AI versus Marshy #6: Story time, getting worse?, and idea validation guide

Hello there and ahoy me mateys! 🏴‍☠️

Let’s engage in another edition of AI versus Marshy.

Yes?

Today we cover…

• 🆙 ChatGPT is getting worse, no better…
• 🔧Tool of the week: 10-Day Idea Validation Guide
• 📖The wordy and wonderful world of story mechanics

Let’s get this crafting started!

It’s not you, it’s ChatGPT

When your inbox fills with AI news it’s sometimes easy to get confused.

Don’t make me choose!

A wave of media reports have emerged citing a study from three distinguished academics.

In a nutshell, GPT-4’s success rate on a number of challenges degraded over time. A rebuttal points to capability remaining the same, but behaviour changing over time.

My hot 2c - ChatGPT is one of the biggest technical experiments of all time. More and more information will be fed into its systems over time (increasing capability) but by the very nature of its scale and how the world works - things will continue to behave less than predictably (behaviour).

This isn’t necessarily a technology-exclusive problem either - human behaviour is really hard to predict too.

This reads like a Seinfeld gag.

Tool of the Week: A 10-day playbook for validating your startup idea

It could save you a lot of time.

One of the things I do a lot of is connecting into startup, tech, and marketing communities. I like to keep my finger on the pulse, see what questions are commonly getting asked, and help where I can.

Stu recently asked people to test is 10 day idea validation guide in one such group. It walks you through a step-by-step for sweating the idea, and what makes it a little bit different is that it will give you some AI prompts to pop into ChatGPT to help you along the way.

I know some readers are early startup-py - so have a go if it’s up your avenue.

Tell Stu I sent you 😉

Lifting what you’re trying to say with story mechanics

Escalating tension.

Climax.

Resolution.

Story mechanics are everywhere and moviemakers and tale weavers have employed them to entertaining effect since the dawn of time.

Hold that thought 🛑

Now let’s talk about your Reticular Activating System. Once you’re asked or notice something, your brain continually scans your environment for ways to help you with it.

From the book Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo.

That’s cool Marshy - but what on EARTH does this have to do with storytelling?

I’m glad you asked.

Here’s a message from my friend this week:

I love hacks. Fun trivia: I used to own hackdigital.net.

My answer at the time was practice and I write about things I find interesting and that I think others will find interesting.

I also used it as fodder for a post to prove the point.

But then I started thinking about this more. Then I watched a workshop from a coach I’ve recently connected with. Mike shared his system and boy, it was a deep rabbit hole.

One of the things he shared was keeping a list of his Top 20 story mechanics and combining them with Notion.

Another example is: something painful, and then I agitate it to make it sound even worse, and then I present the solution.

I love writing. I also love technology.

What if I could create a system like my friend asked?

So I asked ChatGPT for a list of story mechanics and it delivered some goodies:

Quest: The protagonist sets off on a journey or a mission, facing challenges and eventually triumphing.Before, During, After: Show a situation before a change, the process of change, and the results afterwards.Challenge, Action, Result: Identify a challenge, what actions were taken to overcome it, and the result.Hook, Line, and Sinker: Grab attention with a provocative statement or question (Hook), provide insightful information (Line), and end with a strong takeaway or call to action (Sinker).AIDA - Attention, Interest, Desire, Action: A classic marketing framework for persuasive writing.The Hero’s Journey: Introduce a hero, present the challenge, and the triumph at the end.Listicle: Provide a list of points, tips, methods, ways, types, etc.How-to / Tutorial: Step-by-step process to achieve a particular outcome.PAS - Pain, Agitation, Solution: Highlight a problem, agitate it by digging into its consequences, then offer a solution.Success, Failure, Lesson: Share a success story, the subsequent failure, and the lesson learned.

I’m now going to try and build something with this, Airtable, or Notion myself.

Stay tuned on this newsletter and I’ll keep you posted 😉

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That’s a wrap!

So - are you enjoying the newsletter?

Email me one thing you like and what would make it better and I’ll beam you a smile from the edge of the Yarra Valley ⛰️

We’ve got this 💪 -Marshy

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