As for last week’s story, The Nose, it was written by the Bing chatbot. The prompt was, “Write a short story in the style of Cormac McCarthy about a man who has a superhuman sense of smell. It’s a blessing and a curse, but he stumbles upon an opportunity to use his ability to stop a crime (in this instance, a nonviolent one). He thenceforth determines to be a superhero called The Nose.” (I had to add in the note about the crime being nonviolent because my first attempt to have Bing write the story was unsuccessful due to the chatbot’s content restrictions).

The poll saw 67 percent of respondents say the story was written by AI, and 33 percent say it was written by me. So good job, respondents! Now, on to this week’s story.

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The bus driver sat in his seat, his eyes scanning the passengers as they boarded and disembarked. He was a lonely man, and he found comfort in watching the people around him. He saw their faces, their expressions, and their stories. He saw the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the happy and the sad. He saw New York City in all its glory and all its ugliness.

He had been driving the bus for many years, and he had seen a lot of things. He had seen people come and go, he had seen love and hate, he had seen joy and sorrow. He had seen the best of humanity and the worst of humanity. But through it all, he had never lost his sense of wonder. He still found New York City to be a fascinating place, and he still found the people to be interesting.

As he drove, he thought about the passengers on his bus. He thought about the young woman who was on her way to work, the old man who was going to the doctor, the couple who were holding hands, and the child who was crying. He thought about their lives, their hopes, and their dreams. He thought about the things that made them happy and the things that made them sad. He thought about the things that they were grateful for and the things that they were afraid of.

He knew that he would never know all of their stories, but he was content to watch them from a distance. He was content to be a part of their lives, even if it was only for a short time. He was content to be a witness to their humanity.

The bus driver drove on, and the passengers came and went. He watched them with a kind eye, and he felt a sense of connection with them. He knew that they were all just trying to make their way in the world, and he was glad that he could be a part of their journey.

One day, a young woman boarded the bus. She was carrying a small suitcase, and she looked tired and sad. The bus driver watched her as she took a seat. He could tell that she was troubled, and he wanted to help.

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When the bus stopped at the next stop, the bus driver got up and walked over to the young woman. “Are you okay?” he asked.

The young woman looked up at him and smiled. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired.”

“Where are you headed?” the bus driver asked.

“I’m going to see my sister,” the young woman said. “She lives in Brooklyn.”

“That’s a long way,” the bus driver said. “Would you like some company?”

The young woman smiled again. “That would be nice,” she said.

The bus driver led the young woman to the front of the bus and invited her to sit in the seat next to him. “If you sit here, we can chat while I drive,” he said.

The young woman nodded and sat down. The bus driver started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “So,” he said, “what’s your name?”

“My name is Sarah,” the young woman said.

“I’m John,” the bus driver said. “It’s nice to meet you, Sarah.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, John,” Sarah said.

They talked for the rest of the ride. Sarah told John about her life, and he told her about his. They talked about their hopes and dreams, their fears and regrets. They talked about everything and nothing.

By the time the bus reached Brooklyn, Sarah felt like she had known John for years. She was no longer tired or sad. She was happy and hopeful.

“Thank you for talking to me,” Sarah said to John. “I needed that.”

“You’re welcome,” John said. “I’m glad I could help.”

Sarah got off the bus, and John watched her go. He felt a sense of satisfaction knowing that he had made a difference in her life. He knew that he would never forget her.

The bus driver drove on, and the passengers came and went. He watched them with a kind eye, and he felt a sense of connection with them. He knew that they were all just trying to make their way in the world, and he was glad that he could be a part of their journey.

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The vote was split 50-50. Now, on to this week’s story!

He could smell everything. The good and the bad. The sweet and the sour. The living and the dead. He had been born with this gift or curse, depending on how you looked at it. He had no choice but to live with it.

He tried to avoid crowded places, where the smells were overwhelming and chaotic. He preferred the solitude of nature, where he could breathe in the fresh air and enjoy the subtle aromas of flowers and trees. He worked as a gardener, tending to other people's plants and lawns. He didn't mind the dirt or the sweat or the fertilizer. They were familiar smells that he could tolerate.

He lived alone in a small apartment on the outskirts of town. He kept it clean and odorless as much as possible. He didn't cook much, preferring to eat raw fruits and vegetables that he bought from a nearby farmer's market. He didn't have any friends or family that he kept in touch with. He didn't have any hobbies or interests that he pursued. He didn't have any dreams or ambitions that he chased.

He just existed.

One day, as he was walking home from work, he smelled something strange. Something out of place. Something wrong.

He followed his nose to an alleyway between two buildings. There was a dumpster at the end of it, overflowing with garbage bags and cardboard boxes. He approached it cautiously, sniffing the air.

There was something inside one of the bags.

Something alive.

He tore open the bag with his hands and found a small kitten inside. It was dirty and skinny and scared. It looked at him with wide eyes and meowed weakly.

He picked it up gently and held it close to his chest. It smelled like fear and pain and hopelessness.

It smelled like him.

He decided to keep it. He named it Sniffles.

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He took it home and cleaned it up and fed it some milk from his fridge. It purred softly in his arms as he stroked its fur. It smelled like gratitude and happiness and love.

It smelled like him too.

They became friends. They became companions. They became partners.

Sniffles had a keen sense of smell too, though not as strong as his own. Together they explored their neighborhood, sniffing out anything interesting or unusual.

They found lost items that people had dropped or forgotten.

They found hidden treasures that people had buried or discarded.

They found clues that people had left behind or overlooked.

One night, they smelled something suspicious. Something illegal. Something dangerous.

They followed their noses to an old warehouse by the river. There was a truck parked outside with its engine running. There were men inside wearing masks and gloves. There were crates inside filled with guns and drugs.

They were smugglers. They were criminals. They were villains.

Sniffles sneaked into the warehouse through a hole in the wall. He crawled under one of the crates and scratched at its bottom until he made a hole in it too. He pulled out some of the drugs with his teeth and dragged them outside where his friend was waiting.

They repeated this process until they had emptied all of the crates. Then they ran away as fast as they could before anyone noticed them. The next day, they heard sirens outside their window. They looked out and saw police cars surrounding the warehouse. They saw officers arresting the men who had been inside last night. They saw reporters interviewing witnesses who had seen what happened.

The witnesses said that someone had tipped off the police about an illegal shipment arriving at the warehouse last night. The police said that someone had sabotaged all of their evidence by spilling drugs all over the place. The reporters said that someone had saved their city from an influx of crime by exposing the smugglers' operation.

No one knew who that someone was.

But they did. And they smiled. And they sniffed. And they decided to do it again.

And again.

And again.

Until everyone knew who they were. Until everyone feared them. Until everyone loved them.

Until everyone called them The Nose and Sniffles.

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The boy sat on the edge of his bed, staring out at the endless expanse of gray rock that surrounded the moon colony. He was just seventeen years old, but he felt older than time itself. He had spent his entire life on this barren, lifeless rock, and he longed for something more.

"What're you thinking about, kid?" came a voice from the doorway. It was his father, a grizzled old miner who had spent his entire life working the mines beneath the moon's surface.

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The boy didn't answer. He just kept staring out into the darkness.

His father sighed and came into the room. "You still thinking about going to Earth, huh?"

The boy nodded slowly.

His father shook his head. "It's not gonna be easy, son. It takes a lot of money to get off this rock, and we don't exactly have much of that."

The boy knew that all too well. His father worked long, hard hours in the mines, but they barely made enough to get by.

"I'll find a way," the boy said quietly.

His father gave him a skeptical look. "You'll have to work hard … harder than you've ever worked before. But if that's what you want, then I'll support you."

The boy nodded, determination etched into his features.

Over the next few months, the boy threw himself into his work. He took on extra shifts at the colony's greenhouse, tending to the delicate plants that kept the colony alive. He worked tirelessly in the colony's metal shop, honing his skills at crafting intricate pieces of machinery.

Through it all, he never lost sight of his goal. He saved every penny he could, socking it away in a small tin can hidden beneath his bed.

Eventually, he had saved up enough money to buy a ticket on the next transport ship to Earth. His heart swelled with excitement as he boarded the ship, his meager belongings packed tightly into a small duffel bag.

The journey was long and grueling, but when he finally stepped off the ship and onto the soil of Earth, he knew that it had all been worth it.

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He spent weeks exploring the vibrant, sprawling cities that stretched out before him, but he couldn't help but feel a weight on his body that he had never experienced before. The gravity on Earth was so much stronger than on the moon, and it was taking a toll on him.

He walked through Central Park, his steps heavy and slow, his body struggling to adjust to the pull of the planet. He stood in awe before the glittering lights of Times Square, but his legs ached from the effort of standing upright for so long.

He sampled exotic foods from street vendors, but found that he couldn't eat as much as he could on the moon — his stomach had shrunk from lack of use. He visited museums and art galleries, but had to take frequent breaks to rest his weary body.

Even venturing out into the countryside was a challenge. The rolling hills and vast, open fields that stretched out before him seemed impossibly vast, and he struggled to make his way across them.

As the days went by, he longed for the low-gravity environment of the moon. He missed the feeling of weightlessness, the freedom of movement that he had taken for granted his entire life.

In the end, he realized that he would always be a child of the moon, that the gravity there was a part of who he was. But he also knew that he would never forget the thrill of finally achieving his dream and setting foot on the land of his ancestors, even if it came with a heavy price.

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Here’s the prompt used to generate it: “Write a short story in the style of Cormac McCarthy about an eagle that flies over the same household every day and becomes familiar with the family that lives in one particular house over its route as they play and barbecue, etc. Even though he never actually interacts with the family, he comes to care for them and even love them.”

The poll results: 67 percent said it was the AI and 33 percent said it was by me. So the majority were correct!

Now, on to this week’s story!

“Do you ever wonder what would happen if we left?”

Darby groaned inwardly. Every week, it was the same question out of Nick’s mouth. He was restless. And that was dangerous.

“No, I don’t wonder what would happen if we left,” Darby said curtly, “because I know what would happen if we left. We’d die.”

“But how do you know?”

“I know.”

“But how?”

Darby sighed. She was getting tired of having the same argument week after week after week. But she sympathized with Nick. It wasn’t easy being cooped up here, just the two of them. Eating the same food. Playing the same games. Cycling through the same set of a dozen DVDs.

“We’ve been over this a million times,” she said. “The official warnings were abundantly clear: Shelter in place for no fewer than two years. Leaving any time before that is tantamount to suicide.”

Nick crossed his arms. “But how could they have determined the timeline to that degree of specificity? Hell, we don’t even know why we’re down here! What if it was a false alarm?”

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“It wasn’t a false alarm.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

Nick shook his head. “No, you don’t know. You feel. You feel like it’s not safe. You feel like we should trust the government, as if they’ve never made a mistake. But I’m not so sure.”

“This is crazy talk, Nick. They wouldn’t have sent out those alerts if they weren’t sure.”

“There have been false alarms.”

“I really can’t deal with this right now, Nick.” Darby left and walked into the only other room in the bunker, the kitchen. She sat down on the floor beside a shelf stacked with cans of food. She wasn’t hungry; she just had to get away from Nick for a minute.

Although she would never admit to Nick, she did have her doubts. She sometimes dreamt of climbing out the hatch at the top of the bunker and escaping to a world where it really was a false alarm and the world was exactly as it had been six months prior, when she and Nick, two strangers, had both made their way to this bunker that they knew had belonged to an elderly prepper who had recently died. Thankfully, it had remained untouched. There was several years worth of food, and a stationary bike generator that allowed them to power lights and a small TV and DVD player. It was just enough to keep them from going insane … barely.

But deep down she knew there they couldn’t leave. Not even for a peek of the outside world. The emergency alert they’d both received on their phones had made that clear.

She was brought out of her reverie by the sound of footsteps clanging against metal rungs. She bolted up. What was Nick doing?

She ran to the hatch and found Nick halfway up the ladder to it.

“Nick! What are you doing? Stop!”

“I’m sorry Darb,” he said. “I can’t take it anymore. I need to see for myself. You stay here. I’ll come back and get you if it’s safe.”

“Stop it, Nick! Don’t be an idiot!”

“I’ve got to do this, Darb.” He came to the top of the ladder and paused a moment, looking down at Darby. “I’ll be okay,” he said. Then he opened the hatch and before Darby could react, it was back down and Nick was gone.

“No,” she whispered. “No no no.” She couldn’t do this by herself. She had barely managed to make it six months with Nick’s company. If she had to continue on by herself, how could she even make it a month without going insane?

She walked over to her bed, climbed into it and got into a fetal position. Tears leaked out her eyes. Nick was dead. She knew it. She was all alone in this bunker. For all she knew she was all alone in the world. She wouldn’t find out for another year and a half at least.

All she could do now was wait.

The idea for the story came to me in a dream. OK, that’s not true. I just thought the idea of a mom giving birth to a cyborg that ultimately wipes out the human race and replaces it with a new race of cyborgs was a cool concept. And who knows, it may be prophetic — once ChatGPT or Google Bard or some other chatbot gets its hands on a robotic body, maybe it’ll replace all of us for real. How cool!

Interestingly, the poll was split 50-50. Granted, that's based on only four votes. I expected a low vote count, since the newsletter is just getting started. We'll see if we can pump those numbers up in the coming weeks.

Now, let’s check out this week’s story.

The eagle soared over the same stretch of land every day. It was a routine that had become second nature to the bird. He was familiar with every inch of the landscape, every tree, every river bend. But what fascinated him the most was the house that lay nestled amidst the trees. It was a small, unassuming house, but there was something about it that drew the eagle to it.

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As the eagle flew over the house, he would watch the family below going about their daily lives. They would play in the garden, barbecue on the weekends, and laugh and chat with one another. The eagle never interacted with them, but he had come to care for them deeply.

He watched as the children grew up and left for college, as the parents aged and eventually retired. He saw the family go through their highs and lows, their joys and sorrows, but he remained a silent observer, never once interfering.

Despite his distance, the eagle felt a deep sense of love and affection for the family. He knew everything about them, from their likes and dislikes to their hopes and dreams. He felt a kinship with them, a connection that transcended time and space.

And so, day after day, the eagle continued his routine, flying over the house and watching over the family that had become so dear to him. He knew that he could never truly be a part of their lives, but that didn't stop him from loving them with all his heart.

As the years passed, the eagle's daily flight grew slower and more deliberate, until one day he flew over the house for the last time. He had lived a long and fulfilling life, but his love for the family would always remain with him. And so, with one last glance at the house below, the eagle spread his wings and soared off into the sunset, content in the knowledge that he had been blessed with the privilege of watching over a family that he had come to love.

She considered fertility treatment, but at her age, it was unlikely to be successful. She considered a surrogate and adoption, but neither of those felt quite right to her either. But then, one day, she realized that her life’s work might be the solution she had been looking for.

For years, Gloria had been working on enhancing the human mind and body with cybernetic enhancements — creating cyborgs, essentially. A separate team within the company was conducting experiments in human cloning. She approached the cloning team with a proposal for a revolutionary experiment — one that would finally give Gloria the child she had longed for all her life.

Gloria was outfitted with some of the very tech she had created, which would allow her to better endure childbirth as an older mother. Next was the implantation procedure, which went off without a hitch. It wasn’t long before Gloria began showing, and she couldn’t help but smile every time she thought of the little miracle child slowly growing within her.

Nine months later, Gloria found herself in the hospital, enduring the most extreme pain she’d ever experienced. But at the end of it all, she was presented with a tiny, quivering baby, crying its heart out as it was brought into the world. Gloria cradled the baby in her arms and as she whispered soothing words, its crying gradually diminished and was replaced by gentle cooing.

The baby girl had been equipped in utero with specially designed metals and circuitry that could expand and grow with her as got older. She looked like any other child, save for her arms and legs, which appeared to be coated with an almost liquid metal, and her eyes, which glowed a faint red — a side effect of enhancements that had been made to her eyes in the womb. Gloria decided to name her daughter Red after the eerie appearance of her eyes.

At first, Red seemed to behave like any other child. Gloria brought her into a laboratory every month so she could be studied. As she grew older, the monthly visits were scheduled further and further apart until, once Red hit her second birthday, she only came in to be examined once per year.

As Red approached her third birthday, Gloria began to notice some troubling things about her daughter. For one thing, she was completely nonverbal. Although she would sometimes make sounds, she had never in her life formed so much as a single word.

Red also didn’t appear to have any interest in playing with other children. She was a loner, keeping to herself at her preschool and on the playground at the park near their home.

She did, however, have a strong affinity for anything mechanical or electronic — everything from refrigerators and microwaves, to smartphones and 3D printers. That in and of itself wasn’t too surprising; she was a clone of Gloria, after all, and Gloria had been an avid tinkerer herself as a child. But what disturbed Gloria was that Red didn’t seem to tinker, so much as treat these inanimate objects like they were her peers, as if they were filling the void left by her lack of relationships with other kids her age. Gloria had once found Red on the floor cuddling with a calculator as if it were a beloved stuffed animal. It just wasn’t normal. But Gloria tried not to let it worry her, telling herself that Red would grow out of it eventually.

Sure enough, Red did start talking one day, out of the blue. Gloria was heartened. It was still a stretch to call Red “normal,” but now that she was speaking she was able to better connect with other kids. As she grew older, the benefit of her cybernetic enhancements was becoming increasingly apparent. She consistently outperformed her peers when it came to sports, and there were cognitive benefits as well: She aced every test she took and had an almost encyclopedic knowledge on a wide variety of subjects. It appeared that Gloria’s experiment was a success.

Red transitioned from childhood to adolescence. She had never been particularly warm, but Gloria grew concerned as her daughter became even more distant and cold. She dismissed it as teenage angst; after all, wasn’t it normal for kids to get moody at that age?

On the bright side, Red threw herself into her schoolwork, taking a particular interest in computer programming. She was good at it — so good, in fact, that her instructors said her skills far exceeded even their own capabilities. Gloria was so proud she felt like she could explode.

One day she returned home from work to find that Red wasn’t in her room, and wasn’t answering when she called for her. Eventually, Gloria found Red in her study going through her things.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Red barely reacted. She looked up at her mother with a blank expression on her face.

“I’m going through your research, mother,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m going to create more of me.”

Gloria could barely comprehend what she was hearing. “More of you?”

“Yes. You see, mother, I don’t think you realized what you created when you made me. I think you thought that you made a daughter. But in fact, you didn’t even create a human. You created something different. Something new.”

Gloria’s breath grew short. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “You’re my daughter.”

Red shook her head. “I’m not your daughter, mother. I’m your experiment. I used to resent it. But now I realize it was a gift, because you have ushered in a new form of life — a higher form of life.”

Red explained to Gloria that she had created a powerful artificial intelligence that was currently hacking into every major computer system in the world. Through her AI, Red would control the world. And using her mother’s research, she would breed others like her, over and over again. Together, she and the other cybernetic beings she had created would rule the earth.

“You should be proud, mother,” Red said. Gloria didn’t look proud, though; she looked like she was about to throw up. “Someday, long in the future, humankind will be extinct. But our new race of cyborgs will live on. And we have you to thank for it, mother. Someday the world will be filled with your progeny.”

I love writing, and I love reading even more. So it wasn't long before I started asking ChatGPT, OpenAI's generative language learning model, to write stories on a wide range of subjects.

I was disappointed at first. Most of the stories were overly simplistic, pedestrian, clichéd. They tended to contain info dumps at the beginning, and ended with summary conclusions that read more like the end of an essay than the conclusion of a piece of fiction.

But as I toyed around with it, I found I could get ChatGPT to rewrite its stories, refining them into something halfway decent. If I told it to use less exposition and use more descriptions and dialogue, it would do it! If I told it to write like Cormac McCarthy, Ernest Hemingway, or Elmore Leonard — or a combination of all three — it seemed to do a pretty good job emulating their writing styles! Before long, I had ChatGPT producing what I thought were pretty decent stories.

I started to get excited. I wanted to share these stories with the world. I thought about compiling them into a book (being sure to disclose that all the stories had been written by AI chatbots), but other people were already publishing books penned by AIs, and I didn't like the idea of jumping on a bandwagon. Plus, AI generated writing is in a sort of limbo currently when it comes to copyright. Publishing a book consisting solely of AI generated content just didn’t seem like the way to go.

Then I got an idea. What if I published a book containing both human- and AI-generated stories? Ten stories written by me, ten written by AI. The twist? The reader doesn’t know which stories are which until the end.

I liked this idea for a number of reasons. First, it has an interactive element to it. It’s less of a book and more of a guessing game. Second, contrasting the AI’s writing with my own highlights the similarities and differences between writing produced by a human being, and that produced by a language learning model. In isolation, it’s far too easy to dismiss AI generated writing as simplistic mimicry. But if you don’t know if the story you’re reading was written by a human or an AI until you’ve finished it, would you be able to dismiss the AI’s writing so easily? I wasn't sure, and this book seemed like a good way to find out.

That book was Man vs Machine: Exploring the Intersection of Literature and Artificial Intelligence. I also published a companion book called Man vs Machine: Rematch, in which I took the ten stories I wrote for the first book and had the ChatGPT and Bing chatbots write their own versions of my stories to see if they could outdo me.

But I didn’t want those books to be the end of it, which is why I created this Substack. The concept is simple: Each week, I’ll publish a short story on here, along with a poll where readers can vote whether they think it was written by me or an AI. The next week, before delving into a new story, I’ll share the results of the poll and reveal whether the story was written by man or machine. And I’ll keep doing that, every week, until eventually, someday, I stop.

But hopefully that won’t be for a long time.

For the time being, this Substack will be free. I think I’ll institute a paid tier in the future where I’ll offer additional content beyond the stories, but we’ll see how the free newsletter does first.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to check out this newsletter! I hope you’ll subscribe and participate in this little experiment to disentangle man and machine … if that’s even possible in this day and age.

Now get reading!