OpenAI says it has trained an AI that’s ‘really good’ at creative writing

Watch out, fiction writers. OpenAI may have you in its crosshairs.

In a post on X on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the company has trained a “new model” that’s “really good” at creative writing. He posted a lengthy sample from the model given the prompt “Please write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief.”

“Not sure yet how/when [this model] will get released,” Altman said, “[but] this is the first time I have been really struck by something written by AI; it got the vibe of metafiction so right.”

Writing fiction isn’t an application of AI that OpenAI has explored much. For the most part, the company has been laser-focused on challenges in more rigid, predictable fields like math and programming. That it’s experimenting with writing could suggest OpenAI feels its latest generation of models vastly improve on the wordsmithing front. Historically, AI hasn’t proven to be an especially talented essayist.