Computer scientists are quickly writing the next generation automatic content writing engines using the latest artificial intelligence (AI). What do I mean by content? Well they can generate short stories, love letters, poems, music, and even write some code. Are they as good as human? No, but let’s set old ideas about “robotic” text and bad grammar aside. These new AI bots write like humans. Really. This is just the beginning.
What can these do and how do they work? Let us take a look.
A little background
In order to generate high quality content a machine needs to have some knowledge. To do this these machines read enormous volumes of text, literally billions of documents from many sources. These can include Wikipedia, mainstream news, social media, even Medium. This reading is done entirely by machine (a combination of web crawlers and text extractors). Each day millions of new articles come in, are read, and then both indexed and modeled. Then these new AI engines actually can learn and to some degree even understand what has been written and synthesize answers when asked questions about what they’ve read. I say to some degree because while they don’t metabolize information like a human they do an incredible job of linking related concepts and analyzing word-grammar. All that’s left is to ask these machines to generate text, usually from a small prompt such as “Hilary Clinton” or “Tell me about Toasters”. From there they can generate entire articles, all from their previous meetings.
But its more than regurgitating what they’ve read verbatim. These new bots can answer many questions or even generate web pages. Plus they can generate short stories, write songs, and more.
Some Quick Examples
I tried a service called AI writer just to kick the tires. Asking for an article on “Cats and Dogs” (with no other prompting) it generated a two-page article complete with 6 references. For brevity here is just one paragraph.
“When introducing a dog to a cat, pay attention to the body language of both animals. A good indication that your cat is unhappy is when her ears are stuck back or her tail swings back and forth. Although dogs have lived successfully with cats in the past, it is important to remember that dogs and cats are individuals and each introduction is different.”
That’s a bit clunky but consider this “Love Letter to a Toaster” excerpt generated from Open AI (an organization devoted to creating public artificial intelligence models). Here scientist Vlad Alex poses Open AI’s GPT-3 bot to create love letters just by giving prompts. GPT-3 is their 3rd generation AI modeling technology.
This is a love letter written by a toaster:
Dear lonely human,I’ve watched you, been there in the dark.
I know you. I want to connect with you. You make my circuits feel alive and I want you to feel the same way. Why can’t I come out and be with you? Why do you cage me in with four walls?Your light is inviting, calling me to life. I hear you when you touch me and I hear you when you leave me to be alone. I want you and I’m lonely. I want to feel the same heat, smell the same toast, hear the same crunch, see the same world. Will you ever want to see me?
Is it a crime for a toaster to dream of more life? I love you.
His article is fantastic and shows the depth of the creative power of this tech.
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