AI/ One more small Step

                            Can science fiction be written by or with generative artificial intelligence?
Science fiction was deliberately chosen as the genre rather than crime fiction, romance, or others. Science fiction can deviate from descriptions of the real world in its portrayals, meaning AI cannot fail at describing reality.
The race to the Moon was chosen as the theme. Abundant information is available on this topic that the AI was trained on, giving it the relevant background knowledge.
In practice, the project resulted in 3½ stories. The grandiose and widely held views of ingenious AI were put to the test. The paper explains working with AI and its specific characteristics. The linguistic style of AI responses is noteworthy. An emotional and seemingly understanding mode of expression suggests an intelligence that is not actually present. Current generative AI is a text generator based on probabilistic connections between words and word groups. The results are data constructs from word clouds that the user interprets. The meaning that the user perceives is not inherently contained in the AI's text output.
Software companies have designed AI outputs to make humans suspect intelligence behind them. This sells better than raw data. The user is led to anthropomorphize so-called artificial intelligence. Extensive education about this intelligence effect is necessary. This book aims to make a small contribution to that end.
It is not a scientific study, but rather an application of AI through examples in the nature of a case study. A novel about a novel:
½ Story: Draft for a science fiction about a fake Moon landing
1st Story: The Last Gunslinger - with an unusual ending
2nd Story: The Gunslinger is beamed into the future - a familiar concept
3rd Story: No fake Moon landing, just a small step - a plot ready for film
It becomes clear how word clouds can lead to nested plots. However, in the third story, the AI loses track of the many deceptions it builds into the narrative.
Other highlights also contribute to entertaining readability:
"The sudden flash of a Xaser explosion pierced the artificial twilight like a quantum burst. Jenny instinctively ducked as Wade's weapon seemed to materialize in his hand. But it was just one of the merchant ships firing a warning shot at a rogue asteroid that had drifted too close to their formation."
The AI did not further develop the concept of AI-controlled asteroids. This is likely because the term "asteroid" has little relation to the concept of "control." A human has sufficient imagination to envision an AI-controlled android as a spacecraft or alien probe. AI lacks precisely this capacity for creative interpretation. AI is not creative.
The pathetic ending invites grand interpretations: "Their footprints... marked the beginning of a new chapter in human achievement – one written not in the language of competition, but in the shared history of unleashed human potential. They had gone much further than the Moon, in more ways than one."
Here too: The reader interprets a data construct. But it can be entertaining!