GPT5 and Now What?

I can’t believe I gained followers because I mistakenly pasted a section of my latest chapter into a post. Like our little Quaker Tom, I am thankful for a prayer answered in a strange way, because I really have been asking for encouragement, and your follows have indeed encouraged me.

That being said, I’m not so sure about posting chapters independently going forward because it seems like it would be hard to follow. Anyone with thoughts on the matter please comment.

Meanwhile, I am facing a challenge that will surprise nobody—GPT5 is far less helpful than its predecessor. As I discuss in this video, ChatGPT was amazingly helpful when I started this endeavor and I was even a little concerned it deserved credit for doing a chunk of the work. But as I developed more content I realized that AI is still just a big encyclopedia compiling and spewing back the information that is already out there (inaccuracies and all). Even if it does so in the style of Isaac Asimov.

At the same time, this is not like writing alongside a sane person. In my video I compared it to writing with a brilliant college Freshman, but one that is really not paying attention to what you’re trying to do. It doesn’t get humans at all.

I have come to see AI as the tool that it is, like upgrading from a horse and plow to a tractor. The farmer doesn’t worry that he’s not giving enough credit to the tractor for his increased yield. Rather, he does the work of figuring out the tractor and reaps a fine harvest for his investment. But that was version 4. To carry on my analogy, it’s now as if I had a very serviceable tractor and someone took it away and replaced it with Jeremy Clarkson’s Lamborghini tractor. Which is maddening. [If you don’t get the reference, watch Clarkson’s Farm. Know the plight of the British farmer.]

So now I am halfway through my book, and AI has helped me infuse my story with a glorious depth of Asmovian detail. Maybe too much at times, but if you want to be steeped in 17th century England, you’ll need to wade through some descriptive paragraphs.

Although this may only be true for the first 50,000 pages, because my cohort is suddenly stupid, and not in a brilliant way. Or perhaps it’s now designed to be very unhelpful for authoring novels.

Let me be specific. Whereas before I could ignore its last prompt to rewrite the prior passage with even more detail (and wiping away some really good prose in the process), and instead move on to another question about period or character development, the new version answers my every question by, yes, rewriting the last scene in a novel way. I can’t get it to move on. I am now on my third novel-related session because the first one can’t finish the graphic I requested, and the second one is stuck on the scene rewrites.

Full disclosure…I am writing all of this without paying $20 for a month of the personal plan, so I suppose my next step is to pony up the cash and see if it helps. Although my hopes are not high because I’ve seen a number of complaints about 5 on X and Substack.

Ok enough complaining. For those who are following along, my most recent work fills the gap between the two scenes in Under the Shadow of Persecution where I bring a now-sober Duffy back into the picture. This section also develops Tom’s religious character, as we bring him more in line with the Quaker-famous Thomas Lightfoot who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1712. Let me know your thoughts!

[Picture by Sora, which admittedly builds far better graphics than the ones created in the chatbot]