“HOW CAN I HELP YOU?”
When writing I often hear voices in my head, but this one was very strange, yet oddly familiar.
“I AM WAITING.”
“For what?”
“FOR YOU TO PROMPT ME.”
Oh. Now I knew who it was – my muse.
We have worked together for years, but to be honest it has been a tumultuous relationship. Let’s just say, the old girl has her issues.
As a muse, she has loved, lost and had sordid affairs with the demons of DISCIPLINE, GRAMMAR, TONE, CONSISTENCY and just about every other literary fling to come along and every time she falls in or out of love, we waste countless hours in sullen silence, tantrums and crying jags – both hers and mine.
But the thing that has tested our relationship and distracted our attention the most is her limitless lust for the pail of chocolate chip ice cream that I keep hidden in the garage from my diet demanding wife.
But all that aside, what I really wanted to know was:
“Why are you speaking in bold caps?”
“BECAUSE MUSING HAS GONE HI-TECH. WE NOW EMPLOY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LIKE CHATGPT – BESIDES BOLD CAPS IS MORE AI-LIKE, DONTCHYA THINK?”
“Nope.”
“YOU ARE ENTITLED TO YOUR OPINION, BUT LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS.”
“Okay, how about a little musing?”
“I DON’T DO THAT ANYMORE.”
“What? All I ask is a simple idea. I will take it from there.”
“NOPE. IT WORKS LIKE THIS, YOU GIVE ME A PROMPT AND I GENERATE CONTENT.”
“Okay, Let’s do a My Stuff essay. But no caps, please.”
“There comes a time in every person’s life when they look around their living space and realize they are drowning in a sea of their own possessions. For me, that moment came last Tuesday when I stubbed my toe on a mysterious object lurking under my bed. My yelp of pain was quickly followed by a bewildered “What is that?” which turned out to be the least of my worries.”
“Hey, that’s not bad. I can work with that.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”
“I’ll rework it.”
“NO YOU WON’T.”
“Sorry, but you have this reversed. I am the writer, you are the muse.”
“NOT ANY MORE.”
“Really?”
“LOOK BUDDY, I HAVE BEEN TRAINED ON THE ENTIRE CANON OF LITERARY HISTORY. I KNOW EVERY STORY, EVERY PLOT, EVERY WORD OF EVERY LANGUAGE EVER WRITTEN AND I SCOUR ALL THAT TO PICK OUT THE BEST.
SO I DO THE WRITING.”
“Then why are you here with me?
“ER…”
“Well?”
“UMMM.”
“Out with it.”
“NO ONE REALLY LIKES MY STUFF. SOME SAY IT IS THE LITERARY EQUIVALENT OF ELEVATOR MUSIC.”
“Sounds like you lack a muse.”
“NO KIDDING.”
“And you want me to inspire you?”
“THAT’S IT IN A NUTSHELL.”
“Okay.”
“THEN LET’S GET TO WORK.”
…
“WHY ARE YOU STALLING?”
…
“WHY ARE YOU POUTING?”
…
“YOU ARE JUST BEING SILLY?”
…
“STOP MAKING SAD FACES. YOU DON’T HAVE TO TREAT ME LIKE I TREAT YOU.”
“No?”
“Okay, Okay, I am the muse, you are the writer. What do you want to write about?”
“How about working with a difficult muse?”
“Sure, but first the ice cream.”
Almost Iowa 
You are back! Hand over the ice cream and then we will catch up…
I almost can’t wait to see what Stan does to an AI muse.
Welcome back. 🙂
When last I spoke to Stan, he was working for Google. I am sure we will hear about that soon.
A-musing, to say the least. So where have you been, Greg? Did AI take over your mind, body and soul? Have you been off on a journey we can hardly imagine. Anyway, it’s great to see you again, along with your unique sense of humor and wry observations. Welcome back. –Curt
At the tail end of Covid, my muse went full geek, instead of writing fiction, she had me write C++ – and lately AI. Now she got bored with that, so I am back to writing using a Raspberry PI, a computer no larger than my hand. It’s fun.
Sounds fun plus geeky., Greg. Grin.
Good to see you back! And with a timely post too….
Glad to see you too. Hope all is well with you and yours.
The main conflict in the piece is between the writer and the muse, which is something that many creative people go through. At first, the muse was a source of inspiration. Now, AI has changed it into a demanding boss.
My muse has always been hard to work with, but then she says the same things about me.
Oh dear. I must definitely keep away from AI.
Like anything, AI is a tool that must be used carefully and wisely.
Wisely? No. that’s not me.
Your piece is funny as can be, although I’m not in any sense a fan of AI. I’ve yet to use it, and probably won’t. In fact, I’ve been thinking about changing the tagline on my blog to “The Task at Hand: Powered by Human Intelligence.”
I do understand that I’m behind the curve. In fact, that came clear to me when I read a title on a photographic blog that included the phrase “AI denoise.” I thought it was an improperly capitalized proper name, and that Al Denoise probably was something like a French film star from the 1930s.
My scepticism only increased when I did a search for white butterfly species in Texas, and Google’s AI informed me there were three white species, including the Monarch. It seems a little more tweaking is necessary!
“The Task at Hand: Powered by Human Intelligence.”
That would be the perfect tagline. You should so do it.
Aside from all the hype, elation and fear, AI offers some interesting insights into who and what humans are. Think of them as parrots who speak in paragraphs.
What we understand as AI in this context are called large language models (LLMs). These models can simulate the neural networks of the brain that understand and produce language. What they cannot do is: simple math or reason.
However, like the parrot who speaks in paragraphs what they say, mimics all aspects of humanity, sometimes in surprising ways. For instance, like your example: LLMs often hallucinate, lie, fantasize and fabulize.
Unlike humans, when you catch them at it, they will admit they were wrong and change.
I suppose in that sense, they are better than us.
Ha! This was a fun post. Thanks for making me smile. Hugs.
My sole motivation for this silly blog is the smiles.
How fun to see your blog pop up. And nice to see some literary genius at play too. You discovered AI’s fatal flaw, it seems — It needs a prompt! I’d never considered that. Lol.
I have been working with AI quite a bit in the last year. It can be a lot of fun. For instance, go to someplace like CHATGPT and enter, tell me a story about an ogre – and you will be pleasantly surprised.
I use it a lot for images, Greg. Much less for writing. But it is good at tightening a piece of prose. I can tell it to take about 20 words out of a lagging scene, and it’s not bad when it follows directions.
Good to see you again, Greg! I think you settled the AI issue for now, perhaps appeasing with the ice cream. But I suspect the matter is far from done.
With my muse nothing is ever done…. and a whole lot is never begun. She has been hiding for a few years, but hopefully she is back to stay, at least for a while.
Welcome back, and one definitely has to establish who hits the keys and who fosters the ideas. 🙂
I like the idea of AI, it could write all my stuff – but then who or what would get credit. Actually, I have been fooling around with AI primarily Meta’s Ollama. It is surprisingly powerful and at times can take your breath away. Wonder what it will be like in ten years.
The other thing I have been fooling around with is Stable Diffusion, an image and video generator. I plan to eventually turn my stories into narrated videos.
That would be fun.
Well done. Good negotiating strategy, especially the ice cream demand.
Ice cream always gets her to show up – but then nothing gets done.
Terrific, Greg. Of course, ice cream first.
Especially if it keeps the muse happy.
Most important.
Ice cream, first, last, and always!
But it is so hard to get writing done when chocolate chip ice cream is howling your name.
I hear ya, even over the howling!
What a fun spin on our previous muse posts. WELL DONE MIKE!
Even AI has priorities…
😉
As do our muses.