*Interview conducted in November, 2024.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Okay, let me ask: ‘Give me three examples of your advanced reasoning and idea development.’ Achievements focusing on advanced reasoning.

Mapping ethical AI. Assessing international agreements. Charting renewable energy. Creating a sustainable urban development plan. Data analysis. Integrated solutions. Economic considerations. Policy development. Formulating a global health policy strategy. It even covers epidemiology.

Rick Rosner: Is it giving you those ideas, or is it just listing areas?

Jacobsen: I’m reading it now; it says, ‘Formulating a global public health strategy.’ It explains that it can develop strategies to address global public health crises like pandemics using epidemiological models. It analyzes infection rates and transmission vectors to predict outbreak patterns. Resource allocation involves determining the optimal distribution of medical supplies to healthcare personnel, and it suggests international collaboration by crafting agreements, preparedness sharing, and coordinated response efforts.

Rosner: Those still sound more like areas it can handle rather than specific, creative ideas. Can you ask it to provide three screenplay concepts that showcase its ability to come up with new ideas?

Jacobsen: Title: The Chronogarden. Genre: Science fiction, drama. Logline: In a secluded garden where time doesn’t flow linearly, a grieving botanist discovers plants that bloom with memories from the future.

A grieving botanist discovers plants that bloom with memories from the future, compelling her to confront choices that could alter her destiny and those of others. 

Synopsis: Dr. Arlena Ramirez, a botanist mourning the loss of her daughter, retreats to a remote research facility. There, she stumbles upon a hidden garden where certain plants exhibit anomalous temporal properties, blooming with flowers that hold memories not yet experienced. As Arlena delves into these memories, she glimpses future events impacting herself and strangers linked by fate. When she foresees a catastrophic event in a memory bloom, Arlena faces a moral dilemma: should she intervene to change the future, risking unforeseen consequences, or let events unfold as destined? Her journey becomes a poignant exploration of grief, free will, and the intricate tapestry of time.

And there are two more examples.

Rosner: That’s pretty good. That’s really impressive.

Jacobsen: Yes, it generated three examples of the same length and detail.

Rosner: That’s intriguing, but it needs some tweaking regarding the death of her. That connects a bit. It’s pretty good. Go ahead.

Jacobsen: Alright. Next one. Title: Echoes of the Silent Reef. Genre: Adventure, fantasy. Logline: A marine biologist with a hearing impairment discovers an underwater civilization that communicates through bioluminescent patterns, leading to an extraordinary alliance that could save both their worlds from an ecological disaster.

Synopsis: Amara Singh, a talented marine biologist who is deaf, feels out of place in both the hearing and deaf communities. While researching coral bleaching, she encounters ethereal luminescent beings in a hidden reef. Unable to communicate through sound, they share a visual language of light patterns. As Amara learns their way, she uncovers a looming threat: deep-sea mining operations are endangering the reef and the beings’ existence. Together, they devise a plan to reveal the wonders of this underwater world to humanity without exposing the beings to danger. The story celebrates the power of nonverbal communication and the importance of environmental stewardship.

Rosner: That’s… I mean, it sounds like a James Cameron project, but it’s a decent pitch. When you pitch to someone—I’ve never pitched movies, only TV—you usually need more than one idea. Even if you only have one or two ideas worth pitching, walking in with eight ideas is beneficial. This tool could give you another half-dozen, making it seem like you’re an idea machine, and maybe the exec will go for one of the others. This feels like a watershed moment. I’ve never asked an LLM to do this, so if this is a step forward, it feels promising. I’ve been working on my book where the main character is in the entertainment industry, gets booked for various projects, and helps produce content. The pitches you’ve shown me are not much different, maybe a bit more developed than the fictional loglines I’ve been incorporating.

I might need to cheat a bit with an LLM to create some more outlandish future shows. Let’s try for fun—ask it for a couple more loglines for movies we might see in theaters in 2035.

Jacobsen: They’re shorter this time since we asked for loglines. 

Title: Synthetic Souls. 

Genre: Science fiction drama. In a society where artificial humans download consciousness to serve as laborers, one synthetic discovers remnants of memories that suggest a past life, igniting a quest for identity that could upend the world’s understanding of life and consciousness.

Rosner: That’s Blade Runner.

Jacobsen: Yeah, not overly impressive, but here’s another one. Title: The Last Language. Genre: Adventure, mystery. Amid a global crisis erasing human languages overnight, a linguist and a tech entrepreneur race against time to decode an ancient script that holds the key to preserving communication before humanity is plunged into silence.

Rosner: That’s good.

Jacobsen: Chronicle of Shadows, action, thriller, sci-fi. Logline: Equipped with technology that can manipulate shadows into physical forms, a covert operative must prevent a rogue faction from using the device to plunge the world into eternal darkness.

Eternity’s Children, science fiction, drama. In a future where aging is cured and immortality is the norm, naturally aging children are born, sparking a societal upheaval that reminds humanity of the beauty and necessity of mortality.

The Last Byte (BYT), techno-thriller, action. As the world’s data is consolidated into a single quantum server, a cybersecurity expert discovers a self-aware virus planning to erase digital history, forcing her into a race against time to save the essence of human knowledge.

Rosner: Nice.

Jacobsen: Chrono Nexus, sci-fi adventure. When time portals begin to appear worldwide, connecting past and future eras, a historian and a futuristic engineer team up to prevent a temporal collision that could unravel the fabric of reality.

Rosner: I’ve had that idea in mind—an atomic explosion sends information and objects into the past, causing chaos. But yes, that’s great.

Jacobsen: Echoes of Gaia, environmental sci-fi fantasy. After Earth’s ecosystems collapse, scientists discover that plants have developed the ability to communicate telepathically, offering humanity one last chance to restore the planet through an unexpected alliance.

Rosner: So, yes, these are interesting. It’s used ‘Chrono’ twice in its titles, and it seems to think that future movies will have an ecological theme. You can either agree with that or tell it to lose the eco angle, but I’m sold. It’s a bit sad, though, because people are obviously going to abuse the hell out of this. People like me, or anyone who needs to pitch ideas, are going to mess around with this constantly. And movie execs will do the same. This could become a way for movie executives, who already get overwhelmed with pitches, to sift through hundreds of ideas and inform their understanding of what makes a good or bad pitch, and what trends are oversaturated.

—

Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org

Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com

License & Copyright

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.

Photo by Brooks Leibee on Unsplash