So as I mentioned elsewhere, I was sort of stuck on details for an office in my story. I fed ChatGPT the prompt of: Visually describe the office of a powerful megachurch pastor This is what I got: Nothing too earth-shattering but I hadn't thought of the seating area or the kitchenette. Would I have eventually? Yeah, maybe. Could have done a ton of googling but I think that this is a legit use of AI as a research assistant so long as I don't copy the exact verbiage of the response.
It reads rather like a room description from one of those old text adventure games that were popular in the 70s and 80s (except for the last line). It's a useful tool to distill multiple sources into a single summary, I guess.
That is the most un-realistic view of what a Pastor's office would look like. First, no sofa, no throw pillows, no shower, nothing as over the top as what is described. Big churches are big business. I doubt it would be as empty as you describe. Doubt there would be a big leather bound bible, every sermon today is written on a computer. There might be a big leather bound bible in a waiting room, but not in the office. Keep in mind that to avoid the rumors, or temptations you won't find it that friendly or comfortable. Not a Pastor out there that does not worry about being alone with someone from the opposite sex or being in an environment that would lead to it. Big religion is big business, pretend it is the office of any successful company and you will have a much clearer idea of what is normal.
i dunno there's a picture here that shows soft furnishings, sofas and such https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/01/20/mars-hill-mark-driscoll-podcast (caption pastor mark driscol poses outside his office)
I dunno, I'm thinking that maybe the pastor has a public office where he meets and greets people and a private office where he gets work done. Think about the Oval Office in the White House. Do you think Biden (or any other past or future president, no politics please) spends hours alone there at the Resolute Desk poring over CIA and Department of Agriculture reports? I'm sure there's another place better equipped with computers, phones, TV screens and the like where the real business of the presidency goes on, but when POTUS needs to greet another head of state or sign something it's time for the pomp of the Oval.
Yeah, I wasn't intending to use it to generate actual sentences and paragraphs, just to flesh out the room in my head before I described it.
Yeah, this brainstorming helper role is the more realistic expectation of AI's coming place in creative writing.
I am not fan of the idea of writers using ChatGPT or other AI to actually write content. But this.... nope I don't hate it. In fact this topic got me to use ChatGPT for the first time just to test it out. I asked what kind of jobs did people have during X period. And they gave me a pretty detailed answer. My story isn't about any of those jobs but rather my protagonist will be walking around and I wanted an idea of what kinds of workers would he run into. I could have went to google and read a couple of articles, or gone to the library and did heavy research, but at most this information might encompass a paragraph or two in a novel, do I really need to get on the bus and ride to the library just to get the basic idea of something. ChatGPT showed me it can (potentially) work like having a writing assistant, give it the menial jobs, giving us more time to focus on the big picture and fun parts of writing. I went from hating ChatGPT to Thanks Writing forums!
In college I took a short story writing class. Don't remember anything except the textbook's lists of things like minor bad habits (cracking knuckles, picking one's nose, biting nails etc) physical features (freckles, bushy eyebrows, small scars) that might be used to flesh out a character. These lists have always been around but instead of paying Mr. Bezos we can ask Skynet ChatGPT to give us some suggestions. I'm definitely a convert to that idea.
Great. It sounds like a lot of the pseudo-imaginative crap I've been subjected to. Forget Skynet. We are staring down the throat of the stagnation of human creativity.
