OpenAI's story about grief nearly had me in tears, but for all the wrong reasons

The Guardian

15-03-2025

Like all parents who pretend to be impressed by their children's terrible art, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman proudly announced to the world that the company's new AI model is gifted at creative writing. 'This is the first time I have been really struck by something written by AI,' he enthused on X.
The prompt was to write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief. The story closely follows the instructions. The individual sentences mostly make sense. But – with the greatest respect to Jeanette Winterson, who called the story 'beautiful and moving' – it is an atrocious piece of writing.
The AI captures the tone of some of the worst writing around: pompous and self-satisfied, while using sentimental imagery ('a girl in a green sweater who leaves home with a cat in a cardboard box') and dull similes ('like a stone dropped into a well'). There is repetition without development, poor structure, an over-reliance on jargon and, crucially, a lack of that slight breath of madness that makes writing human. If this were a first-year creative writing student, you'd give them feedback to help them improve, but you probably wouldn't discourage them from pursuing other job prospects.
It is in the gaps between what the author has written and what the reader imagines that writing comes to life. Readers will project meaning on to words on a page, but if those gaps are created by algorithms and chance, the act of creation on the reader's part becomes onanistic; the death of the author requires the author to have been alive at one stage.
I asked another AI model to critically evaluate the story, and it found it 'compelling' and 'self-aware', employing 'evocative language and imagery'. Perhaps it was not written for human eyes at all.
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In the furore surrounding the Labour party's devastating welfare cuts – which are estimated to plunge 700,000 households into poverty and have led to widespread rebellion among MPs – we are at risk of overlooking a short video recently released by the Department for Work and Pensions, which exhorts disabled people to get back into the workforce.
'The welfare system we inherited is broken,' a voice intones grimly over footage of a man and a woman entering a job centre. Unfortunately, the building's even red bricks and cast iron archway carry a very specific historical connotation: the gates of Auschwitz, which bear the inscription Arbeit Macht Frei, or 'work sets you free'. During the Holocaust, an estimated 250,000 people with mental and physical disabilities were murdered, as they did not comply with the regime's vision of a master race and were considered a burden to society.
The similarity in the video was unintentional. But the fact no one in the department seemed to notice the resemblance is deeply worrying.
Congratulations to Whitetop, a sprightly 27-year-old who has been named by the Guinness World Records as the oldest llama in captivity (the previous record holder, Albuquerque ranch resident Dalai Llama, passed away in 2023). For nearly two decades, Whitetop has been providing comfort and support to chronically ill children at a camp in North Carolina. 'He's just a really cool dude and loves his job,' says Billie Jo Davis, the camp's barn director.
Let's hope Whitetop has a long and healthy reign. Though perhaps, following the sad fate of Geronimo – the alpaca euthanised in 2021 which may or may not have had bovine TB – it might be a while before Keir Starmer is invited to visit.
Kathryn Bromwich is a commissioning editor and writer on the Observer New Review