WorkDifferentWithAI.com Academic Paper Alert!
Written by Tuhin Chakrabarty, Vishakh Padmakumar, Faeze Brahman, Smaranda Muresan
Category: “Enterprise AI”
Article Section: Natural language processing
Publication Date: 2023-09-24
SEO Description: “Empirical study explores large language models assisting writers in creative writing process.”
Claude.ai-Generated Paper Summary
Here is my analysis of the paper “Creativity Support in the Age of Large Language Models: An Empirical Study Involving Emerging Writers”:
Novelty:
- The paper presents a novel human-AI collaborative writing framework designed based on the cognitive process model of writing. This allows writers to seek help from an AI assistant during planning, translating, and reviewing stages in a non-linear fashion.
- The study collects a unique dataset of 30 stories written by 17 emerging writers using the system along with their interactions with the AI assistant. This provides insights into how professional writers utilize AI support during different creative writing activities.
- The analysis reveals that while writers sought AI assistance for all three stages, they found it most helpful for translation and reviewing activities like targeted rewriting or getting feedback on drafts. The AI was less helpful for higher-level planning.
- The qualitative feedback highlights limitations of current AI models as creative writing assistants – reliance on cliches, overly moralistic endings, difficulty with nuanced topics etc. It also surfaces directions for improving AI writing support.
Overall, the work makes a novel contribution in bringing together AI and cognitive models of writing to design better creativity support tools. The empirical study and analysis shed light on the utility and limitations of modern AI for creative writers.
Commercial Applications:
- The paper presents an interactive AI writing assistant that could be developed into a commercial product for fiction writers. Features like rewrite suggestions, dialogue insertion etc. were appreciated by study participants.
- The dataset of writer-AI interactions could help train and evaluate future commercial writing support tools to better align with creative writers’ needs.
- The feedback highlights opportunities for companies building AI writing tools – features like style imitation, feedback on specific sections, controlled risk-taking on complex topics etc.
- Consumer demand exists for AI writing aids as shown by popularity of tools like Sudowrite. The paper provides insights to target the unique needs of fiction writers vs. other content creators.
- Partnerships with writing community platforms like critique groups, MFA programs etc. could be a growth channel to reach and assist fiction writers specifically.
In summary, this paper demonstrates an opportunity for developing commercial AI writing assistants tailored to fiction authors. The empirical study provides data, insights and design principles to build the next generation of tools. Companies could leverage this to create and market tools purpose-built for creative writers.
Keywords
Creativity Support, Large Language Models, Emerging Writers, Empirical Study, Collaborative Writing Interface
Author’s Abstract
The development of large language models (LLMs) capable of following instructions and engaging in conversational interactions sparked increased interest in their utilization across various support tools. We investigate the utility of modern LLMs in assisting professional writers via an empirical user study (n=30). The design of our collaborative writing interface is grounded in the cognitive process model of writing that views writing as a goal-oriented thinking process encompassing non-linear cognitive activities: planning, translating, and reviewing. Participants are asked to submit a post-completion survey to provide feedback on the potential and pitfalls of LLMs as writing collaborators. Upon analyzing the writer-LLM interactions, we find that while writers seek LLM’s help across all three types of cognitive activities, they find LLMs more helpful in translation and reviewing. Our findings from analyzing both the interactions and the survey responses highlight future research directions in creative writing assistance using LLMs.