Game Of Thrones Fan 'Finishes' Song Of Fire And Ice With AI - Here's What He Learned

While "Game of Thrones" was on television, the series was among the most popular shows in the world. Right from its very first episode, the HBO series based on the dark fantasy novels of George R.R. Martin shocked audiences with the narrative left turns that the medieval drama was willing to take, even going as far as regularly maiming or outright killing key characters.

Still, many fans were disappointed with the rushed and unsatisfying conclusions to the ongoing plotlines that resolved "Game of Thrones" with Seasons 7 and 8 of the series. This is likely why there has been some interest in projects like Liam Swayne's AI-written version of the final two unreleased books from Martin that would provide the official endings for the book series.

Using the AI platform ChatGPT, Swayne used prompts to test what artificial intelligence was capable of when it came to tying up the many loose ends and tracking the myriad of characters required to finish the epic fantasy saga. Swayne learned a lot during the process, including that Martin's extensive, in-depth writing style occasionally crashed the chat before he could finally upload the finished project to GitHub.

While much of the talk around AI and writers is all doom and gloom, Swayne told IGN that he also found positive conclusions from his work in that AI can help writers in a practical sense. "Large language models can be very scary, but this project makes me more optimistic about the future of writers and AI," Swayne said.

While there is plenty of debate about what AI is capable of in terms of aggregating the work of artists and using it to create content, Liam Swayne was clear that this is not the purpose of the project and that he doesn't want to use AI to try and create the next "Game of Thrones." Instead, Swayne said that he is using this project to see what AI is capable of. This is a very relevant question considering the AI concerns at the heart of the current SAG-AFTRA strike.

Still, there were plenty of other interesting implications that Swayne discovered through the project on top of its ability to overload while imitating Martin's style. Incredibly, ChatGPT was able to keep a solid enough track of each character and their importance to recall them and bring them back even after they were absent for hundreds of pages. This feat is something many fantasy writers might struggle to do themselves.

However, Swayne noted that ChatGPT seemed very unwilling to ape some of Martin's more shocking plot twists and favored keeping characters alive instead. This led Swayne to draw an optimistic conclusion with regard to the debate of AI possibly replacing writers. "To my surprise, I'm more confident than before starting this project that writers making creative and unexpected decisions are not replaceable," he concluded.