I am continuing with my project of writing a literary fairy tale based on The Knights of the Fish, with the “aid” of ChatGPT. Note the quote marks.

I started out by asking Chat a broad question, broader than I have ever asked it before, ending with unsatisfactory results.

I said, “Hey, Chat, I am writing a literary version of the fairy tale The Knights of the Fish, collected by Andrew Lang in The Brown Fairy Book. What can you tell me about this tale?”

What it came back with was a summary of—and comments about—a similar tale, but not the one in Andrew Lang’s Brown Fairy Book. I gave it more information, and it came up with another version, but still not the one in Lang’s book. A third try had the same results.

What I found a bit astonishing was that in the third attempt, I incorrectly quoted the source note at the end of the tale, “From Cuentos, Oraciones, Adicinas recogidos Fernan Caballaro.” Chat came back with the correct quote, which was “From Cuentos, Oraciones, Adicinas recogidos por Fernan Caballaro (I forgot “por”.) The error was accidental, but revealing.  That meant to me that it found the text of The Knights of the Fish in Lang’s Brown Fairy Book—which is in the public domain—and still it summarized the wrong tale. You can read the blow-by-blow text here in Conversation One.

In Conversation Two, I led it by the nose to the Wikipedia entry for the tale and asked it to summarize. That was a narrow and specific request. I did not see any inaccuracies.

I then pointed out that the mirror in this tale was not magical and asked if it could find other fairy tales with non-magical mirrors, moving again to a broad question. The results were a little odd.

It came up with a few examples, in one of which the heroine sees her future self. Chat did not classify that as magical but rather symbolic. Sounds magical to me. I have to wonder what Chat might have missed given its hazy definition of magical.

I ran a couple of little tests, asking it questions to which I knew the answers. In the case of what books I have published, it found Stories and Poems of Trueterra, which is available in Smashwords, and A Vacant Throne, available through Amazon, but missed Sword of Trueterra, also on Amazon, until I pointed it out.

I then asked Chat to tell me about my daughter and fellow author (the better writer). The information it returned was fairly detailed and accurate, except for one small detail. It stated, “Originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, she later lived in Pittsburgh and now resides in Berkeley, California, with her partner and their dog.” It missed that she and her husband (he, him) are now married, moved from Berkeley, and currently live in Pittsburgh, and had not lived there before. One would think that is all public record. Chat was right about the dog.

I quizzed it again, asking for her current address, which I know of course, to see what it would say. It said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t provide personal or private contact details—such as home or mailing address. That kind of personal information is strictly off‑limits to ensure privacy and safety.”

Well, we can all give a sigh of relief on that account.