TL;DR — I've written a story, and ChatGPT's written a different story, but we've both responded to the same prompt. I'm really hoping that you can tell the difference and who wrote which one. Skip down to the bold text if you don't care for introductions.
So there's this thing that's been going on for a while where people will feed old fics and stories into AI generators because the author hasn't updated it in forever, and then they'll post it themselves or something like that. I guess they just want their happy ending, I don't know.
Personally, this used to not bother me, because I always thought that I wrote distinctly enough and well enough that people would be able to tell the difference between my writing and AI in an instant. (Of course, in general, don't post AI-generated endings to stories; that's a scumbag thing to do.) But lately, I've been working on a few rewrites for old chapters of B.F.D. High, and I've just now realized something.
My old shit is fucking trash.
So maybe the difference between my writing and AI isn't so apparent after all. This random thought, combined with just the general urge to write (and post) literally any fanfic right now, led me to test myself. Can I beat AI at writing?
And thus, the idea manifested: me vs. ChatGPT. I'll generate a story, and then I'll write one myself. It's like a weird spin-off of the Turing test.
Ground rules for this little face-off:
1) Stories written by me can't be any more than 25 words over or under ChatGPT's stories. For those of you know me, I tend to write long, long stories. So don't come in here thinking that'll be a tell!
2) We're both going to respond to the same prompt. I do generate ChatGPT's story first so I can write mine somewhat similarly to it (otherwise it would be pretty obvious who wrote what).
3) I'll have ChatGPT generate two titles for their story. One will be its own story's title, and I'll have to write my story using the second title.
4) With the exception of stylistic or necessary changes, ChatGPT's stories will be copied and pasted as is, word for word.
5) These stories are humanized.
6) I'm not allowed to use any inside jokes or mention any character or other significant named element that's not mentioned in the prompt, for obvious reasons in the name of fairness. If it's a Fireafy prompt and one of the stories mentions Bubble or Yoyle City out of nowhere, it would be pretty obvious which one's me. I want my writing to stand out on its own merits, not because of some meta-gag.
My story could be the first one I present to you, or ChatGPT's could be the first. It's pretty much a coin toss. I may or may not do another one of these in the future, because it was honestly just so refreshing to be able to write a short story again. So, without further ado, here's the prompt that we both had to answer to!
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[BFDI] Prompt: Firey letting Leafy warm her cold hands under his shirt.
Story #1 — "Revelation in the Autumn Forest"
Firey and Leafy were walking through the forest, enjoying the crisp, autumn air. The leaves on the trees had turned various shades of orange, yellow, and red, creating a beautiful backdrop for their stroll. They had been friends for a long time, and Firey always enjoyed spending time with Leafy. She was smart, funny, and kind-hearted, and he felt lucky to have her as a friend.
As they walked, Firey noticed that Leafy's hands were red and chapped from the cold. "Leafy, are you cold?" he asked, concerned.
Leafy nodded. "Yeah, my hands are freezing," she said, rubbing them together in an attempt to warm them up.
