The definition of science fiction is notoriously hard to tie down. One way of looking at it is as the form of fiction that speculates on the impact of actual or imaginary science and technology. While the world heralds the latest technology and grapples with its consequences, the science fiction world has already explored its potential impact on individuals and society.

With the recent explosion of DALL-E, ChatGPT and other AI systems into our awareness, we are in a truly science-fictional moment in history: here is technology that science fictional writers have speculated about for decades. While this is either ecstatically or shockingly new for most of the world, to science fiction readers and writers it’s a matter of reality catching up to our imaginations. As a collective, we’ve already thought about where AI could take us.

DALL-E is an AI system that creates an image from a description. Here’s one I tried. The following is a description I wrote of a key scene in the first instalment of my serialised novel Conquist that appeared in Aurealis #127:

A black conquistador on horseback in the snow-capped Andes facing a shimmering curtain of light at the entrance of a cave.

DALL-E generated the following four options based on this description within seconds:

ChatGPT creates text from an instruction. Here’s an instruction I gave it:

Write a back cover blurb for CONQUIST, a historical fantasy novel about conquistadors, led by Capitán Cristóbal de Varga, who in their search for gold in 1538 Peru find a portal into a new world that refuses to be conquered, where they are trapped between the warring forces of demonic natives and angelic beings whose morality proves to be less black and white than it appears.

ChatGPT generated this text in a number of seconds:

Get ready to embark on an epic journey as CONQUIST takes you to the front lines of the 16th century conquest of the Americas, where greed and glory collide with the unearthly. Capitán Cristóbal de Varga and his conquistadors embark on a quest for gold in Peru, only to discover a portal to a new world, where the lines of good and evil are blurred. Trapped between the warring forces of demonic natives and angelic beings, they must navigate a dangerous game of alliances and betrayal to survive in a world that refuses to be conquered. Will they emerge with the treasure they seek or be trapped forever in this fantastical realm of moral ambiguities? With richly imagined characters and vivid world-building, CONQUIST is a thrilling historical fantasy that will leave you breathless.

Another instruction I gave ChatGPT was:

Write pop song lyrics praising the speculative fiction magazine Aurealis.

Here’s what it spat out:

Verse 1:

Lost in worlds of fantasy and dreams,

Where dragons soar and magic gleams,

A place where anything can be,

Welcome to the world of Aurealis.

Chorus:

Aurealis, you take us away,

From reality to another place,

With stories that capture our hearts,

And worlds that we never want to part.

Verse 2:

From cyberpunk to epic tales,

With writers that never ever fails,

To take us on a journey through time,

With stories that make our hearts rhyme.

Chorus:

Aurealis, you take us away,

From reality to another place,

With stories that capture our hearts,

And worlds that we never want to part.

Bridge:

A treasure trove of imagination,

A realm of pure creation,

With every turn of the page,

We’re transported to a new age.

Chorus:

Aurealis, you take us away,

From reality to another place,

With stories that capture our hearts,

And worlds that we never want to part.

Outro:

So come on, let’s explore the unknown,

With Aurealis as our guide, we’ll never be alone.

With every issue, a new adventure awaits,

In the world of Aurealis, our imaginations take shape.

In addition to these text-to-image and text-to-text AIs, there are also text-to-music and image-to-video AIs in development.

With anything startingly new, there are the true believers, nay-sayers and head-in-sanders. For those of us into science fiction, this is simultaneously an ‘Oh, wow!’ and ‘Oh, shit!’ moment. We can see both sides. We’ve already pictured the potential future in our imaginations. So, let’s prepare ourselves for the exploration. I’ll be looking at some of the potential implications of this technology in the next issue of Aurealis.

All the best from the cloud!

Dirk Strasser