I have been training AI models for a large firm on a team of graduate-degree holding professionals for the last 14 months. Today, o3 mini’s deep research passed an important benchmark of my own efforts, which was identifying a particular critical work regarding a direct relationship to a prompt I ask. This particular prompt refers to a niche (in general) work of literary criticism by Frank Kermode, a literature professor in England in the 20th century.
my prompt: “Can you dive into English literary criticism and tell me how “tick-tock” forms a complete narrative structure or complete narrative unit?****(Are you referring to “tick-tock” as a specific literary term, a structural narrative device, or as used by a particular critic or theorist? Also, are you interested in general applications of this concept in literary criticism, or in relation to specific texts or authors?)****When I write “tick-tock” I refer to a narrative representing the sound a clock makes.”
In the midst of its response, ChatGPT records: “It’s interesting to see “Tick-tock” as a narrative model, echoing Kermode’s idea of human-imposed structure between random events and endpoints. This concept from 1967 is definitely worth exploring further.”
It has yet to finish generating the whole response, but I am so excited by its identification of this idea recorded in Kermode that I rushed to the forum to report it. I have been using this piece of criticism as a litmus test for 2 years, starting with 2022 ChatGPT, and this instance is the first time Kermode has been connected by an AI model!!!