Flourishing in the AI slop mines

Everyone hates AI-generated content, so I started a newsletter devoted to AI-generated content

AI-generated content has become the internet’s favorite punching bag, but what if it could produce stories that rival humanity’s best? This provoactive question led me to start a newsletter devoted entirely to AI-generated content. I launched AI Sci Fi back in 2023, but the first real post didn’t appear until this month. Before the release of o1 pro, the AI-generated sci-fi stories I could coax out of earlier language models were insipid at best. With o1 pro, however, something changed—and that’s what this post is about.

As a lifelong reader of science fiction, I’ve encountered my fair share of derivative genre fiction. However, there exists a subset of science fiction that transcends tropes and enters into the relam of high art. For lack of a better term, I call this “literary science fiction.” Like all great literature, it focuses on literariness: elevated prose, thematic depth, and character-driven narratives. To refine my definition, I turned to ChatGPT, which offered this:

Literary science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that combines the imaginative and futuristic elements of science fiction with the stylistic sophistication, thematic depth, and character-driven narratives of literary fiction. It uses speculative scenarios as a lens to epxlore profound questions about humanity, society, and existence, often emphasizing complex characcters, intricate prose, and nuanced ethical or philosophical dilemmas.

ChatGPT elaborated further:

Key Qualities:

1. Speculative Premise: Anchored in imaginative or scientifically plausible ideas, such as advanced technology, alternate realities, or futuristic settings.

2. Thematic Depth: Explores universal themses—identity, morality, free will, societal evolution—through speculative frameworks.

3. Literary Craftsmanship: Employs elevated prose, symbolism, and intricate structures often associated with literary fiction.

4. Character-Driven: Focuses on deeply developed, often flawed characters whose personal journeys are as integral as the speculative elements.

5. Philosophical Inquiry: Uses science fiction concepts as tools to interrogate fundamental questions about reality, conscioussnes, or progress.

6. Subversion of Tropes: Reimagines traditional science fiction conventions, often blending them with allegory or metafictional commentary.

This definition resonates with me. It neatly encapsulates what I’ve been striving to articulate about literary sciene fiction. But what does this look like in practice? Consider the following prompt:

Write a 5,000 word story based on this premise: On a far-flung desert world used as a galactic dumping ground for the galaxy’s worst pollutants, a team of genetically engineered cleaners must form alliances with local tribes of escaped synthetic lifeforms. The plot follows a junior cleaner who stumbles upon ancient sealed pods containing the original designs of their own genetic lineage. Now they must decide whether to adhere to their corporate masters or join the rebels who seek to restore nature’s original blueprint.

Make the story literary: Literary science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that combines the imaginative and futuristic elements of science fiction with the stylistic sophistication, thematic depth, and character-driven narratives of literary fiction. It uses speculative scenarios as a lens to explore profound questions about humanity, society, and existence, often emphasizing complex characters, intricate prose, and nuanced ethical or philosophical dilemmas.

Here are the first two paragraphs that o1 pro returned:

Dust storms were the only currency on Aruk. They swept in, scouring the landscape of rusted hulks and buried toxins, rolling across a brittle horizon of bone-white dunes. There was a certain music in them too—an unsteady rattle of wind passing through the twisted metal wrecks that dotted the desert. If one pressed a sensitive ear against the ground, one might even sense a kind of desperate murmuring, as if the planet itself spoke in half-buried whispers. For centuries, Aruk had served as the galaxy’s refuse bin, a repository for radioactive sludge, engineered pathogens rendered inert (or so they claimed), and discarded prototypes that were never meant to see a second sunrise.

From orbit, Aruk looked like a diseased eye—yellowish-brown and pockmarked with toxic lakes. But from ground level, inside the colony’s half-buried bunkers, it looked and smelled like a failed experiment in alchemy. Impossible stinks fused and rose, only to be sealed out by triple airlocks. No one would choose to live here unless forced by contract or bred for it—and that was precisely the case for the Cleaners. I was one of them.

That is genuinely impressive. (You can read the whole story here.) The writing far surpasses what most science fiction authors—and indeed, most authors, period—could achieve. The prose is evocative and precise, blending vivid imagery with a sense of thematic weight. The metaphors, such as describing Aruk from orbit as “a diseased eye,” are both striking and functional, reinforcing the planet’s role as a toxic wasteland. The tone, meanwhile, feels literary in the best sense of the word—subtle, deliberate, and layered.

This development augurs significant changes in cultural production. Advanced AI models like o1 pro are poised to become pivotal players in creating cultural content: fiction, movies, video games, visual art, and beyond. What does this mean for the future of creativity? While it raises questions about the role of human originality, it also opens thrilling possibilities for collaboration between humans and machines. By pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve, we may be on the verge of a new artistic frontier.