt from Bleak House, and has nothing to do with this week's post except that it perfectly evokes a diluvial theme and it's an example of masterful writing. We'll get back to that.

A partially flooded world is the setting of Bellwater, a tabletop roleplaying game about salvage crews operating in an inland sea created by a cataclysmic deluge centuries earlier. The game focuses on themes of debt, breath, and the recovery of relics from drowned cathedrals. What makes Bellwater unique is that it was written by OpenAI Codex. Ethan Mollick, who created it as an experiment in current AI capabilities, says: 'The setting is interesting and novel, and the rules appear to make sense, drawing on existing game patterns while adding unique elements.' 

I agree. I really like the game concept and the vaguely Edwardian feel of the setting. Inspired by Simon Stålenhag's Things from the Flood, you think? Possibly, but quite obliquely and among many other sources that might well include (AI being well-read if nothing else) Charles Dickens, J.G. Ballard and Marcus Sedgwick. The Old Testament swiped from the Epic of Gilgamesh, after all, so under the sun there is no new thing.

Professor Mollick does go on to point out the flaws: 'If you are a frequent reader of AI writing you see the same problems here: a love of the uncanny; overly complex ideas that do not fully pay off; weird metaphors (“weather and architecture are the same argument at different speeds”); too many ornate sentences (“the holy things that surface when a sea forgets it was once a road,” is cool once, an entire book of that is exhausting); dialogue where every character speaks in the same clipped tone.'

There's a lot of stinkingly bad writing out there, both AI-created and by human authors. Some of the latter is very popular, so it can't be that readers disdain slop. The difference is that the AI is getting better month by month, whereas the humans who are writing execrably aren't even trying to improve their craft (or their grammar). No author should just tell AI "write a book", but it can be very useful in brainstorming concepts, researching obscure details, and maintaining a world bible. Podcaster Joanna Penn explains here all the ways that authors can use AI as a useful tool of the craft, and director Ash Koosha talks about how he's used AI in filmmaking here.

If you want to take a look at Bellwater, Prof Mollick has made it available to download and has been revealing some of his experiments with early access to Claude Mythos. I'd be interested to hear from anybody who actually tries playing a game of Bellwater. You may not feel that it is done well, but reflect on what Dr Johnson said and be surprised to find it done at all.