Someone Used ChatGPT to Finish the Game of Thrones Book Series

As AI chatbots grow ever more powerful, people are experimenting with all kinds of uses for a robot that can spit out lots of coherent text, some quite successful, others not so much. One area where there’s been less meaningful, successful experimentation has been in using large language models to write entire novels. But one person has recently taken a crack at this by asking ChatGPT to finish George R.R. Martin’s long-stalled book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, upon which the Game of Thrones TV show is based.

And the AI did…well, not too bad. But don’t expect it to replace Martin anytime soon, either.

Independent developer Liam Swayne published a project today where he used ChatGPT to write the remaining two books in the Song of Ice and Fire series: The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. Speaking to IGN, Swayne explains that he guided ChatGPT to writing the books through a series of prompts: First he gave ChatGPT a single prompt to generate an outline for the first chapter of The Winds of Winter. Then, he repeated that over and over to create 45 total chapters. From there, he fed those outlines back into ChatGPT and asked it for more detailed outlines of the same chapters. And finally, he used those extended outlines as prompts to ask ChatGPT to write the chapters themselves, turning every bullet point of the outline into its own scene.

You can read ChatGPT’s version of The Winds of Winter right here, and A Dream of Spring here. Heads up, they are exactly as long as you expect a book in that series to be.

If you’re thinking that’s a lot to read and just want a summary of how well the AI actually did at this task, thankfully, Swayne shared some highlights with us. First off, credit where it’s due, ChatGPT is apparently very good at tracking character continuity even with a web as complex as that in the Game of Thrones books. One example Swayne posted on GitHub shows ChatGPT including the character Illyrio in the first few paragraphs, then disappearing for over a hundred thousand words before returning for a single scene with Varys, and then disappearing again for another massive chunk of time. ChatGPT was able to remember Illyrio and introduce him again where it made sense to, highlighting ChatGPT’s impressive ability to “remember” information and call it back up where needed.

That said, ChatGPT isn’t going to replace Martin anytime soon. Great as it is at plot mapping, it’s lousy at Martin’s best trick: killing off characters in surprising ways. Despite being specifically prompted for a story that includes lots of character deaths, ChatGPT doesn’t manage to kill anyone interesting off in two whole novels.

It’s a bit better at general plot twists, though. Swayne tells me that one of his favorite plot twists in the AI The Winds of Winter is Lord Jon Connington turning traitor against Daenerys Targaryen, “a twist I didn’t see coming but served the narrative quite well.” Another moment in A Dream of Spring involved Bran receiving a vision that The Wall was not just a physical barrier, but a mystical shield holding back the Night King’s power. “This twist fits well within the universe and raises tension for the remainder of the story,” Swayne remarks.

When I ask Swayne what conclusions he took away from this project about AI and long-form text like Martin’s novels, his answer was a reassuring one for writers and lovers of actual, human-created literature:

Large language models can be very scary, but this project makes me more optimistic about the future of writers and AI. This project demonstrates that large language models like ChatGPT can take hundreds of pages of text into account when making a narrative decision, which could help writers quickly fix plot holes. It also shows that AI can only do what has been done many times before. This project has given me confidence that AI won’t be replacing unique literary works any time soon. I believe the AI had trouble writing character deaths specifically because most writers (and consequently, most of the training data) are hesitant to kill off major characters. This is part of what separates George R. R. Martin from other writers: his stories make unconventional, surprising decisions. At this point, AI can only do what is most commonly done, which means it struggles to create stories that aren’t by the books. To my surprise, I’m more confident than before starting this project that writers making creative and unexpected decisions are not replaceable.

So sure, ChatGPT might have provided something for us to read while we wait for Martin to finish the books (he most recently said The Winds of Winter is about three-quarters of the way done, back in 2022). But we can rest assured that what Martin is concocting is probably significantly more interesting than the AI’s version. And hey, it looks like AI might wind up a pretty savvy tool for writers wanting to keep track of their own complex plot maps and character webs, too.

Earlier this year, we explored other possibilities of AI, for good and for ill, here at IGN in our AI Week. You can check out all these musing at our AI Week hub.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.