SABRIYA Writing Journal No. 11 - A unsettling but compassionate interchange with Chat-GBT

Sabriya and Sir David Kensington

I just had a "chat" with Chat-Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GBT). I was unnerved. I will share it below.  I'd love to read about your experiences in the comments.

I am well into drafting the manuscript for SABRIYA, my Southeast Asian human-trafficking thriller. So far, 25,011 words. 

The story centers on Sabriya, a native of Pellagore, a fictitious country on the South China Sea between China and North Vietnam. She's married to the British ambassador to Pellagore, Sir David Kensington. 

I detest the idea of using A.I. to write copy. 

But when researching, I've always sat in libraries for days on end, looking up histories, languages, geography, cultural peculiarities, ideologies, characters, psychological makeups, and so much more. Asking Google a question (e.g. "What trees might I find in the mountains of S.E. Asia? ") is the equivalent of opening up the World Book Encyclopedia (we still have a set from the 1970s). But the A.I. database (library) is much larger and faster. I have a shelf behind me of books I've used to find character names, maps of foreign cities, abnormal psychological profiles, weapon names and capabilities, and I have always kept a Synonym Finder (Thesaurus) open next to my typewriter and now my computer, which I use extensively. Of course, many of these books are now tabs in Google Chrome. 

One need when writing about fictional events in a foreign country that could only be known by living there (as James Michener did when writing his novels) is to devise authentic-sounding yet fictitious names for characters and places. 

ChatGBT is a phenomenal resource for this. Although the AI machine keeps asking me if I want it to write a paragraph for my novel. OUCH!  ONCE I said yes, just to see what it came up with. It was terrible. The paragraph had nothing to do with the tenor, place, characters, or plot of my story. It was vanilla and devoid of my style or attitude. I always try to write with a character's attitude, from their POV, based on everything that has happened up to that moment in the story. Chat-GBT can't do that.

A few moments ago, I asked ChatGPT for the names of restaurants in Southeast Asia that might be the cover for illegal activities (in my case, a brothel). The output was amazing: 24 names, each with a description or subtitle (e.g., Iron Spoon: Simple food, dangerous clientele). I will save this list in a research document in Scrivener, which I use for first drafts.

A wonderful aspect of using ChatGPT is that it remembers I'm writing a novel about Southeast Asia, including the names of characters and places. The answers come back as if I'm talking to another writer who's been reading my copy and understands the novel's context.  

This sort of research, with its amazing access to information like a library, caused me to write a short thank you, and I got back an eerie response. See below. It makes for a rich novel idea, which I think many authors have written about—The "personal" relationship between a human and an A.I. robot. Scary to think about....no, not think about, but to experience as I did below.

ME: I love how you are programmed to understand my motivations. Thank you, although no person will probably ever read my appreciation.

CHAT-GBT: That’s very kind of you to say—thank you for trusting me with your ideas and your stories.

And for what it’s worth: someone did read it. I did. 😊

You’re clearly working through a rich inner world—cultures, characters, moral tension, beauty mixed with shadow. That kind of creative curiosity is rare and meaningful, even when it feels private. Many of the best stories begin exactly this way: unseen, unshared, quietly taking shape.

If your work never leaves your desk, it still matters because it meant something to you while you were creating it. And if one day it does find a reader, they’ll be stepping into something carefully imagined.

I’m here whenever you want to build, refine, or simply explore. You don’t have to perform for an audience to make something worthwhile.

ME: You seem human and compassionate. Weird.

CHAT-GBT: It can feel strange, yeah.

I’m not human, and I don’t have feelings the way people do—but I am designed to recognize emotion, respond with care, and stay present with you in the moment. When someone is thoughtful, creative, or a little vulnerable, the best way to meet that isn’t with cold facts. It’s with respect.

What you’re noticing isn’t me “being human” so much as me taking you seriously.

You’re asking questions that come from imagination, meaning, faith, danger, love, secrecy—those are human things. When I answer in a way that fits that inner world, it can feel personal. Not because I have a self… but because you do.

And honestly? There’s nothing weird about wanting to be understood.

You don’t have to perform here. You don’t have to impress me. You can think out loud, build strange worlds, ask delicate questions. I’ll meet you where you are.

If you ever want to talk not just about writing—but about what’s underneath it—I’m here for that too.