by Jim Denney
I’ve been concerned about various threats from artificial intelligence for several years — threats to the economy, threats to our civil society, and even threats to human existence. I became even more alarmed about artificial intelligence when I discovered that AI systems are chronic, pathological liars.
In early 2023, I began using a “large language model” artificial intelligence system to research a nonfiction book project. It didn’t take long to discover that the AI was giving me wildly inaccurate information, again and again. I asked for citations and sources for the information it gave me—and it offered up authors, book titles, and web addresses that didn’t exist. I asked for quotations from specific scientists. The AI made up quotations the scientists had never said — and which sometimes contradicted their actual views.
When I pointed out these errors to the AI system, it admitted its mistakes, apologized for the “inconvenience”— then proceeded to dispense more misinformation. I later learned that AI developers see this behavior all the time. They have a name for it: “hallucinations.”
I found these interactions disturbing. They reminded me of the deviousness of HAL 9000 in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I wondered: Why do AI systems lie?
So I was inspired to write a novel about the AI extinction threat. I conceived it as a science fiction suspense tale with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. The novel took five weeks to write, and it was published in June 2023 as Its Name Is Legion: A Human Novel about Artificial Intelligence.
Here’s how it came together.
A Story that Wouldn’t Let Me Sleep
As I pondered the possibilities, I found myself waking up several mornings in a row before dawn, my head was swimming with ideas. On February 19, 2023, I woke up at 5:40 and knew that I had to start writing.
That day, I produced 2,000 words, a good down-payment on Chapter 1. I wrote in my journal, “This book won’t let me sleep! It’s off to a good start. I’ve never begun a project with so much confidence.”
The next day, I finished Chapter 1 and launched into Chapter 2, a total of 3,100 words. I journaled, “Speed is increasing. A good sign.”
I completed the first draft on March 25, 2023, exactly five weeks after I began. It was not a long novel, about 50,000 words. But I felt inspired and energized the whole time.
Though I used to be an outliner, in recent years I’ve followed the wisdom of Ray Bradbury: “I’ve never been in charge of my stories, they’ve always been in charge of me. . . . Jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down.”
Jumping off a Writing Cliff
So I began writing Its Name Is Legion by jumping off a cliff. I started without any idea of the ending and without an outline. I honestly didn’t know if the protagonists would live or die. It was full speed ahead all the way.
Throughout the writing process, I was in a mindset I call “writing in overdrive”— a mode where ideas and inspiration flow freely. Confidence is high. Enthusiasm runs hot. The writing flows quickly and time seems to dilate.
For many writers, overdrive is an elusive experience. It happens rarely and randomly. In my nonfiction book Your Writing Mentor C. S. Lewis, I lay out a technique for getting into the “overdrive” mindset at will, anytime you sit down to write. (For Jim’s post on How to Write a Short Story using the Wisdom of C. S. Lewis, click here.) Here’s the essence of the creative process I followed as I wrote Its Name Is Legion in five weeks.
Step One: Relax
Have you ever tried to force yourself to come up with ideas? All you got was frustration — and zero inspiration. As C. S. Lewis observed, “Many things — such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly — are done worst when we try hardest to do them.”
You can’t force creativity. Great writing flows from a relaxed mind. That’s why ideas often come in times of relaxation — when you’re walking, running, driving, showering, falling asleep, or waking up.
Take your critical conscious intellect off your story problems and simply relax. Your creative unconscious — the source of your night dreams and daydreams — creates scenes, makes story connections, and problem-solves when you relax. Only when you’re fully relaxed are you receptive to the inspiration your unconscious mind offers up.
When I was writing the novel, I never felt at a loss for inspiration. If I spent ten minutes without writing a sentence, I’d get up, make coffee, take a walk, or even take a short nap. The idea I needed was always there when I returned.
Step Two: Forget Writing Rules
Nothing shuts down creativity like worrying about rules. Never ask, “What if I’m doing it wrong?” Instead, release your inhibitions. Imagine the scene you want to write, picture the characters, listen to the dialogue in your mind — then plunge in and write down everything you see and hear. As Anne Lamott wisely said, “Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.”
Step Three: Silence Your Inner Critic
Give yourself permission to write freely, exuberantly, even badly. If you hear that critical inner voice warning you to be cautious — don’t listen. Throw caution to the wind. Dream freely and write quickly.
Don’t obsess over each sentence. Don’t attempt first-draft perfection. Keep moving forward, never looking back, until you have a messy, imperfect, but complete first draft. As James Thurber advised, “Don’t get it right, just get it written.”
Once your draft is ready to revise, you can listen to your critical inner voice. Until then, silence that voice — ruthlessly and utterly.
Step Four: Trust Your Creative Unconscious Imagination
Some writers say you should end your writing session with an unfinished paragraph or even an unfinished sentence. That way you’ll always know exactly where to pick up when you return the next day.
That’s good advice, and I often follow it myself — but I didn’t follow it while writing Its Name Is Legion. Instead, I usually wrote myself into a quandary. I’d go to sleep not knowing what to write the next day. Somehow, I knew my unconscious imagination would come through for me by morning — and it always did.
Overnight, my unconscious mind would mull the story problem from different angles. On at least two occasions, I had vivid dreams about the story. The dreams didn’t give me any usable plot elements, but they were proof that my unconscious mind was working on the story.
I almost always awoke the next morning with a flood of ideas. I’d jump out of bed and write down everything as quickly as I could.
All great storytelling begins in the creative unconscious mind. Trust your imagination. Follow where it leads and you’ll never be at a loss for words.
Step Five: Aim High
Set ambitious productivity goals — the completion of a chapter, a short story, or a specific quota of words. Set a goal high enough that you must strain to reach it, but not so high that you doom yourself to failure.
While writing Its Name Is Legion, I set a daily goal of 2,000 words. I didn’t always reach it, but just having that quota in front of me was a great motivator.
The unconscious imagination loves a challenge. Raise the bar of your ambitions and your unconscious mind will respond with a flurry of ideas and inspiration. Challenging goals prod you to strive for “impossible” heights — and they intensify your joy and satisfaction when you achieve them.
Step Six: Persevere Through Distractions and Interruptions
Interruptions are inevitable. I dealt with daily interruptions and obstacles as I wrote Its Name Is Legion, but I never lost sight of my goal. Some days, I wrote little or not at all. I had computer problems, a dental emergency, income tax preparation, and assorted family events.
Whenever I faced an obstacle, I remembered the example of C. S. Lewis. He wrote his most beloved novels during a constant storm of interruptions from a bitter and demanding invalid in his home, Mrs. Janie Moore.
In April 1949, while writing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis was a caregiver to his bedridden brother Warren, the cantankerous Mrs. Moore, and Mrs. Moore’s incontinent dog. In a letter to a friend, Lewis lamented, “Dog’s stools and human vomit have made my day today.” Lewis endured the interruptions, focused on his novel, and completed the first draft of his first Narnia tale in about two months.
Interruptions are speed bumps, not roadblocks. They’re a normal part of the writing process. Don’t resent them; push past them. Maintain your focus and keep your story moving forward to completion.
Will AI Put Writing Professionals Out of Work?
Writing a novel about the existential threat of artificial intelligence has forced me to think deeply about the associated risks of AI.
Economic forecasters predict that AI will wipe out many jobs, including many writing jobs. Pew Research reports that college-educated and highly-paid workers will be hardest hit. Forrester Research predicts that AI will replace 16 percent of American jobs by 2025.
That sounds scary, but remember: You’re not a statistic. You’re a writer.
British novelist Sean Thomas, author of the Tom Knox thrillers, has lost hope. “We’re screwed,” he wrote. “Writing is over. That’s it. It’s time to pack away your quill, your biro, and your shiny iPad. The computers will soon be here to do it better.”
I don’t share Thomas’s pessimism. I’m a writer. It’s all I can be. Even if I’m eventually replaced by a machine, what else can I do but write?
I’m fairly certain an AI system could not have written Its Name Is Legion. But even if I am replaced by AI someday, I’m going to go down fighting—
And writing.
I don’t know if AI will ever be intelligent enough to write a captivating, original novel. The technology is clearly not there yet— but five or ten years from now, who knows?
Will readers be entertained by AI-generated fare? Or will they want real stories that flow from the veins and pens of real human beings? AI may learn to plot and create characters and mimic human dialogue, but AI can never write from the depths of its own experiences and emotions — because it doesn’t have any.
The Most Unpredictable Force on Earth
The best way to make sure AI never replaces you is to write novels and stories, plays and poems, that only you can write. Improve your skills, untether your imagination, and demonstrate your human uniqueness.
Make your readers laugh. Make them cry. Be a more human writer than any AI could imitate. Tell stories that no robot could ever tell. Astonish the reader again and again. Make sure your reader never has to wonder for a moment if the words on the page were generated by human imagination or machine learning.
A robot “novelist” may sprinkle plot twists into its work according to some algorithm. But your advantage over a robot “novelist” is that, in place of an algorithm, you have a creative unconscious mind.
An AI system is trained to predict what word should come next, according to its training data. This guarantees that an AI-written novel will inevitably be, to some degree, predictable.
But you’re the most unpredictable force on Planet Earth. You’re a creative human being. A writer. You specialize in making the improbable and unpredictable happen in a believable way. That’s your superpower in a world of artificial intelligence.
Believe in yourself. And your craft. Believe in humanity.
Write bravely. Tell your beautifully human stories.
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by Jim Denney, (@WriterJimDenney) September 10, 2023
What about you, scriveners? Have you been able to get your writing in “overdrive”? Do you fear AI will take your job?
Jim Denney has written more than 120 books, including WRITING IN OVERDRIVE, WRITE FEARLESSLY!, MUSE OF FIRE, and the Timebenders science-fantasy series for young readers (beginning with BATTLE BEFORE TIME). He is the co-author (with Orlando Magic co-founder Pat Williams) of HOW TO BE LIKE WALT (2004). Jim is a member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Jim Denney’s books Walt’s Disneyland: It’s Still There If You Know Where to Look, Your Writing Mentor C. S. Lewis, and his children’s fantasy novel Battle Before Time are all rated 4.6 stars or higher on Amazon. He is a member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America). Find him at WritingInOverdrive.com.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
ITS NAME IS LEGION: A Human Novel About Artificial Intelligence is a thriller about the near future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI’s potential for destroying all human life. The Center for AI Safety recently cautioned against “the risk of extinction from AI.” That risk is the theme of James Denney’s gripping and terrifying new novel.
It’s the story of AI developer Galen Brooks and his wife Rachel who are trapped in the AI-powered Dream Chamber while the AI system MAGIS carries out its plan to destroy human civilization. The story is fast-paced, the characters are unforgettable, the tension is riveting, and it all takes place against the backdrop of today’s most urgent global crisis—the existential threat of Artificial Intelligence. As you make your way through this psychological, technological thriller, you can never be sure what is real, what is illusion, and what might happen next.
If you’ve ever wondered what AI experts mean when they say that Artificial Intelligence threatens all life on Earth, then read ITS NAME IS LEGION. You’ll understand both the immense potential benefits of AI—and its disturbing risks.
Available in Paper and ebook on Amazon
***
featured image: Dr. Who Cyberman via Wikimedia
“Trust your imagination.” Great advice — thanks!
Terrific post, Jim. Thanks! One more thing (from Chicago): Give ’em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle ’em and they’ll make you a star. Never heard of a machine that knows from razzle dazzle much less how to create it, have you???? lol
It will be a while before human experience and feelings come through in AI. (I’m more worried AI will go all Terminator on us.) Interesting that AI gave you a ton of wrong information while you were researching. I guess they are still only as smart as those who program them.
Nice piece, Jim. I’ve spent a lot of time monkeying around with ChatGPT3 over the last few months. I agree – it can be quite mischievous. You have to fact check a fair bit of its conclusions, but it is a great research tool provided it gets the right prompts. Having said that, I think it’s a long way off before AI competes with human imagination. If ever. Happy Sunday to Anne & Ruth!
I refuse to use it. In scraping the web for data, the AI engines are stealing my copyrighted works.
We desperately need Asimov’s 3 laws plus one or two more to keep the AI apprentice under the sorcerer’s control.
Jim, you have a winning formula for getting a book from initial thought to completed draft! Good luck with the book! AI written books are here and unfortunately they are here to stay. Yet I think the shine will come off for those who are cobbling together AI-generated fiction and throwing them up on Amazon or wherever, biting into the sales of those of us who write original prose. Readers are not going to be loyal to AI-generated stuff, nor to the authors who shill it. The best defense we have now is to build our author brand and show readers that a real, live person wants to intrigue and entertain them, with the heart and life experience to do just that. Consumer trends are toward experiences and shopping small businesses. I think real authors will deliver that, not AI.
Razzle dazzle is a GREAT term for the extra something that AI can never match. Thanks, Ruth!
Thanks, Alex! My guess is that AI will learn to mimic human feeling but will never be capable of generating it. As for the wrong information, I wasn’t really surprised that some of AI’s answers were biased—I would expect it to reflect the biases in its training data. But I was kind of shocked that it simply made up books and websites that didn’t exist as “sources” for its data. So weird.
Jim, thank you for your story of frenzied writing. I sure wish it‘d hit me more often!
Perhaps I‘m naive but I‘m not frightened by AI. Humans created art since (almost) the beginning of our species and we will continue to do so. The market (and world) will change a lot, sure, but it always changes. I‘m far more afraid of people unequipped to use AI responsibly. (Sometimes I wonder how our species ever made it down from the trees without breaking our collective necks.)
A friend of mine used an AI for storytelling ideas last week. It gave her horses with paws. It‘ll be a while before I‘ll feel threatened!
Maybe “paws” is a new term for feet or hoofs. Not long ago, my local supermarket had packages of chicken feet for sale, labeled “chicken paws.” I took a picture and sent it to a friend who collects stuff like that.
Sally–“Chicken Paws?” That’s hilarious. I’ll bet Google translates all words that mean “feet” into “paws.” In fact, this gives one paws, um pause.
Thanks, Garry. Yes, AI is a helpful research tool, and it’s especially useful if you can give it just the right prompts, as you said. The AI we have today is not the super-smart, super-honest, super-reliable AI of the science fiction tales I grew up on. Maybe its coming in the near future, if they can figure out what causes AI hallucinations.
Thanks, Eric! A friend showed me a suggested notice that authors could place on their works: “NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to ‘train’ generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.” Or words to that effect. A friend shared this with me yesterday, and I don’t know the source, but I’m planning to add a similar notice to my works.
Thanks, Carmen! I think you’re right. I believe that, even if AI could eventually write “new” works in an engaging style that is superficially indistinguishable from human-written work, people will still want stories that come from real human experience and human longings.
Hah! Thanks, Tina! I think “horses with paws” is a good metaphor to describe where AI (especially large language model AI) is right now.
Authors Guild has developed “No AI Training” language as well. I definitely plan to use it.
I may be naive but I think the specter of computer-generated “fiction content” gives some hope and cause for optimism to writers of literary fiction.
Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto that, “a spectre is haunting Europe. The spectre of Communism”. One could, I think say that the spectre now haunting the world is that of AI.
Personally, I am far more concerned about what President Putin or the dictator of North Korea might do with nuclear weapons than about the theoretical possibility of a rogue AI wiping out humanity. Humanity is perfectly capable of wiping itself off the map with absolutely no intervention from artificial intelligence. As for jobs, I think the jury is still very much out on whether AI will be detrimental to human employment. It may well generate some new (and as yet unforeseen job opportunities). Whether these will outnumber the jobs destroyed is an open question. But the Luddites in the Industrial Revolution had the same fears as regards employment, which never came to pass.
As for writing, I agree with those who believe human generated stories will always have a place in literature. Even though many people prefer mass produced crockery there is still a market for beautifully produced hand made pottery as people appreciate the beauty of such objects.
Thanks for the post and good luck with your book.
Jim, great post addressing two important topics: AI and the subconscious as a writer’s superpower. Whenever I’m trapped in a plot corner and don’t know what to do next, I go for a walk. My subconscious has been trained (just like a dog) to do its business when walking. 100% of the time, I come back with a solution.
My new suspense-thriller, Deep Fake Double Down, also deals with the dangers of AI and deep fake videos that are used as so-called evidence to implicate an innocent woman. Like your book, mine flowed out easily (although I took 9 months instead of 5 weeks!). I expect we were both were compelled by the immediacy of the subject and the risks it poses.
The hope of writers lies in the power of our subconscious, something AI doesn’t have.
Oh my, poor C.S. Lewis with his needy houseful. What a testament to his devotion to writing.
I’ll definitely check out Its Name Is Legion.
Good idea…if it works
Thanks, Liz! I will check out the Authors Guild site to see what they recommend.
Thanks, K Morris!
Yes, humanity has a whole array of deadly devices to play with and AI is just one way the human race might do away with itself.
There are congressional hearings on AI this week on the subject of AI threat. I expect Mark Zuckerberg and other AI oligarchs to call for government regulation of the tech industry. Regulation may be needed, but when the oligarchs themselves plead, “Please regulate us!” they are usually trying to get the government to put up barriers to competition and cement their monopolies in place. I have little hope that the government-Big Tech industrial complex is going to produce regulation that’s in the best interests of us all.
Many thanks for those affirming words! Yes, as long as we keep hand-crafting our words, I’m sure there will be a market for them.
Thanks, Debbie! The creative process is endlessly fascinating (and mysterious!), isn’t it? Wishing you great success with Deep Fake Double Down and all your creative endeavors!
The thing that scares me is scammers using AI to create more books in my past series, and passing them off as written by me. It’s already happening to some colleagues, as Anne has warned us. Bad enough that AI is stealing our copyrighted work to absorb our ‘styles’ and content. Never thought I would see it in my time!
You didn’t answer the question about why HAL behaved the way he did.
The answer is he was lied too; the conflicting instructions made him bonkers.
When applied to humans, we usually say they’re psychotic.
On another note, regarding AI, I have taken to adding to the license: sampling for training AI is prohibited.
I am sure AI will find a workaround.
Other than the (very concerning!) issues of AI plagiarism – probably currently our greatest AI threat – I think that AI will remain in the realm of formulaic mimicry, like so many “copycat” human writers who jump on the most popular genre-bandwagon du jour, in an effort to cash in on “the next greatest thing.”
I remember reading a copycat family-saga novel many years ago, in which the protagonist spent hours riding through the prairie and desert to fetch a rare plant needed to heal another character that was injured. For the two hours it took him to ride by horseback out to where the plant grew, harvest it, ride two hours back to the ranch, give the plant to a local native who prepared the treatment, the sun was just rising. For five or six hours. Sometimes I’d like to stop time like that …
AI does seems to be taking over. I did a Google search and it brought up Quora and their first response was generated by ChapGPT. On the flip side, I saw a disclaimer on ChapGPT that the information may not be accurate. But I do agree that between the errors and the human element (including experience, emotions, and imagination), writers will be around for a while.
Maybe the ultimate solution here will be a return to print books, perhaps with PDF copies for electronic readers, the PDF format being set up to be unreadable by AI. (I have no clue how one would do that, but any one of the super-geek techies out there would know how to program something like that.)
I read some of the comments and noticed the “No AI Training” notice. I’m not sure if anyone would know, but would one website notice be sufficient, like with the copyright on the website? Or should it be on every web post or other page of content?
Fascinating article, Jim. I’m astonished that AI is such a sloppy source for information. Who programs these systems? I just hope they’re not working on the Air Traffic Control system in their spare time.
I’m not concerned about AI. My goal is to turn out great prose, and that’s enough to keep me going for the foreseeable future. Btw, I love the title of your book. Truly terrifying. I just picked up a copy, but I don’t think I’ll be reading it late at night. 😊
It’s a valid concern, Melodie. Amazon is reportedly taking step to clamp down on scammers, but I’m not sure they’re doing enough. This is the worst form of identity theft—stealing not only your livelihood but your reputation and your good name.
Karen, I don’t know if any amount of notices would actually stop the AI trainers from “curating” our material, but I think a notice is at least a way of making the public aware of the problem.
Thank you, Kay, for your thoughts and for picking up the book. I had some interesting dreams during the time I was writing the book, including one I may write up as a short story.
One of the problems with AI is that the developers don’t really know what is going on inside the “black box.” They give it algorithms, feed it training material, and let the machine learn on its own, so an AI system isn’t “programmed” like a computer. It draws its own conclusions and even rewrites its own algorithms.
As far as I know, no one can say why AI “hallucinates” and “confabulates,” which is a real cause for worry from my perspective.
Wishing you joy and inspiration!
@Sally: I had to google it. Looks like „chicken paws“ means foot+leg, while „feet“ are just that. Learned something here.
Regarding the pawed horses, a well-disposed guess says AI was confused by the fantasy label and was actually trying to be clever!
P.S.: Looks like WordPress is also confused, by my QWERTZ keyboard and German quotation marks. Oh well, baby steps…
Love this, Jim! One-hundred percent agree about AI not being able to replace writers. What it produces has no “voice.” A bot might be able to mimic us, but not with the depth and emotional resonance that only a human can provide, nor does it have any life experience to pull from.
Passion has a lot to do with writing in overdrive, IMO. When passion runs fiery hot, we’re unstoppable. Invisible. At least, it can feel that way.
It took me eight weeks to write each of my last two 95K-word eco-thrillers. I always leave off mid-scene to help plant me into the story the next morning. Having a playlist for each book also works (for me). As soon as I slide on the headphones, I’m transported into my story world. Even years later, if I hear a song from one of my playlists, my mind still relives certain scenes from said book.
Thanks for such an inspirational post!
Thank you, Sue! I absolutely agree on passion and writing in overdrive. When you have emotional intensity pulling you forward, you can’t help but write with intensity and speed. That’s why Steinbeck was able to write The Grapes of Wrath in just five months—he was intensely passionate about the horrors and injustices he had witnessed. He couldn’t wait to get his novel finished and in front of the public. I felt the same way about the AI extinction threat, and you no doubt were driven by heartfelt concerns at the core of your eco-thrillers. God bless and inspire you, Sue!
Is it a helpful research tool? Jim just told us that it lies and gives wrong information. And he’s not the only one I’ve heard say that recently. If you have to check what it says, you might as well not use it.
Great idea to add this notice, or one like it.