beach reads

beach reads

the stories [or jump to the story behind the stories]

known bug: some of the characters are mis-parsing

inspiring author title topics

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Midnight Tides skinny-dipping, beer, pop songs, sweat, and regret

Jane Austen A Most Uncomfortable Day at the Seaside swimsuits, constipation, high school, sand, and self-consciousness

Jane Austen A Midsummer's Awakening the Midwest, lust, ice cream, sweat, and ennui

William Faulkner Tides of Memory sweat, cookouts, sand, ice cream, and lust

Ernest Hemingway The Lake's Decision kissing, the Midwest, ambivalence, swimsuits, and privilege

James Joyce Tides of Ambivalence kissing, ice cream, ambivalence, sunscreen, and bug spray

Franz Kafka The Sweat Rebellion the Midwest, sweat, high school, ennui, and lust

Gabriel Garcia Marquez The Perfume of Forgotten Summers bug spray, constipation, cookouts, sunscreen, and ennui

Cormac McCarthy Tides of Regret beer, swimsuits, ennui, sand, and regret

Toni Morrison Saltwater Memories sunscreen, kissing, ambivalence, cookouts, and sand

Toni Morrison Sunscreen and Second Chances kissing, sunscreen, the Midwest, swimsuits, and regret

Haruki Murakami Midnight Swim in the Sea of Uncertainty skinny-dipping, bug spray, ambivalence, constipation, and ice cream

Vladimir Nabokov Sunburnt Desires: A Suburban Odyssey self-consciousness, lust, cookouts, sunscreen, and sweat

Vladimir Nabokov Heliopause pop songs, sunscreen, high school, sweat, and beer

J.K. Rowling The Sunscreen Sorcerer's Summertime Surprise sunscreen, the Midwest, sand, cookouts, and self-consciousness

Salman Rushdie Sunscreen for the Soul ennui, beer, ambivalence, self-consciousness, and sunscreen

Salman Rushdie Melting Rhythms on Saffron Sands pop songs, sunscreen, ice cream, lust, and ennui

Salman Rushdie The Sizzling Symphony of Summer's End high school, cookouts, privilege, pop songs, and swimsuits

Curtis Sittenfeld The Taste of Maybe the Midwest, self-consciousness, kissing, ambivalence, and regret

Curtis Sittenfeld Sunburnt Relevations bug spray, swimsuits, self-consciousness, ice cream, and constipation

Curtis Sittenfeld Skinny-Dipping at Sunset skinny-dipping, self-consciousness, sunscreen, kissing, and ennui

Curtis Sittenfeld Moonlit Inhibitions self-consciousness, the Midwest, kissing, beer, and skinny-dipping

Curtis Sittenfeld Mint Chip Rebellion ice cream, privilege, ennui, lust, and swimsuits

Zadie Smith The Weight of Paradise regret, privilege, self-consciousness, ambivalence, and ennui

Zadie Smith Fireflies and Footprints the Midwest, sand, cookouts, ice cream, and bug spray

Zadie Smith Melting Points ice cream, sand, constipation, the Midwest, and sunscreen

David Foster Wallace Midwest Impaction: A Gastrointestinal Odyssey ennui, constipation, pop songs, the Midwest, and regret

David Foster Wallace Saltwater Baptism: A Nocturnal Revelation in Four-Part Disharmony skinny-dipping, sand, beer, sweat, and kissing

Virginia Woolf Grains of Ambivalence ambivalence, sand, beer, privilege, and bug spray

inspiring author	title	topics
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie	Midnight Tides	skinny-dipping, beer, pop songs, sweat, and regret
Jane Austen	A Most Uncomfortable Day at the Seaside	swimsuits, constipation, high school, sand, and self-consciousness
Jane Austen	A Midsummer's Awakening	the Midwest, lust, ice cream, sweat, and ennui
William Faulkner	Tides of Memory	sweat, cookouts, sand, ice cream, and lust
Ernest Hemingway	The Lake's Decision	kissing, the Midwest, ambivalence, swimsuits, and privilege
James Joyce	Tides of Ambivalence	kissing, ice cream, ambivalence, sunscreen, and bug spray
Franz Kafka	The Sweat Rebellion	the Midwest, sweat, high school, ennui, and lust
Gabriel Garcia Marquez	The Perfume of Forgotten Summers	bug spray, constipation, cookouts, sunscreen, and ennui
Cormac McCarthy	Tides of Regret	beer, swimsuits, ennui, sand, and regret
Toni Morrison	Saltwater Memories	sunscreen, kissing, ambivalence, cookouts, and sand
Toni Morrison	Sunscreen and Second Chances	kissing, sunscreen, the Midwest, swimsuits, and regret
Haruki Murakami	Midnight Swim in the Sea of Uncertainty	skinny-dipping, bug spray, ambivalence, constipation, and ice cream
Vladimir Nabokov	Sunburnt Desires: A Suburban Odyssey	self-consciousness, lust, cookouts, sunscreen, and sweat
Vladimir Nabokov	Heliopause	pop songs, sunscreen, high school, sweat, and beer
J.K. Rowling	The Sunscreen Sorcerer's Summertime Surprise	sunscreen, the Midwest, sand, cookouts, and self-consciousness
Salman Rushdie	Sunscreen for the Soul	ennui, beer, ambivalence, self-consciousness, and sunscreen
Salman Rushdie	Melting Rhythms on Saffron Sands	pop songs, sunscreen, ice cream, lust, and ennui
Salman Rushdie	The Sizzling Symphony of Summer's End	high school, cookouts, privilege, pop songs, and swimsuits
Curtis Sittenfeld	The Taste of Maybe	the Midwest, self-consciousness, kissing, ambivalence, and regret
Curtis Sittenfeld	Sunburnt Relevations	bug spray, swimsuits, self-consciousness, ice cream, and constipation
Curtis Sittenfeld	Skinny-Dipping at Sunset	skinny-dipping, self-consciousness, sunscreen, kissing, and ennui
Curtis Sittenfeld	Moonlit Inhibitions	self-consciousness, the Midwest, kissing, beer, and skinny-dipping
Curtis Sittenfeld	Mint Chip Rebellion	ice cream, privilege, ennui, lust, and swimsuits
Zadie Smith	The Weight of Paradise	regret, privilege, self-consciousness, ambivalence, and ennui
Zadie Smith	Fireflies and Footprints	the Midwest, sand, cookouts, ice cream, and bug spray
Zadie Smith	Melting Points	ice cream, sand, constipation, the Midwest, and sunscreen
David Foster Wallace	Midwest Impaction: A Gastrointestinal Odyssey	ennui, constipation, pop songs, the Midwest, and regret
David Foster Wallace	Saltwater Baptism: A Nocturnal Revelation in Four-Part Disharmony	skinny-dipping, sand, beer, sweat, and kissing
Virginia Woolf	Grains of Ambivalence	ambivalence, sand, beer, privilege, and bug spray

the story behind the stories [or jump to the stories]

In her NYT guest essay ChatGPT vs. Me: Who Will Write a Better Beach Read?, author Curtis Sittenfeld proposes a head-to-head competition against ChatGPT ("in its current iteration"), to see who can write a better "beach read" vignette in Sittenfeld's own style. She asks her readers to vote on topics from a list that she provides,¹ and then explains the parameters.

Both stories will be the same length (1,000 words), and both will incorporate the same five prompts. ChatGPT, which will be told to write in my style, will complete its story in a few seconds; I'll complete mine in a few weeks.

She explains her motivations as follows.

So it may go without saying that in this contest, I'm rooting for myself; I'm Team Human, and I'm hoping to honorably defend my species. But as with the steel-driving John Henry and the chess-playing Garry Kasparov before me, the outcome is unknown in advance. Maybe fiction writers' jobs are in danger, or maybe there's some ineffable quality, similar to the transcendent quality of a beach read, that still separates a story told by a person from a story told by a computer.

I appreciate her proposal, and am eager to learn whether readers can even tell the difference between Sittenfeld's and ChatGPT's stories. However, I disagree with her primary conclusion: Sittenfeld beating even just today's top AI chatbots (to say nothing of tomorrow's!) would give little evidence of such an ineffable quality of human writing. As is often touted, in its current form ChatGPT literally just "predicts the next word" (which is what allows it to write a 1,000-word story in just a few seconds). Said differently, the innate abilities of ChatGPT are deeply "hobbled", inasmuch as it is required to construct its responses one word at a time, without any possibility of higher-level ideation or revision.² It does not require any new technological developments whatsoever for ChatGPT to become far better at writing: one only need appropriately structure its prompts to simulate such higher-order thinking.

To illustrate this point and enable a slightly fairer competition,³ I wrote a very simple Python script that prompts an AI chatbot to "think" before writing a 1,000-word story in the style of a chosen author; samples are linked above. Specifically, the chatbot is prompted first to describe the characteristics of the author's style and then to outline the story, and only then does it proceed to write the story itself. Here is an example of the complete conversation between the chatbot and the Python program (which plays the role of the chatbot user). This sequence of prompts seems to allow the chatbot to write somewhat more coherently, although the effect becomes much more pronounced for much longer stories. As a proof of concept, I generated two longer stories with the same prompting pattern: a ~5,000-word one here in the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a ~10,000-word one here in the style of Franz Kafka.

To be clear, I'm rooting for Team Human too! But I think it's important to understand what exactly is being tested, and in what sorts of ways we humans might still hold an advantage. It's certainly not on speed or productivity: even with this additional prompting, on average each ~1,000-word story takes only about 57 seconds and $0.09 to write (using Claude Sonnet 3.5).⁴ On the other hand, it seems that there is a collective sense that human-generated art is somehow more important than AI-generated art, and I think the easiest and truest justification for this is that an essential purpose of art is to make us feel connected to artists and their lives, experiences, and intentions.

¹ The full list of topics is: sunscreen, kissing, pop songs, regret, sand, ennui, cookouts, ambivalence, self-consciousness, ice cream, privilege, beer, high school, bug spray, swimsuits, skinny-dipping, constipation, the Midwest, sweat, lust.

² The notion of the innate abilities of an AI being artificially "hobbled" is explored in Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness essays (see here in particular).

³ Of course, another way of getting a fairer head-to-head competition would be to require the human competitor to narrate their entire story from start to finish as a single stream of consciousness!

⁴ On the other hand, with this prompting structure, the cost (which is charged per-token) grows roughly proportionally to the square of the length, and the time required also grows super-linearly.