AI-generated stories are improving, yet skepticism remains towards art made by artificial intelligence.
Recent research shows that narratives created by the newest version of ChatGPT are almost on par with those crafted by humans.
However, when individuals learned that a story originated from AI—regardless of whether it truly was created by an algorithm or a human—they rated it unfavorably. This indicates a prevailing distrust and aversion towards artworks generated by AI.
“People tend to react negatively when they suspect a story is generated by AI, even if that isn’t the case,” stated Haoran “Chris” Chu, Ph.D., a professor of public relations at the University of Florida and co-author of the study. “While AI can produce content that is consistent, logical, and coherent, it still struggles to create engaging stories as effectively as humans do.”
The quality of stories generated by AI could prove beneficial for public health professionals aiming to craft compelling narratives to promote healthy actions, such as vaccinations, noted Chu, an authority on public health and science communication. He and his research partner, Sixiao Liu, Ph.D., from the University of Central Florida, shared their findings on September 13 in the Journal of Communication.
In their experiment, the researchers presented participants with two versions of the same narrative: one penned by a human and the other by ChatGPT. Participants then rated their level of engagement with each story.
To assess the impact of perceptions regarding AI on the participants’ ratings, Chu and Liu varied the labels of the stories. At times, the AI-generated story was accurately identified as being produced by a computer, while other instances involved labeling it as human-written. The same label swapping occurred with the human-authored stories.
The surveys concentrated on two critical storytelling elements: counterarguing—the act of critically analyzing a story—and transportation. These two aspects function in opposition to each other.
“Transportation is a concept we’re all familiar with,” Chu remarked. “It’s that immersive feeling you get when you’re so absorbed in a story that you forget about the uncomfortable seats in the cinema. When people are deeply engaged, they tend to relax their defenses against the persuasive elements of the narrative, leading to less counterarguing.”
Although participants generally found AI-written stories to be equally persuasive as those written by humans, the computer-generated narratives were less effective at drawing people into the story’s world.
“AI doesn’t write like a top-tier author, which may be reassuring for professionals such as Hollywood screenwriters—at least for the moment,” said Chu.
