Thoughts produced by ChatGPT can help authors who might not be naturally creative, this may lead to fewer original ideas
There was a period when only humans could write stories. Researchers have now found that AI can help writers tell stories.
According to a study, writers who lack natural flare can become more creative thanks to ideas provided by the AI system ChatGPT, although diversity may suffer as a result.
Co-author of the study from the University of Exeter, Professor Oliver Hauser, said the results pose a social conundrum.
“It might be personally advantageous for you to use AI, but if everyone in society relied on AI, we could lose the diversity of unique ideas,” he stated. “For creative endeavours, we may occasionally need ‘wild’ and ‘unusual’ ideas.”
To gauge the participants’ innate inventiveness, the team asked 293 people to select ten words that were as unlike from one another as feasible.
After that, the participants were randomly allocated to one of three themes—a jungle adventure, an ocean voyage, or a trip to a foreign planet—and instructed to compose an eight-sentence narrative fit for a teen or young adult.
A third of the participants got no help at all, while the remaining participants were split into two groups: those who could request five suggestions and those who could use one three-sentence starter that ChatGPT had developed.
Out of all 100 participants, 82 selected a single AI-generated concept, and 93 out of 98 who were given access to five ideas decided to utilise at least one—nearly a quarter asked to use all five.
Unaware that AI-generated ideas were used, an extra 600 volunteers reviewed the resulting stories and scored them on a nine-point scale for uniqueness and utility, including whether or not the story could be published.
The results, which were published in the journal Science Advances, demonstrate that having access to AI improved these ratings, with a more notable effect seen with increased access: individuals who were given the choice of five AI-generated ideas saw an average 8.1% increase in their stories’ novelty ratings over those who did not receive such support. Similarly, there was an average 9% increase in usefulness ratings.
“Although not substantial, the effect sizes were statistically significant,” said Dr. Anil Doshi, a University College London co-author of the study.
Plot twists, enjoyment, and writing quality were all scored higher for stories created by people who had access to AI-generated ideas.
But those who were not naturally creative writers stood to gain the most.
“We did not observe that the stories of the most inherently creative individuals were being ‘supercharged’ by AI ideas—this group is highly creative with or without AI,” said Doshi.
Doshi explained that this was because the AI created rather predictable narrative ideas. The team also found that participants who had access to AI-generated ideas tended to develop stories with greater similarity.
Hauser stressed the value of these kinds of studies, saying, “Assessing the utilisation of AI will be crucial in harnessing the benefits of this potentially transformative technology while avoiding potential drawbacks.”
