Author’s Note

by Robin Sloan, Emily Reif (Illustrator)

Short story commissioned by Google and produced using a new AI-powered editor called Wordcraft, available to read online at Google's Wordcraft Writers Workshop site.

"On a medium-long drive, an opening line occurred to me. Beside a pool in Fresno, a story took shape. Then, I cracked it, by establishing a fenced-in space for the AI to contribute what it could.
This AI, like many of its predecessors, is very good at “riffing”: given an example, it can generate lots more, often with impressive fidelity to genre and vibe. This new story called for a litany of grisly deaths, so, I asked the AI to dream up grisly deaths. I asked it, also, to tell me the names of the dead: characters from a fantasy saga, cliched in the best possible way. Red meat! This assignment, it could handle.
Now, when you read the story, you’ll know that the litany of deaths is mostly the work of the AI. I prompted and prodded; I curated and edited; I smoothed and re-arranged. But “Captain Cirrus, trampled by a hippopotamus”? That’s 21st-century technology in its fullest bloom bringing you that!" — Robin Sloan

The Wordcraft Writers Workshop is a collaboration between Google's PAIR and Magenta teams, and 13 professional writers from a diverse set of creative writing backgrounds. Together we explore the limits of co-writing with LaMDA and foster an honest and earnest conversation about the rapidly changing relationship between technology and creativity.

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

Robin Sloan is the author of the novels Sourdough, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, and Moonbound, all published in the U.S. by MCD. He grew up in Michigan and now splits his time between the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley of California.