Show HN: I asked AI to write Sci-Fi for eternity | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I asked AI to write Sci-Fi for eternity

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4 pointsf0558 comments

But you know there is almost an infinity of sci-fi books out there, writen by real people, full of original ideas. If the problem is lenght, you can filter them by lenght in goodreads, storygraph, etc.

The first idea was a "novel" one :) but I had questions about what would happen once the story (i.e. context) became long enough.

You could maybe do some clever things to compact the story line or index it somehow to aim to push the story's length beyond "normal" limits, but at some point you're going to start pushing up against the context window and get diminishing returns on the quality and "accuracy" (or adherence to the previously established facts or truths of the worlds it's creating).

The second idea sounds like just a bunch of AI-generated sci-fi novels with nothing connecting them i.e. AI slop. The author references "an overall story arch" but does not mention anything other than there are two LLMs that each write a paragraph in a novel until it is done and then move on to another novel.

Well my idea was that when I said that the overall story arch is interesting, one would read a paragraph or two and see themselves if it's worth reading further or not, so I didn't think mentioning anything else is necessary ;)

A novel has a very specific definition, and these texts do not qualify. The gulf between 75 paragraphs and a novel (even a novella) is vast.

AI is nowhere near being able to produce a novel worth reading. The author's already heavily qualifying these ~10 page short stories, because the ratio of slop to moderately interesting content is still so unacceptably high.

Consider putting some energy towards finding more human sci-fi worth reading, because Asimov might be a pioneer, but he is hardly the most accessible or enjoyable read. I guarantee this brand of chocolate is better.

You're correct these text are much better called short stories, but I chose the word "novel" anyway. And despite the slop, I still find this experiment interesting for one: because it intrigues me how AI ponders on the subject of sovereignty, and for two: because when I tried other, human novels I also encountered slop (albeit human): pages of meaningless descriptions, deliberations and dead-end side-plots.

"I wanted to find something to read, and finish, in one or two evenings. Over the years, I grew a slight disgust for ultra-long forms that drag on like soap operas, no matter how epic or interesting."

They seem like a prime candidate for Gilligan's Island reruns on MeTV.

Most of the golden age sci fi is 200 pages or so.

Even Dickens, who was often paid by the word, would be appalled at the length of some books today, not to mention the epic cycles like Wheel of Time, that go on forever and in which the author carefully doles out plot points

Infinite slop.

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