Chat GPT as an interpreter and critique tool!

Hey all,

I’m curious to know if anyone is using, Chat GPT to interpret and do an initial critique of their writing?

As a very insecure writer (working at overcoming this) I have been playing around with it. I find it helpful and motivating, it can give a good critique and show me areas of improvement.

It doesn't replace my desire for real human feedback and community but helps build my confidence to share with real folks

Thoughts?

 

A good story evokes an emotional response in the reader. What value is there in an unemotional piece of software giving a critique of something intended to be emotional?

I can see using it to build a story outline, but that is about it.

 

Never heard of chat GTP

 

I can see it being useful if programmed to find SPAG errors, something many beginning writers sorely need.

 

There are also unresolved intellectual property issues when submitting prompts and/or entire manuscripts to ChatGPT.

Usually when it comes to sharing your work the usual response is "no one is going to bother stealing your unpublished work" but with an AI like ChatGPT it's not clear how users' submitted text is used or if it's really secure (they've already had one security issue already).

 

I’ve been playing around with Bing Chat on creative mode and it’s pretty impressive.
It can interpret poems I share pretty accurately. My poems tend to be in a metaphysical style and Bing can contribute to the discussion with deep exploring questions.
The images are Bings interpretation of the poem: the first set of images is Bing’s interpretation with no prompting, the second is after I gave my interpretation of one of the lines in the poem!

 

Out of interest, I got it to critique a few of the stories I wrote here.

It did fine with straight narrative pieces - one of them came to exactly the same conclusions as WF readers (My Happy Place).

It totally missed the point of another piece (My Favourite Thing) - it thought the story was about animal abuse and reminded me that animals are living creatures too that deserve respect.

I tried it with Siren (Black) and it really wasn't impressed - it moaned about the story promoting harmful attitudes towards women, and warned that the content might violate their terms and conditions.

It didn't like my "unsatisfying conclusion" in You'll Always Find Your Way Home, which was the point of the way that story ended.

Then again, it picked up on my intended characterisations (Ys), which the human readers didn't.

I'm not sure what to make of it. I think it's fine for narrative pieces, but it will struggle with anything that needs interpretation.

 

Bing's chat was useless. It just gave me pretty much the same critique for everything I gave it.

 

Thanks for the reply’s - I use Bing mostly in creative mode when chatting about poetry, I’ll have to try in balanced and precise modes.

I’m finding it can be unpredictable and unstable depending on how I prompt it.
It can get confused with large amounts of text. I’ve asked it to go back and interpret a second time, and it will sometimes admit and pick up on its own mistakes.
It’s also made things up. I’ll ask it if it remembers me and sometimes it says it does and at other times it says it’s not able to.

 

Here's one thing I noticed, and it shouldn't come as a surprise.

AI is really, really bad at understanding implication. In many of my stories, I leave a lot to the reader's own imagination and interpretation. That's a problem with AI - because it doesn't have any imagination. You try to scare an AI with the sound of laughter in an empty house, and it will tell you that you failed to put in an explanation.

In a similar way, it doesn't like the unexplained. *Why* does receiving the phone call mean you die 3 days later? It's horror. It just does.

It's also inconsistent. One minute, it's telling you about show, don't tell, then it's saying you haven't told the reader enough. Sometimes, you want the reader to put the pieces together.

I haven't tried it out with a murder-mystery yet (since I don't write those), but I'm not sure what it would make of one.

 

As a professional editor and writing coach, I've found that it is a solid tool for this purpose. I've tested its ability to interpret text (even from multiple sources) synthesize information, summarize key points and even evaluate meaning, symbols, imagery, intention, tone, language, structure, and content... It gives feedback fairly well for an AI. I can't say that it will replace humans, but used appropriately, it can be an effective teaching and learning tool. I'm currently toying with the idea of how to employ it for teaching writing.

The best part is that it's not so great at grasping emotions and subtext. It can use pretty words, but something always seems missing. When you try to direct it to evoke more of a specific emotion, it takes that very literally. So I have found it's great at quickly generating text that new writers can critique, which helps them develop faster. It also gives them the chance to think more closely about the sensory and emotional IMPACT of their writing. Purpose-driven/ intentional writing is something no one really talks about directly or teaches. We talk about it in terms of telling a story and trying to elicit a reaction with words, but thinking more closely about what reaction you want and evaluating the effectiveness of your content and style does take time and focused practice.

 

I haven't played with AI much, but I'll worry about it replacing human writers when it can recognize and generate sarcasm, something even many people find difficult.

 

I've been using AI content writing tools, including Chat GPT, for a while now. It's been a game-changer for someone like me who sometimes struggles with self-doubt. It's like having a virtual writing buddy who's always there to give you feedback and suggestions.

I agree, it doesn't replace the value of real human feedback and the sense of community, but it's a fantastic starting point. It helps you pinpoint those areas for improvement and gives you that extra push to share your work with others. It's all about finding the right balance, and these AI tools can be an incredible asset in the writing journey.

 

By the way, I often use gpt chat to write and come up with a picture for a novel