Writers, musicians, painters, and film makers all bring us the human condition through their art.  One might think that over time everything that could be said has been said.  The number of pop songs and poems written about love, loss, anxiety, and dreams is endless.  Yet everyday someone somewhere finds a new way to say what we’re all feeling.  Mallory Smart’s new novel I Keep My Visions To Myself follows Stevie, a musician in LA grappling with success and identity. Over the course of a week Stevie has an existential crisis when her band, Electric Stardust, is on the verge of a life-changing decision. Plagued by past relationships, Stevie navigates life’s path with help from her community. 

When I first heard about the AI program, ChatGPT, I didn’t think too much of it.  You type in a question, and it gives you an answer.  You give it commands and it responds in kind.  I assumed it would be a hyped-up program that would be trendy for a bit then fizzle out, like the AI profile pics I had been seeing.  I was wrong, as I often have been about these kind of things (I didn’t think Facebook or Netflix would last very long).  Then I saw people posting whole essays written by the program.  During a conversation with my brother-in-law, I suddenly saw the potential for writers to use this as a creative new tool.  I could write a book much faster.  I put that thought on the backburner.  Maybe it would be a project for a rainy day.  But I knew that this program wasn’t going to fizzle out.  Then shortly before the start of the new year, Mallory Smart tweeted that she would be releasing a human/AI collaboration book on New Year’s Eve.  My first thought was that the literary world is about to change.  My second thought was, I need to talk to Mallory about this.