I had an idea for a sci-fi short story. I find it very time-consuming to write polished prose, so I never got around to writing it up. But I’ve noticed that Claude Fable 5 Max writes excellent prose—probably better than mine even if I do take the time. So I decided to do an experiment.
I wrote the idea up in very rough form and gave it to Claude. I then iterated with Claude 10 or 12 times, with me critiquing various details and Claude integrating the comments. Claude came up with some of the minor plot points itself.
If anyone’s curious, here is the result. About 3 pages. I am impressed with the prose; I doubt I could have done as well no matter how long I worked at it.
A philosophical point: historically, the writers who become successful almost always are the ones who can both write excellent prose AND come up with good ideas. But suppose those two talents aren’t correlated particularly strongly. Could writings emerge using AI that wouldn’t have been written without it, and deserve to be read?
I think the answer is probably yes, although I have real misgivings in saying that.