mortal realm - esthet1cs.net

I wanted to find out if GPT-2, as implemented by Huggingface, would tell any tales if I just prompted the signature beginning “Once upon a time”. This is a text that struck me somehow, I think because of the existential note in it, the strong signs of automatic generation, especially the repeats, and the subtle play with the two figures speaking, one taking over the initiative by saying what the third person the two are referring to actually said. A power play, a dialogue about basic questions of emerging existence and becoming.

Here it is:

Once upon a time, and it was the time of the most extraordinary thing that had ever occurred in human history, and as I was telling the story, he said to me, “No, it’s not about that. It’s about a man who got the chance to come into the world and start over.”

I laughed. “Is that what he told you?” I asked.

“No. He said you could come into the world and not have a future.”

“You don’t know anything about that.”

“No.”

“He said you could do anything.”

“No.”

“He said you could come into the world and not know that it was wrong, and that it was going to be okay.”

“No.”

“Then you would know what he meant.”

“No.”

“He said you could live a life without ever having to leave this mortal realm.”