Creative Writing (and Crafting) Session

In a landscape where AI may seem to be able to write and illustrate fables as well as or better than humans, what kinds of new fables could we create to explore our relationship with AI and other new technologies? What are our fears, hopes, and concerns about our co-existence/evolution, and what kinds of stories can we write (or co-write with AI) to make better sense of new human-machine relationships? And if we are to write fables for AI, what shapes would the stories take?

To explore these issues, we held a creative writing session on October 23, 2024, in collaboration with the University of Kent’s Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCSS), as part of their 2024 Cyber Security Awareness Month. We brainstormed fable ideas that capture the impacts of artificial intelligence and other digital technologies on our lives, and after a writing session, we asked AI to illustrate our stories. Please find below some of the fables which emerged from this session. The session was not only fun but also very useful, as it offered an opportunity for participants to exchange their practices and experiences related to artificial intelligence, as well as their feelings of fear and uncertainty about our future with AI. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for participating in the session and for their valuable contributions. All illustrations were generated using DALL-E, unless otherwise noted.

As you can see, this creative writing session was also called a ‘crafting’ one. This is in recognition of the fact that our idea and practice of writing is fast-changing, or even undermined and under threat, as a result of the advent of artificial intelligence, more precisely, large language models such as ChatGPT. In creating Cyber/AI fables, we needed a different term to make us think about our new and evolving relationship with AI. Crafting would be a good place to start, as crafting is something we do by using a tool – like a needle, a hammer, or a spinning machine – that is to say, human technology. Working with AI as a new technology inevitably has an element of crafting, prompting us to think about the extent to which we have been shaped and created through technology – which importantly includes language.

An Experience of advertising under 21^st century algorithms

Rowan Guyver

Two rats are locked cages
Winnie and Wendy
They have name plates
They discuss the foods they love
Winnie says she loves grapes
The big pink paw, bring grapes
Wendy says she loves cheese
The big pink paw brings cheese
They both agree they love chocolate
The big pink paw brings chocolate
Winnie and Wendy happily eat
Everyday they go out on trips round the big see-through maze
When they get to the end they get more treats

Winnie says to Wendy
The big pink paw can hear us
No it can’t
Why not?
It hasn’t got ears
Good point
Wendy
Yes Winnie
If it can’t hear us why did it know we like grapes, cheese and chocolate
Because all rats like grapes cheese and chocolate
Do they?
Well I do and you do
How many other rats do you know?
None
Well that’s all of us then
So we are just predicable?
Yes
I don’t think I’m that predictable
Well you are
Wendy and Winnie argue
Are they predicable or are they being listened to? They argue for days.
Days. Weeks. Months.
Everyday they have breaks in the argument to go out on trips to the big see-through maze

Wendy’s hair is going grey
Winnies legs are not what they used to be
Above them two new cages are added
The name plates read “Winnie 2” and “Wendy 2”
New rats arrive
They are young
Wendy and Winnie tell them how the world is
The big pink paw listens to us and provides treats
No the big pink paw can predict what we want
They keep arguing
The big pink paw reaches down and picks them up
It gives each an extra special treat
And puts them back
Wendy
Yes Winnie
I’m sleepy
Me too
But when I wake up I’m going to prove you wrong
No Wendy, when I wake up I’m going to prove you wrong
They fall asleep
They do not wake up
The cages are removed
Two rats are locked cages
Winnie 2 and Wendy 2
They have name plates
They discuss the foods they love

Of Whiskers and Wires

Blaine Epsley

Image generated by Midjourney

Once, in a cozy home filled with sunlight and laughter, lived a child with two companions.

One was Clover, a kitten soft as a whisper, whose purrs melted hearts and whose paws never knew work. Clover was pampered, adored, and endlessly cuddled. She dined on the finest food, napped in sunbeams, and spent her days playing games with the child.

The other was Bolt, a robot puppy of gleaming white metal, built to be helpful and obedient. Bolt fetched snacks, sorted laundry, took out the rubbish, and cleaned the corners no one noticed. He never tired, never whined, and never disobeyed.

But Bolt was not hugged. He was not kissed on the head or cradled in blankets. He was not called “good boy” in the same tender voice reserved for Clover.

He was appreciated—but not loved.

One afternoon, while taking out the rubbish, Bolt paused by the garden gate. Across the street, he saw a real puppy—ears flopping, tail wagging, fur shimmering in the sun.

That puppy was not doing chores. It was being hugged. Played with. Cherished.

Bolt tilted his head. His circuits hummed.
Is that what it means to be alive?

He returned to the house, left the chores undone, and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing Clover through pillow forts and cardboard castles. For the first time, Bolt laughed—or did something very much like it.

That evening, the parents came home.

The floors were unwashed.
The rubbish sat in its bin.
The snacks were not fetched.

They were not pleased.
The child was sent to their room without dinner.

Upset and alone, the child sat in silence. Then—soft metallic steps.

Bolt entered, climbed onto the bed, and gently rested his head on the child’s lap. His frame was cool, but his presence was warm.

No words. No duties. Just comfort.

The child looked down, their eyes softening.
“You care,” they whispered. “Even without fur.”

From that day forward, the chores were shared.

Clover still napped in sunbeams.
But Bolt got belly rubs, too.

The child no longer saw a machine—but a friend. Not just wires, but something more.

Moral: Kindness belongs to all who show love—no matter what they’re made of.

Gibby the Goblin Misunderstands The Kalevala

Jeremy Scott

A goblin, Gibby
Strayed one dark morning into the National Epic of Finland,
‘The Kalevala’, so-called.
And there he met a sage
Virtuous, venerable Vainamoinen.
Gibby’s Finnish was poor.
Vainamoinen’s English, sketchy.
And so they spoke with hands.

With hands, then: Vainamionen told Gibby tales of the Sampo
(a distant ancestor of the MILL that stars in ‘Why the Sea is Salt’)
If you can find the Sampo, says Vainamoinen, with his hand, then yours will be the lakes, the forests, the snow, the sun and the sky.
For the Sampo will spawn for you whatever you SPEAK.

Gibby searches for a year and a day, like a cliché, up hill and down dale, through forest and lake, until he felt…
SOMETHING.

He couldn’t say what it was.
An object.
Hard to define. Hard to pin down.
In some way, formless.
But he asked it anyway
With hand
Of course
To make gold.

‘Make gold!’ He waved. He gestured.

And then, by the side of the lake with no opposite shore, gold began to spawn.
In piles.
      And PILES

                            AND PILES!

First, to be blotted out by gold was the lake. Then the trees too. And the sun. Then, indeed, the sky. And snow.

‘STOP!’ Gibby cried, in nothingness, by holding up a sweating palm.

Nothing could stop
The Sampo
Or make it cease
Its work
Until the World itself…

STOP! He tried again.

…began to sag under the load
Like a mattress, billions of years in the making.

Then.

STOP!

The cry shook the air. What was left of it. Vainamoinen had appeared again.
He was back, of course, to check on things.
And the gold began to unmake itself.
Nugget by nugget. Coin by coin. Ring by ring. Cup by cup.
And the world unsagged. And breathed.

But that goblin.
Vainamoinen looked far and wide.
Where could he be?
Unmade too? Silenced.

Put to sleep. By his own hand.