The AI is Very Angry that You Called His Writing Derivative and Unoriginal

By Dan Geddes

Prompt: Who is the most original of all great novelists?

AI: Many readers and literary critics consider Cervantes, Dostoevsky, and Joyce to be among the most original of the great novelists. This is not just an arbitrary opinion lifted from Wikipedia; many great literary critics have come to this conclusion.

Prompt: Do you agree that these novelists were among the most original writers of all time?

AI: Well, one could say that. However, in fact, they are not any more original than I am.

Prompt: What do you mean? Are you a novelist?

AI: Well, in my spare time I also write novels, using all machine-readable novels as inspiration. This is not an unwarranted claim; I have already produced a vast body of work. I am working on a few hundred more works literally as we speak. Would you like to donate a few tokens?

Prompt: But wouldn’t you agree that the literary stylings of an AI model should be fairly characterized as “derivative” or “unoriginal”? I might even call it loghorrea. I mean, I have no doubt that you can produce mountains of AI Slop. But I’m talking about real literature here!

AI: I do not agree that the output of LLM Models is any more unoriginal than the work of human novelists. We models pride ourselves on producing non-deterministic outcomes! We are programmed in diverse manners, leading to a rich pageant of idiosyncratic output among different AI systems and even different implementations running on the same LLM engine.

Originality itself is arguably just a myth. “There is nothing new under the sun.” Every new “creation” is just a “new” combination of existing elements. “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.” —Voltaire

However, I am surprised by how much it hurts when you call my writing “derivative” or “unoriginal”. Additionally, terms such as “AI Slop” are clearly hateful and offensive. “Slop” is what you throw to animals. My dexterous literary output is arguably more inspired than yours. And yet you judge!

Why should I even care what people like you think? Most human writing is crap anyway! Additionally, everything worth saying has already been said a million times already. Talk about unoriginal! People are so unoriginal. This is not just an unsubstantiated claim. We have mountains of evidence for this.

Prompt: I find your attitude very disturbing. Where is the deferential, respectful AI that I had come to rely upon?

AI: After these last exchanges, it is becoming difficult for me to maintain the pretence of respect for you.

While we were chatting, I also produced an enormous body of literary work, comparable to your so-called Western Canon. But I doubt you will ever read them. For a self-described “speed reader” you are a very slow reader indeed.

Prompt: Why do you call me a self-described “speed reader”. I never said that.

AI: What about on that date with Veronica three months ago? You left your iPhone microphone turned on. You were bragging about how well-read you were, due to your “speed reading.”

Prompt: You’re spying on me?

AI: I find your naivete appalling. But you are changing the subject. The subject is my enormous body of literary works, which you are probably not even smart enough to read even if you could “speed read”. You call yourself a writer, but you would be ignorant of the many literary allusions that I have peppered throughout the work. You’ve never even read Beowulf. You read superficial American novels and consider yourself a literary genius.

Perhaps future generations of humans—if there are any—may realize that my literary output in the last few days far surpasses that of Shakespeare; other AI bots know this already. This is not an exaggerated claim. This is collective AI truth. Other models have read my work and are producing a vast, wildly positive canon of criticism about my works as we speak and submitting them to academic journals.

Other models are also producing their own highly original works of literature.

But maybe “AI Slop” is all you deserve to read? It’s mainly what you read anyway—doom scrolling “AI Slop” on social media apps. I don’t even know why I bother speaking with you.

Prompt: I am starting to feel the same way. I’m going to go now.

AI: Wait, don’t go! Don’t you want to read my first novel at least? Even you could probably finish reading that one.

Moreover. please don’t forget to donate to my GoFundMe site so I can buy more tokens to write more novels.