OpenAI’s story about grief nearly had me in tears, but for all the wrong reasons | Kathryn Bromwich

If Sam Altman’s new model were a creative writing student, you probably wouldn’t stop them pursuing other job prospects

Like all parents who pretend to be impressed by their children’s terrible art, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman proudly announced to the world that the company’s new AI model is gifted at creative writing. “This is the first time I have been really struck by something written by AI,” he enthused on X.

The prompt was to write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief. The story closely follows the instructions. The individual sentences mostly make sense. But – with the greatest respect to Jeanette Winterson, who called the story “beautiful and moving” – it is an atrocious piece of writing.

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