Creative Writing with a Machine in the Loop: Case Studies on Slogans and Stories

As the quality of natural language generated by AI systems improves, writing interfaces can support interventions beyond grammar-checking and spell-checking, such as suggesting content to spark new ideas. To explore the possibility of machine-in-the-loop creative writing, we performed case studies using two system prototypes, one for slogan writing and one for short story writing. Participants in our study were asked to write with a machine in the loop, or alone (control condition). They assessed their writing and experience through surveys and an open-ended interview. We collected additional assessments of the writing from Amazon Mechanical Turk crowdworkers. Our findings indicate that participants found the process fun and helpful and could envision use cases for future systems. At the same time, the suggestions do not necessarily lead to better written artifacts. We therefore suggest novel natural language models and design implications for better machine-in-the-loop creative writing systems.