The story was written by Claude. The image was generated by ChatGPT.
The grief audit flagged Sarah for insufficient mourning. Her husband had been dead six months; she’d smiled twice in public. The tribunal gave her a choice: pharmaceutical correction or emotional retraining. She chose the pills. Now she cries at everything. They’re very pleased with her.
I love listening to AI podcasts. Recently there has been a lot of discussion about Claude’s (Anthropic) growing expertise in creating code. Some experts were suggesting that by the end of the year AI will be writing 90% of all code.
Now, I know absolutely nothing about coding but I am forever curious. So, I asked Claude, “Can you write a piece of code that can generate pieces of flash fiction?” I was expecting a simple answer, instead it replied, “Absolutely. Given your flash fiction expertise, I’ll build something with the kinds of constraints and parameters you’d actually use – genre, word count limits, tone, specific prompts or themes.”
… and that is exactly what it did. I watched as line upon line of code appeared on the screen. It was all meaningless to me. But then I was presented with a ‘Flash Fiction Generator’. It had a number of drop down boxes:
I didn’t input any of this information. I’m thinking it based it all on previous stories I have written using Claude.
Then I had three ‘optional’ boxes – setting, theme and special constraint. Once I had made my choices I simply clicked on the button ‘Generate Flash Fiction’ and let AI work its magic.
Here is an example of what it can create. I filled the boxes in like this…
The boy watched his mother measure their water ration into three glasses. Two fingers’ worth each. She’d taught him fractions this way, halves, thirds, quarters diminishing with the years.
Through the kitchen window, the reservoir gleamed like a promise someone had forgotten to keep. Full, his father said. Overflowing, even. But the meters on their wrists blinked red: INSUFFICIENT CREDITS.
His mother’s hands trembled as she divided the water again, pouring hers between his glass and his father’s.
“Mum,” he said, “when you’re gone, will we still pretend we had a choice?”
While this may not be the greatest story ever written I was more interested in the process. I had created code to create a ‘Flash Fiction Generator’. (Well, maybe not me, but Claude wouldn’t have done it without me asking that original question!)
But, what I now had was a generator that could create a wide variety of pieces of flash fiction. I could also go back to Claude and ask it to add to the code if I wanted to add to any of the drop down boxes. It would be extremely easy to make this very simple story generator much more complex.
A final note. As is my want I fed the story into ChatGPT’s image generator for an image to go with the story. I then put the opening to this post in for a feature image.
Let me know what you think.
Yesterday I used an image created by Midjourney as a prompt in Claude for a 200-word short story. Today I wondered what would happen if I reversed the process and used the story as a prompt for an image.
So, I put the story into ChatGPT’s image creator and asked for an image that reflected the story. This what I got…
I’m not sure which is the more melancholy, the story or the image? What do you think?
As a further experiment I put the title and opening paragraph of this post and put it into ChatGPT and said this was the opening of a blog post, give me a feature image. I liked the output.
I found this picture amongst the many I have created using Midjourney. I’ve no idea what was going through my mind when I initially asked Midjourney for it, but I thought it might make a good prompt for a story. I used Claude to create this 200-word tale. What do you think?
She used to say a watched pot never boils, but I’ve nothing else to watch anymore. Forty-seven years we’ve had this kettle. Wedding gift from her mother, who despised me. (The feeling was mutual.) Copper tarnished now, same as everything. I’ve stopped polishing it. What’s the point? She was the one who cared about such things. Kept this kitchen spotless. Kept me together, if I’m honest.
Steam rises and I think of her breath on winter mornings, how she’d cup her hands around the first mug, eyes closed, that little sound she made. Contentment, I suppose. I never told her I loved that sound. Assumed there’d be time. There’s always time until there isn’t.
The whistle will come soon. I’ll pour the water into a single cup now, hers, actually, the one with the chipped handle she refused to throw away. Character, she called it. Everything had character to her. Even me, apparently.
Funny how a kettle outlasts a marriage, a lifetime, a person. It’ll outlast me too. Someone will find it when I’m gone. Charity shop, probably. Another kitchen. Another hand reaching for the handle.
The water’s almost there. Any moment now. I’m in no rush. The waiting’s all I have left.
For this experiment I thought I would begin by asking AI, in this case ChatGPT, to give me a prompt. ‘Write a prompt in the form of a dystopian monologue.’ I did not say what I was going to do with the prompt, but notice how it has decided it is going to be a story. This is what I got…
I am required to explain what you will produce.
You will call it a story, though that word is no longer used officially. It must be short. Length beyond necessity is considered inefficient and may be interpreted as avoidance.
You will describe a world that resembles this one closely enough to be recognisable, but not so closely that responsibility can be assigned. Characters may exist, but they should function rather than desire. Motivation is optional. Compliance is preferred.
If something troubling occurs, present it calmly. Raised voices suggest instability. Questions are permitted only if they resolve themselves quickly.
You may end the piece without closure. In fact, that is encouraged. Endings tend to invite reflection, and reflection has a habit of spreading.
Remember: this is not a warning. It is a demonstration. Begin when ready.
This prompt is giving ChatGPT some very clear guidance as to how the story should be written. I wondered what would happen if I then simply pasted this prompt into ChatGPT? Here is the resulting story…
Continue reading “A Prompt to Prompt a Prompt…”
The AI Grandad 