Benny the Blue Whale: A Descent into Story, Language and the Madness of ChatGPT

(Hardback)

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Bestselling childrens author Andy Stanton has made a career out of writing differently from the unconventional hero of his bestselling Mr Gum series to his penchant for absurdist plots, his childrens books are anything but formulaic. When a friend introduces him to ChatGPT, the new large language chatbot, Andy is as sceptical as he is curious. Can this jumble of algorithms really mimic the spontaneity of human thought Could it one day replace human authors like him for good And are we soon to be ruled over by despotic robot overlords. He decides theres only one thing for it he must test this bots capabilities. Eventually, he settles on a prompt that will push the algorithm to its creative limits: tell me a story about a blue whale with a tiny penis. Chaos ensues. What follows is a surprising and illuminating battle between Andy and ChatGPT that maybe, just maybe, might help us all understand AI a little bit better. Join Andy and his beleaguered AI lackey on a rollicking metafictional journey through the art of storytelling. Presenting his prompts and the AI-generated narrative alongside extensive commentary, Stanton provides a startling paean to the art of a good story and boundless human creativity. Hopeful and hilarious, Benny the Blue Whale provides a joyfully anarchic meditation on AI, literature and why we write.

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A funny and surprising creative battle between man and machine.

Author Bio

Andy Stanton is the author of the bestselling Mr Gum series. He studied English at Oxford but they kicked him out. He lives in North London and has been a stand-up comedian, a film script reader, a cartoonist, an NHS lackey and lots of other things.