Companions that never were

lurking_latinist wondered who the AI-generated companions Duncan, Lloyd and Stardust might be.

I created some prompt text for the generator (basically, taking the companions' names and capsule biographies from TV Tropes, for Susan up to Harry). Then I'd add the requested character's name and hit the Big Blue Button.

( Duncan, Lloyd, Stardust, Alice and Mavis )

While I'm still on the subject of AI, I recall seeing a Spectator article along 'Journalists are all doomed, we'll be replaced by AI text generators' lines. What caught my eye was the prediction that fanfic would be one of the first areas of writing to succumb to the robot hordes. I can certainly see a place for robot-generated fanfic (particularly for someone whose interest was in a niche pairing *cough* Jamie/Sam *cough*), but since fanfic is a hobby that scratches a writer's itch I find it hard to believe that there wouldn't still be humans doing it the old-fashioned way.

(I did once try to get an AI to generate Lucie/Karen, priming it with the text of Professional Development. It just output more bickering, except that each time Karen insulted Lucie she'd conclude her remark with a kiss).