Artificial Intelligence Tribulations

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I remain concerned about the impact of Artificial Intelligence on human knowledge, understanding, and cognition. Recently, I got a positive response to a story I submitted to a publication, with a request for a rewrite, one of the grounds of which included that I began the story in media res, in the middle of the thing. To them, it was too abrupt. I started with a bit of dialogue between a customer service representative and a customer. They wanted some contextualization of the main character's (the customer service representative) goals and motivations. 

While the editor made some great suggestions about how to improve my story, I disagree on this particular point. I am a strong believer in the in media res technique to invite the reader to imagine the moments before and after the story, to involve them more. The clear cut beginning/middle/end school of fiction tends to dictate the world of the story, rather than invite the reader into it. These discussions are very closely connected to the distinction between story and plot, or in the words of narrative theorists such as Victor Shlovsky and Vladimir Propp, syuzhet and fabula. The syuzhet, or plot, is how the story appears on the page. It is not necessarily in chronological order; it does not necessarily have a clear cut beginning, middle, or end. There may be flashbacks, representations of simultaneity, flash forwards, etc. On the other hand, the fabula is the story in the reader's mind. It represents the reconstruction of the plot in chronological sequence. 

Since I read narrative theory almost twenty years ago, in my defense of the beginning of the story, I wanted to refer to the distinction between syuzhet and fabula. As my memory can sometimes invert terms, I looked up the terms on Microsoft Bing's AI platform and came up with the following result: 

The text on the left and right contradict each other; the text on the right is simply wrong. Fabula is not the "thematic content of a narrative." Syuzhet refers to the plot on the page, not the "chronological sequence of events." Suppose I was a narrative theory novice. If I saw these contradicting accounts and chose the version on the right, I would be deeply misled, and potentially spread this falsehood further than just the encounter between this text and myself. The account on the left, which is the one most eyes not of the Arabic or Jewish world would encounter first, as Hebrew and Arabic are read right to left, is luckily accurate and correct. (This is not to say that bilingual Hebrew and Arabic readers would necessarily do that, but the potential for the assimilation of inaccurate information is higher for them). Therefore, the results of this search reveal the potential for the spread of misinformation is high with the use of this AI platform.