A novelist from Vigo is already using ChatGPT to create plots in his “thrillers”

screenwriter and novelist Goretti Irisarri (Vigo, 1974) rummaged through the files of the Penzol Foundation, drank coffee with experts, kicked the Casco Vello de Vigo and spent mornings in the National Newspaper Library in Madrid to set the stage for his thriller historical swarm, which has just been released, tells the story of a spy plot in post-war Vigo and the Pazo de Meirás to thwart a plan by Hitler and the Nazis to obtain a secret atomic bomb. The book closes an era because it is the last one he wrote relying only on his human ingenuity. And a woman from Vigo and a co-author jose gilwith which he always writes four hands, have taken a step forward and are now pioneers in applying artificial intelligence (AI) to their narratives.

The tandem of Irisarri and Gil, both screenwriters living in Madrid, use the Open AI program ChatGPT in their new literary projects to generate dramatic situations, dangers and conflicts for their characters or to check if the historical scene they imagined is credible. As Irisarri admits, the experience allowed them to value their trade more, as the first results with ChatGPT were “disappointing”, “pointless”, “plain clichés” and “flat plots without delving into the psychological layers of the character.” AI served as a guide “so you know where not to go; he is not capable of giving life to a character ».

“Writers can breathe a sigh of relief. ChatGPT can mix up Snow White and Aladdin and tell you it’s been said a thousand times, but today it doesn’t seem possible that an AI can write a real novel, something that has some truth to it; a work that reveals something new to us about who we are,” warns Irisarri.

The idea arose after presenting his latest novel to the publisher, swarm, the conspiracy of Nazi spies in Vigo, and embarked on a new project and wondered if ChatGPT could spare them the sweat of documenting, dusting off files from the ground up, interviewing experts or rummaging through old books. “As novelists, we were very curious about this much talked about new intelligence. We asked ourselves two questions: Is it a tool that can help a writer? And the second, terrifying: can a machine replace us? It was the perfect moment to try it,” explains the woman from Vigo. “At first we tested AI only as a documentation tool after a laborious process swarm“, he says.

His new novel project involved a journey to a certain historical epoch far in the past. They got hooked on ChatGPT and did new experiments. «The AI ​​listed some places and cities that our protagonists intended to find by walking, but could not determine the itinerary: their disconnection from the Internet made it impossible. His data often lacked historical accuracy because he mixed information and sometimes it was pure nonsense,” he explains.

Gil and Irisarri refined their questions to get the best out of the machine. “At our request, however, he was able to suggest dangers and entanglements that our characters might find in those places, such as conflicts with the authorities or bandits,” he explains.

Missing zeitgeits

They also discovered something interesting. “By documenting ourselves with artificial intelligence, we’ve lost what we got in those files, conversations, and books we turn to to gather information: the atmosphere, spirit of the times or the spirit of the times, impressions of the senses, the smell of food, a commercial on the radio… those small everyday details that really make you travel back in time. Documenting with the help of artificial intelligence is fast, but for a novelist, it is devoid of essentials, and that is precisely everything you come across on the slow road, which does not seem important”, emphasizes the writer from Vigo.

They decided to face the question that scared them the most: Can a machine replace a writer? “We were looking for ChatGPT for love. We tried to build a relationship between our protagonists. The AI ​​seemed to have a lot of information about psychology and narrative, but its suggestions were disappointingly literary, more typical of a self-help psychologist or a pop magazine office,” he says.

They also asked about the protagonist’s internal conflicts. “A good novelist never builds characters in which everything is black or white, what we are looking for is delving into the unacceptable conflicts in front of ourselves, into the complex nuances of emotions. AI has time and again resorted to clichéd solutions. It is capable of helping to write a novel… it is pure subject matter. We conclude that artificial intelligence could serve as a guide, but that we know where not to go,” he says.

Irisarri explains that AI connects data and mixes it up, “but it’s not able to reach that which escapes cliché, that ability to create (or recreate, if you will) that we writers call REAL. IN swarm Several times it happened to us that a character came to life and started acting on his own: he went where he wanted, not where we wanted to take him. It was fascinating and that’s where the truth of the novel began. That, that we don’t even know where it comes from, and that AI can’t achieve it.