OpenAI takes aim at authors with a new AI model that's 'good at creative writing'

Sam Altman
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Sam Altman has confirmed that OpenAI is working on a new model that's specifically designed to target creative writing. The company behind ChatGPT is also equipping its latest model with the ability to deal with more complex prompts.

Generative AI has felt rooted in nonfiction, leaving plenty of room for human creativity on the other side of the wall. Now, though, that wall may not be standing much longer.

Posting on X, Altman claimed: "This is the first time I have been really struck by something written by AI; it got the vibe of metafiction so right."

OpenAI can produce metafiction now

While Altman isn't sure when the model will be available to the public, the fast-moving nature of AI likely means it won't be as long as creative writers are hoping it might.

The entire output of the new model was included in the post (which you can read for yourself above) and it's hard to argue with so much of what the model has produced, evoking genuine emotion where once these models were so focused on not tripping over on hallucinations and talking themselves into corners.

Free from needing to stick to getting things factually correct, it's clear artificial intelligence has evolved to the point where it's better at understanding human emotions than some friends of mine who are, well, human.

ChatGPT app on iPhone

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

It's a little over the top in places, but it's really impressive in a genuinely scary way. We're truly on the brink of a clever prompt engineer writing the next Lord of the Rings trilogy with a handful of sentences, or Shakespeare being clumsily but effectively dumped from the public consciousness by a bunch of servers somewhere working on the next great play.

We're truly on the brink of a clever prompt engineer writing the next Lord of the Rings trilogy with a handful of sentences.

I've been writing professionally for around six years, penning everything from news, to interviews, to reviews and much, much more.

I'm incredibly proud of some of the work I've done in that time (and not so proud of others), but in six years I've honed my skills in a way I'd always hoped would help me to support a young family doing the job I love.

Now, I'm not so sure, and it likely won't be long before we see TV and movie scripts pieced together by AI, let alone the lowly AI news writer I am. Food for thought, certainly.

Maybe I can become a prompt engineer and win an Oscar for it...

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Lloyd Coombes
Contributing writer

Lloyd Coombes is a freelance tech and fitness writer. He's an expert in all things Apple as well as in computer and gaming tech, with previous works published on TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Live Science and more. You'll find him regularly testing the latest MacBook or iPhone, but he spends most of his time writing about video games as Gaming Editor for the Daily Star. He also covers board games and virtual reality, just to round out the nerdy pursuits.

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