Is AI going to replace you?

As I was compiling a collection of short stories last month, I decided, on a whim, to ask ChatGPT to write a short story in the style of J J Rich.  I was fully expecting it to go “Who?” and say that it couldn’t because it hadn’t got enough information.   But it’s a resourceful beast and came up with the following, which I shall quote verbatim:

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I couldn’t find any publicly available information about a writer named ‘J J Rich’ beyond his author page, where Jonathan Rich – formerly a television scriptwriter for two decades – now writes novels under the pen name J J Rich.  Without broader samples of his writing or commentary on his style, I’ll take inspiration from what we know:

• His novel Bagman has been described as “self‑deprecating humour and heart‑warming honesty,” weaving “a colourful, musical world into the unassuming fabric of Burgess Hill” (Goodreads).

• He brings warmth and tension into his characters – readers “instantly warm to and want to support them” (Amazon).

So, I’ll channel that vibe in a short story: light-hearted, gently humorous, musical undertones, grounded in everyday life, with characters you immediately root for.

Short Story: “Midnight Strings”

Tom leaned his guitar against the cafe’s wall and took a deep breath. He’d promised himself: tonight, he’d play. Just one song.

The place was a snug little corner of Brighton, all mismatched stools and soft yellow bulbs. It seemed quieter than usual – save for a lone figure at the back, a young woman scribbling in a battered notebook.

Tom looked down at the strings on his guitar. They were a bit rusty, just like him – two years of skipping temple gigs, music store hours, and waiting tables had done their best to dull him. But the melody he’d been carrying in his head wouldn’t let go.

He strummed the first chord.

It wasn’t perfect. In fact, it cracked a little. But that crack carried something honest – a whisper of hope.

The woman looked up, eyebrows raised. A gentle smile. Encouragement? Or polite curiosity? Either way, it grounded him.

He played the rest of the song, a soft, self-deprecating confession about dreaming too big for a town small enough to lose your hopes in. He sang about late-night bubble-wrap guitars and second-hand chords, more earnest than polished – but that was the point.

When the final note faded, silence – warm, familiar silence. Then a slow clap from the back. The woman stood and stepped forward, her notebook tucked under her arm.

“That was…unexpectedly brilliant,” she said, voice warm, maybe a touch of surprise. “You made me believe in music again.”

Tom’s cheeks warmed – not bad for a Tuesday evening.

A few moments later, as she introduced herself (Clara) and asked if he’d stick around, Tom realized something: the dream wasn’t over. Not tonight. Not when a single crackling chord could light up someone else’s heart.

He picked up his guitar, tucked it under his arm, and with a crooked, hopeful grin, said, “Mind if I show you another song?”

Clara shook her head. “Please.”

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I hope this evokes that J J Rich energy – humble yet warm, music-tinged, everyday characters with quiet resilience. Let me know if you’d like a different tone or setting!

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‘That J J Rich energy’?  I didn’t even know there was such a thing. What can I say?  The story wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting – or indeed hoping.  That said, it’s very short (a mere 318 words, including the title) and there’s not a whole lot of plot.  It’s picked up that I live in Brighton, that one of the characters in Bagman is called Clara (so it’s a name that I must like) and also that I’m fond of guitars.   But there are also the kind of oddities that we have currently come to expect from AI: I don’t know where the ‘temple gigs’ came from and I have absolutely no idea what ‘late night bubble wrap guitars’ are.  Nor, I suspect, does ChatGPT.

Was I tempted to request a different tone or setting?  Did I want to collaborate further with my new writing partner to refine the story and make it better?  If I’m honest, I was a bit too scared to get into all that. Scared because I don’t want AI to be better than me.

What it produced was something safe, bland, inoffensive and neutral.  Essentially, it aims low and reaches its target.  AI is the ultimate people-pleaser.  It does what it’s told and gives you the answers that it thinks you want.  Hence its current ability to hallucinate ‘facts’.  That’s somehow comforting.

Based on its own breakdown of the brief, I guess it wasn’t too bad a job.  But this was written in August 2025.  We are told that AI is getting better, wiser and cleverer at pace, with every passing day.  Even by the time you read this, AI may be able to do a much better job.  And what then?  That’s what scares me.  How long will it be before I’m gasping in admiration at what it can do and admitting that the story it has produced is better than anything that I could ever write.  That’s not comforting at all.

So, to answer the question, while AI might not be able to replace any author right now, it may just be a matter of time before derivative, predictable and cliché-filled imitation is replaced by something that manages to emulate character and originality. And that’s not something that I shall be celebrating.

Happy non-AI-assisted writing!