The Monsters of AI, a guest post by S. A. Patrick

A year ago, to mark the release of A Vanishing of Griffins (Book 2 in the Songs of Magic series), I wrote a piece for this site discussing how AI might impact both readers and writers. You can read that here.

Now, with the publication of A Thundering of Monsters, the third and (for now) final Songs of Magic book, I thought I would revisit that piece one year on and see how well it stood up. As we’re all starting to understand, a year is a long time in the world of AI.

When I wrote it, I wondered if I was being premature: I speculated that it might be as little as ten years before AI could create novels which surpassed the best that humans could muster, and certainly no more than thirty.

Plenty has happened since then to make me think that, if anything, I was being too cautious – not least the unveiling of the Sora text-to-video engine. The quality Sora can create is years ahead of where I would have guessed it might be, but that’s the way with AI. It’s underwhelming for an age, and then, quite suddenly, it’s stunning.

The prospect of being creatively outgunned by machines will cause plenty of wailing and teeth-gnashing – the prophets of doom will be very busy, trust me. There’ll be upheaval, certainly, but what monsters await us?

In my piece, I came to the conclusion that the point of writing is actually the reading part. Writers, sorry to say, are expendable. Books are there to be experienced by readers, and if AI becomes better at creating those experiences, so be it.

The industry will be transformed, of course, but the inertia of change means that traditional publishing is going to hang around for quite a while. And even after AI writers can outdo us all, I think there will still be space for human-created work. For a while, at least.

There was, though, one looming monster that especially worried me last year, a question I didn’t attempt to answer: if AI becomes capable of writing unique novels, just for you, that are better than anything you’ve ever read before, what would become of the shared experience of a beloved book?

As any librarian knows, sharing great books is one of the best things about reading. So what happens when you know that nobody else will ever read the book you love, because they would have their own perfectly-matched fictions to read instead? Would it hollow out the experience for you?

It would certainly diminish the power of what we read, and that scared me. Books, movies, games and music form the core of our collective experience, allowing us to connect with other people in ways that would be tragic to lose.

Having thought more about this possibility, though, I decided that the worth of sharing the fiction we love is so great that any AI worth its salt would understand the need to avoid the problem.

How? Well, when AI entertainment becomes the norm, whether that’s in thirty years or ten, there’s one area where the shared experience will obviously remain – indeed, where it will be paramount. Gaming.

The multiplayer experience will be magnificent – you and your friends, joining together in some grand narrative, tailored perfectly for you all as a group. But why stop there? AI would be missing a trick if it didn’t base the adventures of gamers in environments and scenarios that were relatable and familiar to the rest of the gaming community. Sharing the experience, far and wide, is too much fun to miss out on.

As with games, so with novels.

The reader of the future will still find their experience more rewarding if they know they can talk about it with someone else, sharing references and cultural touchstones.

So, what will the novel of the future be like? I think a single ‘novel’ will have many forms, the pacing and style reworked to suit each reader. AI will be like a campfire storyteller, adapting the telling to maximize the impact on their audience, but the compelling hearts of the tales will remain.

And then we can share them.

Meet the author

S.A. Patrick is the author of seven novels. His new book, A Thundering of Monsters, is the final part of the Songs of Magic series – magical adventures inspired by the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelyn. He plans to write as many books as he can before our AI Overlords start coming up with all the best lines.

About A Thundering of Monsters

The spell-slinging, shape-shifting, and epic fantasy adventure concludes in Book Three of the Songs of Magic trilogy!

After confronting the evil Hamelyn Piper, Patch Brightwater, his dracogriff friend Barver, and an army of Pipers have been transported to a mysterious island where they find themselves trapped with monstrous beasts. Meanwhile, their shapeshifting friend, Wren, has been captured by the nefarious villain and is working hard to escape a pair of magic-dampening manacles.

Clad in his suit of impenetrable black armor, with traitorous dragons on his side, the Piper of Hamelyn hunts for a mythical amulet to achieve true immortality. But Erner Whitlock, an apprentice in the Piper’s Custodian Elite, is on the verge of discovering yet another foe with even more sinister plans . . . Can Patch and friends reunite in time to prevent destruction from raining on the world?

S.A. Patrick’s Songs of Magic trilogy is a brilliant retelling of one of the darkest legends of all time, “The Piper of Hamelyn.” Combining folklore with the very best of modern storytelling, the books will delight young fantasy fans who are hungry for perilous quests, friendships forged on the road, and an inventive magic system that thrills the imagination.

ISBN-13: 9781682635841
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 04/02/2024
Series: Songs of Magic
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

Filed under: Guest Post