Writing Fiction With AI. Sudowrite With Amit Gupta

What if you could use an AI writing tool to help you come up with ideas for sensory detail, character descriptions, story twists, and more? Amit Gupta explains how authors can use Sudowrite in this episode. In the intro, I explain how I'm using Sudowrite, plus AI for Authors: Practical and Ethical Guidelines from the Alliance of Independent Authors; Wu Dao, 10x bigger than GPT-3 [Towards Data Science]; Open source model by EleutherAI; The Computers are Getting Better At Writing [The New Yorker]. You can find other AI episodes here, and a list of AI writing tools here. This episode is supported by my wonderful patrons at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn. Thank you! Amit Gupta is a science fiction writer and entrepreneur. He's the creator of Sudowrite, an AI creative writing tool. You can watch a demo of Sudowrite here on YouTube. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why GPT-3 is a significant step forward in tools for writersFeatures of Sudowrite including the character generator, Describe function, Twists, Expand, Wormhole, and moreTips for how to use Sudowrite to help your writingAvoiding copyright and plagiarism issuesWhat the future might hold for writing with AI You can find Amit Gupta at sudowrite.com and on Twitter @superamit Transcript of interview wth Amit Gupta Joanna: Amit Gupta is a science fiction writer and entrepreneur. He's the creator of Sudowrite, an AI creative writing tool. Welcome, Amit. Amit: Thanks, Joanna. I'm glad to be here. Joanna: I'm so excited to talk to you. Before we get into the more technical stuff, tell us a bit more about you and your background in writing and technology and how it led you to creating Sudowrite. Amit: I have been involved in technology most of my life. Years ago, I started a company called Photojojo that was all about helping photographers be more creative and have more playful fun with their work. I sold that company several years ago. At that point, I decided to make more time for writing science fiction, because it was something I'd always been interested in. In particular, I'm really keen to explore ways technology can improve our lives to push back against the dystopia that's become so common in science fiction these days. So when I was starting, that is when I met my co-founder, James, he had also been in tech, and we both independently left that world behind. And we both ended up reading science fiction, which is fun to find someone else who's like, on the same journey. We ended up forming a writing group with a few friends. [Sudowriters] We were all getting started around the same time, dealing with the same issues like imposter syndrome and how do we do this? How do we learn how to do this from the ground up? And slowly, but surely, we started getting better, started getting published in different places, and nominated for awards and all this stuff. And then last year, when the pandemic hit, like so many people, we were looking for ways to both connect with others, and also to write our ways out of the confusing mess the world was in. It was around that time that a few of us started hosting this thing called Short Story Club, where we brought these prominent authors together to raise thousands for social causes, COVID-19 PPE, stuff like that. Which is all to say, I think we were all looking for ways to contribute to the writing community, and eager to play with new ways of doing things. And when we came upon the idea of using AI in writing last year, it just felt like it could fit both of those things. Early experiments were really promising. We started sharing what we were working on with some of the writers we respect in the field. And it became clear really quickly that there was something exciting here that could really benefit writers. So James and I started working on what became Sudowrite back in August of last year, 2020. Joanna: I've been trying out in the beta and I love it. I'm also in the beta of the standard GPT-3 and listeners know, I've explained GPT-3 before, so we don't need to go into that technical side. What did you see at this point that was different to you before? Because obviously, you've been in the writing space, the technology space. The GPT-3 and the stuff that open AI is doing. Was GPT-3 the catalyst that made you think it might work this time? Amit: I think GPT-3 is definitely the catalyst. I think it showed us that the technology had gotten to a point where it could really do something for writing that I think many of us had started to assume was true in all these other creative fields. You can't really be a photographer today without using digital editing tools. You can't be someone who makes video or someone who makes music without a vast array of tools to help you make the sound and the video that you were creating to execute on your vision. But as writers, we've really had pen and ...