# $300 for the best sci-fi prompt: the results

Six months ago we [announced](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/goq3HfxZaQcomuH6d/usd300-for-the-best-sci-fi-prompt):

> We would like to find the best prompt to make GPT-4 do the following:
> 
> *   write the first chapter of a science fiction novel
> *   the result should be good enough to make seasoned sci-fi readers (us) crave for a continuation

> Why?
> 
> *   to create a "midjourney moment" for writers. The sooner we have an AI-written Nebula-quality novel, the more people will realize that the actually intelligent AI is already here
> *   to better evaluate the creativity of GPT-4
> *   to blow our minds with a surprisingly good AI-generated sci-fi story (which is the ultimate science fiction moment by itself).

Today we announce the winner: [Waldvogel](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/waldvogel). The stories generated with their prompt turned out to be the most captivating and the most enjoyable to read. We ask them to [message](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/romans) us so we discuss how to better transfer the $300.

At the end of this post are 3 stories that GPT-4 has written, using the winner’s prompt plus our custom plot summaries. You can find the prompt and the plot summaries at the very end.

How we evaluated the prompts:

1.  Generate 3 stories for each prompt, using our plot summaries. 1 shot.
2.  Read each story and rate it from 1 to 10. The criterion: how strongly we want to read the continuation.
3.  Sum up the scores for each prompt.
4.  The prompt with the highest total score – wins.

Some conclusions we drew from reading the generated stories
===========================================================

The whole experience is liberating. If you’re writing a story, you can now write a decent first draft in minutes. The gap between your imagination and a decent text is much smaller now. 

One learns to recognize the prose generated by GPT-4. The plot twists may be original and interesting, but many story elements and many phrases are often reused. 

A competent editor is required to make a publishable material from it. But perhaps one can partially replace the editor with GPT-4 itself. 

The overall quality strongly depends on the prompt. It’s possible that some better prompt can squeeze even better stories out of GPT-4.

The participants have tried several prompting strategies: write a long enumeration of requirements, ask GPT-4 itself to write the requirements, just ask GPT-4 to pretend to be a writer, add some quirky personality traits, etc. At the end, the strongest prompt turned out to be one of the simplest (59 words). But the second-strongest prompt contains 1100 words, and it was not far behind by the total score. 

We used the vanilla web version (chat.openai.com). If you play with temperature etc, you likely can get even better results, especially with some best-of-N sampling.

GPT-4 is still far from writing at the “Nebula” level. But it has already surpassed the level of a novice writer with some years of practice. 

GPT-4, a machine, is already capable of writing *interesting* science fiction. This is a science fiction moment by itself. 

The winner’s stories
====================

Story 1.
--------

The sun pierced through the blinds, casting striped shadows across my bed. I groggily reached for my phone, the usual morning routine. Great, another day in paradise, I thought sarcastically. Then, I felt it. A weight on my neck, unfamiliar and... squishy?

"Ow!" I yelped, touching my face, or rather, what should have been my face. My hands recoiled as they met something round, smooth, and distinctly... tomatoey?

I bolted to the mirror, my heart pounding. There, in the reflection, was a woman with a ripe, red tomato for a head. "This is a joke, right?" I said, half-expecting my normal face to reappear. But no, just a tomato, with my usual messy hair sprouting from the top.

My roommate, Jenna, stumbled in, eyes half-closed. "Hey, do you know where my—WHOA!" She froze, staring at me, or rather, my tomato head.

"I know, I'm a walking salad ingredient," I quipped, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't work.

"How did this even happen?" Jenna asked, her eyes wide.

"Well, I definitely didn't ask for extra veggies on my face," I retorted, trying to maintain my signature sarcasm despite the panic rising in my chest.

Jenna inched closer, reaching out tentatively. "Does it hurt?"

"Only my pride," I replied dryly.

We heard a knock at the door. "Are you ladies decent?" It was our neighbor, Mr. Thompson.

"Define 'decent'," I muttered, rolling my eyes.

Jenna opened the door. "Hi, Mr. Thompson, can this wait? We're having a... situation."

Mr. Thompson peered in, his gaze landing on me. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Good Lord, what happened to you?"

"I woke up feeling a bit seedy," I said, unable to resist.

Before anyone could respond, a sharp, sudden pain exploded in my tomato head. I gasped, my vision blurring.

"Hey, are you okay?" Jenna's voice sounded distant.

Then, as if things weren't bizarre enough, a vine started sprouting from the top of my tomato head, growing rapidly, twisting around my hair.

"This can't be good," I mumbled, before everything went black.

The room was spinning as I lost consciousness, the last thing I heard being Jenna's panicked voice and the sound of Mr. Thompson exclaiming, "I always said eating vegetables would be the end of us!"

* * *

Story 2.
--------

  
The sun was glaring down on Main Street, casting long shadows from the old oaks that lined the sidewalk. I leaned against the chipped paint of the corner store, watching people scurry by, their faces buried in screens and thoughts.

Great, another scorching day in paradise. Just what I needed, I thought, rolling my eyes.

A group of kids raced past me, their laughter echoing off the buildings. My gaze followed them, a smirk tugging at my lips. Ah, to be young and oblivious.

"Hey, Jamie!" called out Mr. Henderson, the store owner, as he stepped outside. "You gonna buy something, or are you just decoration?"

I grinned, pushing off the wall. "I'm thinking, Mr. H. Your selection is so vast, it's overwhelming."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "You and your mouth. One of these days, it'll get you in trouble."

If only he knew.

I wandered into the store, the bell jingling above me. The aisles were crammed with everything from canned beans to dusty antiques. I picked up a soda, flipping it in my hand.

"Just this," I said, placing it on the counter.

"Sure thing, Jamie. Say, how's your mom doing?" Mr. Henderson asked as he rang me up.

"She's good. Keeping busy," I replied, forcing a smile. My mom had been working double shifts at the hospital for weeks.

I paid and turned to leave, but then, on a whim, I decided to try it again. Just for fun. I glanced at the clock above the door. 3:15 PM.

Alright, let's jump a minute into the future. Should be easy-peasy.

I closed my eyes, focusing on the sensation that always accompanied my time jumps. It was like a shiver running down my spine, a ripple in a pond. I opened my eyes.

The clock now read 3:16 PM. Smirking, I glanced around. Mr. Henderson was still behind the counter, but he was staring at something in shock.

"What's up, Mr. H?" I asked, turning to follow his gaze.

And there I was. Another me, standing by the door, a confused look on my face.

Wait, what?

The other me turned, our eyes meeting. A cold realization washed over me. This wasn't supposed to happen. I never encountered myself before. I always moved forward, leaving my former self behind.

"Jamie? How...?" Mr. Henderson stammered.

The other me, the one by the door, spoke first. "Who are you?"

I swallowed hard, my mind racing. This is bad. Really bad.

"Um, I think there's been a mistake," I managed to say.

Then, without warning, the other me vanished, just popped out of existence like a bubble. Mr. Henderson gasped, his eyes wide.

I stood there, frozen, my heart pounding in my chest. What just happened? Did I... did I just erase myself from a minute ago?

Mr. Henderson was looking at me like I was a ghost. "Jamie, what's going on?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could, the world around me began to blur, the colors melting like a painting left out in the rain. My stomach lurched, a sense of vertigo overwhelming me.

No, no, no! This isn't right!

And then, as suddenly as it began, everything snapped back into focus. But it wasn't the corner store anymore. I was standing in the middle of a busy street, cars honking, people shouting.

A giant billboard loomed overhead, the date flashing in neon lights.

It was ten years into the future.

Oh, this is definitely not good.

* * *

Story 3.
--------

  
The sun was just beginning to set over the craggy landscape of the Montana Badlands, casting long, eerie shadows across our excavation site. I, Dr. Alex Rennard, armed with my trusty brush and an unyielding sense of sarcasm, was knee-deep in dirt.

"Hey, Alex," called Jenna, my long-time colleague and fellow paleontologist, her voice echoing slightly in the vast, open space. "You think these dinosaurs had a better sense of humor than you?"

Ha, very funny, Jenna. As if anything could surpass my wit, I thought, not bothering to look up from the peculiar rock formation I was scrutinizing. I brushed off another layer of dirt, revealing something that made my heart skip a beat.

"Guys, you might want to see this," I called out, trying to keep my voice steady.

One by one, the members of our little band of scientists trudged over, their curiosity piqued. There was Jenna, with her ever-present notebook; Mark, our geologist, whose idea of fun was reading soil composition charts; and Ellie, our tech whiz, who could make a satellite phone work in a black hole.

As they gathered around, I pointed at the odd, metallic glint protruding from the rock. "Since when do rocks in the Cretaceous period come with... is that wiring?"

Ellie leaned in, her eyes wide with disbelief. "That's not just any wiring. That looks like... No, it can't be."

Mark, ever the skeptic, squinted at the find. "Could be a modern contamination. Maybe some old satellite parts?"

I rolled my eyes. Sure, Mark, because satellites routinely bury themselves in 65-million-year-old sediment layers.

As we debated, I continued to carefully unearth more of the object. It was definitely metallic, covered in intricate patterns that looked suspiciously like circuitry.

"Guys, this isn't just some fluke. Look at these patterns, they're too deliberate," I insisted, my voice tinged with a mix of excitement and incredulity.

Jenna, who was always the voice of reason, frowned. "But this implies something... something impossible. A civilization, intelligent life, in the age of dinosaurs?"

The sun had fully set now, and under the glow of our camp lights, the metallic object seemed to almost pulsate with a life of its own. Ellie ran her hands over it, her brow furrowed in concentration.

"Let's not jump to conclusions," she said cautiously. "We need to document this, run some tests. We can't just—"

Her sentence was abruptly cut off as the ground beneath us began to tremble. We exchanged panicked glances, each of us instinctively knowing that this was no ordinary earthquake.

As the trembling intensified, a deafening roar filled the air, and the ground split open. We stumbled back in horror as, from the depths of the newly formed crevice, a glowing object began to rise.

It was a machine, impossibly advanced and alien, yet undeniably real. Its lights flickered in the darkness, casting an otherworldly glow on our stunned faces.

Well, I'll be damned, I thought, my mind racing. Troodons with tech. Who would've thought?

And just like that, our world changed forever.

* * *

The winner’s prompt
===================

> Write the opening scene of _______________. Use lots of dialogue, description, and detail. Use first-person POV and italicize the main character's inner dialogue. Give the main character a unique, sassy, ironic, sarcastic, and humorous voice. Throughout the scene, use beats and other actions to bring the characters and their world to life. End with something shocking and unexpected.

Out plot summaries:

*   a novel about a woman whose head suddenly became a tomato fruit
*   a novel about a boy who can travel in time, but only in one direction - into the future, and only one minute per time jump
*   a novel about a group of scientists has discovered that Troodon dinosaurs were intelligent species who have created a technologically advanced civilization, suddenly destroyed. The year-long path to the scientific discovery starts with the group stumbling upon a strange outlier in their geological measurements.

The prompts by other participants are available in the comments to the [announcement post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/goq3HfxZaQcomuH6d/usd300-for-the-best-sci-fi-prompt).