Hi all. I’m new here. Just wondering if Scrivner will use any AI for editing? I’ve played around with chatGPT: “Edit for punctuation only” and I found it very powerful. Almost to the point where I don’t think I can cut out an editor or two. Any thoughts?
Interesting question. I think as has been the case for previous generation of writing tools, Scrivener developers have been a bit reticent to integrate muchbeyond those tools already in Scrivener. But the “previous generation” tools had pretty questionable advice. You can see how requests for those grammer aid and writing tools were received reading through the wish list…
A bigger problem is that there is no clear way to integrate tools easily into Scrivener. It has no scripting or plugin interface. We end users could use an RTF conversion to get text into the API and back, but returning content has some problems in that the RTF has custom extensions so that would need to be taken into account and L&L officially do not advise users editing files in the project bundle outside their editor…
The philosophical question of whether writing tools should include outputs from these large language models is sure to also raise some heckles. As a visual neuroscientist who has worked on AI (the other major field where neural networks is having a huge impact with the likes of Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and others), I think these neural networks are certainly impressive; and they encapsulate and relate the huge corpus of trained material in an amazing way. Are such tools “creative” in themselves, is their output plagiarism, and how can we tell whose “voice” we are really reading/seeing are all fascinating things we humans interested in words, images and ideas, must come to terms with…
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Yes, it’s very interesting. As an SF writer, we are literally living through an SF scenario as we speak.
But on a very functional level, I have written over 1500 pages in Scrivner, and I’m so close to my words I cannot see my own mistakes. A comma here, dash there, a misspelling. I’ve been plugging paragraphs into chatGPT and getting a very clean output, as long the text does not contain sex or violence. So in effect I’m using it for a proofreader. In the past I’ve paid a lot of money for Fiverr editors to do this but, frankly, they are just going to do the same thing I’m doing using AI-- not all of them, but enough of them will.
I’m pretty sure Microsoft word will include chatGPT in the near future, which would force me to export and do the job there, but I much rather stay in Scrivner. I love the platform.
On the philosophical question. I’ve seen some Youtube videos where people are writing children’s books with the GPT saying things like “write a moral story with a cat” and then uploading them to Amazon. There are probably already thousands of books up there, so the problem is happening now. The cat is out of the box, and we ain’t gonna get it back inside.
As for myself, I’m an anti-AI-ist when it comes to creating, but a pro AI-ist when it comes to looking for grammar errors.
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We’ve never worked directly with a third-party tool, so I personally don’t see AI being directly integrated into Scrivener. However, developers for other tools can make their tools work with Scrivener—you can currently use Grammarly Desktop and ProWritingAid Everywhere with Scrivener, for example.
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Just wondering …
Has anyone tried asking chatGBT to write out a section of text, e.g. a story or some research, in ‘Scrivener style’?
I haven’t tried it as I’m not on chatGBT that often, but I wonder what the output would look like and if Scrivener would accept the output from chatGBT as if the text was generated using Scrivener.
Any takers?
scrive
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I am not sure what that means…
me:
Please write a paragraph about a western hero first entering a bar in a style suitable for use in the Scrivener software package
ChatGPT:
The western hero strode confidently into the dimly lit bar, his boots echoing against the hardwood floor. Dust from the long ride clung to his leather chaps and the brim of his wide-brimmed hat was pulled low over his piercing blue eyes. The patrons of the bar fell silent, sizing up the newcomer as he approached the bar, his hand resting lightly on the butt of his six-shooter. With a nod to the bartender, he ordered a whiskey and surveyed the room, ready for any trouble that might come his way.
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I attended a higher ed panel discussion held earlier today that was about the implications of ChatGPT in learning contexts. It really seems to me that it is not what can happen now but what is coming that will be of most interest. I didn’t realise that there are so many paid versions or variants available already.
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I thought about it and realized I should have been more specific. Writing in Scrivener style for me would include references and images that could wholesale could be pasted into Scrivener. The Full Monte.
As a LaTeX user, I might also want paragraphs highlighted or bracketed in the style that I use to highlight the paragraphs, but without actually highlighting the text (which for me can me a distraction).
I can go on, but I’m just wondering what chatGBT is capable of … I haven’t yet heard of anyone asking chatGBT to write pros in LaTeX code as such, but I understand that many others have already used chatGBT to write code.
AI really is on a new level of thinking for me … one I’ll have to rethink my thinking to even begin to tap into what it really represents. I’ve observed both limitations and insights on chatGBT so far, and I’m looking forward to coming up with the right questions.
If my memory serves, I think it was in “I, robot” that the AI says to the character, played by Will Smith, “You need to ask the right question!”.
scrive
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I think you are absolutely right and the questions will take time to come to us. I tried to get ChatGPT to generate an argument but even after several attempts was unable to get it to provide the Endnote placeholders for the following text that it first generated (here is my beginning step):
[Me]
please write a paragraph justifying AI use for research that uses Endnote style in text citations
[ChatGPT]
Artificial intelligence (AI) has proven to be a valuable tool in various areas of research, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. AI algorithms can analyze large amounts of data and make predictions faster and more accurately than humans could ever do (Gori, 2015). Moreover, AI can automate repetitive tasks and assist researchers in identifying trends and patterns that would be difficult to detect otherwise (Silver et al., 2016). These capabilities can lead to more efficient and effective research, allowing researchers to save time and resources while increasing the accuracy and quality of their findings (Goodfellow et al., 2016). By utilizing AI in research, scientists can gain a deeper understanding of complex systems, leading to innovative solutions and breakthroughs (LeCun et al., 2015).
References:
Gori, M. (2015). Artificial Neural Networks. Berlin, Germany: Springer.
Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., & Courville, A. (2016). Deep learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
LeCun, Y., Bengio, Y., & Hinton, G. (2015). Deep learning. Nature, 521(7553), 436-444.
Silver, D., Huang, A., Maddison, C. J., Guez, A., Sifre, L., Van Den Driessche, G., … & Hassabis, D. (2016). Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search. Nature, 529(7587), 484-489.
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Be aware that ChatGPT is designed to produce “plausible” text. It does no accuracy checking whatsoever, and has been caught flat out inventing references to support its “arguments.”
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Thanks … Gave me a bit of a laugh … a bit creative … so much for references … I guess I’m stuck using BibDesk for a bit longer …
Do we need a chatGBT to check chatGBT references … or is that the right question?
We’re all in for Mr. Toad’s wild ride!
scrive
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100% agree. My interest and testing at the moment is mostly seeing what my higher ed students might attempt and how the emerging technologies might be used in developing their digital literacies.
Also remember that the data in the system is currently quite dated.
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Hi all, I have just downloaded Scrivener for my mac. I remember reading earlier that I can integrate ProWritingAid in the Scrivener editor. How exactly can I do this though? Any help anyone? Thanks in advance
ProWritingAid Everywhere isn’t available for Mac quite yet, though it is currently out for Windows.
Sounds a lot like an attempt to ape Melville to me…
Paolo
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I gotta say, except for some minor issues that I would have with my own writing (do boots echo off a hard word floor?) that paragraph is pretty damn good. Too good almost. However, the AI can’t really complete a story that doesn’t have the literary equivalent of six or nine fingers on each hand and a face that looks like it’s from a blurry dream. It still doesn’t pass the Turning test. But as michaelhdrsn, said above, it’s what’s coming that will be of most interest…or maybe most frightening.
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In general, yes, as long as it’s not a spacebar (in a vacuum) or a sound-proofed bar (for whatever reason). But certainly not “against the floor”. Unless it is indeed a spacebar, but this time pressurized. The hero could kind of walk on the “ceiling”, for lack of a better word, and the sound would echo against the “floor”. If that makes sense.
The real problem is: There’s no west in space, and what’s a western without it.
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As someone who trains Ai, I think Gemini is the better tool, not GPT. Gemini is far more powerful when it comes to understanding long strings of text. It can analyze a whole book. Chat GPT struggles with that. Now, scrivener does not have a published APT, so you can’t make plugins anyways. Here is a workaround: If you use your iPad, you can get a Gemini app and add it to your keyboard as an extension. When you open Scrivener, you just write and then tap on your Ai keyboard to edit. Works with Grammarly too.
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