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Prompting
1

A monologue in which a manic Will Ferrell explains how important it is for the surviving members of ZZ Top and Rush to form a supergroup.

[davinci-instruct-beta; response length: 672; temp: 0.67; TopP: 0.75; Frequency penalty: 0.76; Presence penalty: 0.81; Best of: 1]

I have a vision. I see the future of rock and roll, and it is magnificent. It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in Houston, Texas, the day after Thanksgiving 2006. The air is crisp and cool, but not cold enough to freeze my balls off just yet. I am sitting on my porch with an old friend of mine who happens to be one of the most famous musicians in all of rock history—Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top!

“What are you doing this morning?” Billy asks me as he lights up his cigar.

“Not much,” I reply, “just enjoying the weather.”

“Would you like to go for a ride?” Billy says with that sly grin that always makes me think he knows something that I don’t know.

And so we’re driving down Highway 59 when suddenly there’s this bright light coming towards us out of nowhere! We both look at each other with wide eyes before realizing what it was: Rush just drove by us on their way back from Cleveland where they were doing some kind of reunion tour or something! And then we started thinking about how great it would be if those two bands got together and formed a supergroup called “ZZ-RUSH!” That would be fucking AWESOME!!!

“Billy, do you think we could get those two bands to form a supergroup called ‘ZZ-RUSH?’” I ask him.

“I don’t know,” he replies, “but if anybody can do it, it’s us.”

“ZZ-RUSH!” I say, and we both start laughing.

“ZZ-RUSH!” Billy says, and we both start laughing.

“ZZ-RUSH!” I say, and we both start laughing.

“ZZ-RUSH!” Billy says, and we both start laughing.

It’s like the laughter of gods! And then I realize that this is what it must have been like when Zeus and Apollo laughed together for the first time.

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Actually, I tried other prompts, with the same settings, but retained the underlying grammar, and they also came out hilarious. I wonder if there’s a sweet spot in which the right grammatical structure and the right settings can yield more consistent results. " An on-stage rant in which very angry Dave Chappelle demands that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induct Toad the Wet Sprocket." also turned out well. The structure of that prompt and the Will Ferrell one are close.

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My impression is that we should consider the prompt as an algorithm itself. That’s what grammar does, set a certain sequence of words in a specific order to achieve a certain result. I’m finding that there are certain pop culture figures who have left strong verbal imprints on our culture that GPT-3 can really pick up on. Snoop Dogg, Dave Chappelle, Fran Leibowitz.

To me, this is like a piano player encountering a synthesizer for the first time. I don’t see GPT-3 or any AI replacing writers at all. We often make the mistake of thinking technologies replace things rather than displace them. The distinction is important. I’ve been walking around thinking about how this represents new genres rather than eliminating the role of the writer.

I also think that creativity often means connecting elements that have never previously been connected. Writers like Tom Robbins and Mark Leyner always thrilled me because you couldn’t predict how a sentence would end based on how it began. GPT-3 seems to really dig when you offer a prompt that provides unconventional juxtapositions.

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