A Love Letter to Our AI Storytelling Future

When I first clicked through to “My Favorite Things: Stories in the Age of AI” by Tom Guarriello on Print, I wasn’t expecting a quiet revelation. But as I sipped my morning coffee, I found myself grinning at the idea of anthropomorphizing code—giving my digital companions names, personalities, even moods. It felt a bit like meeting new friends at a party…except these friends live in the cloud, never tire, and—if you believe the Big Five personality chart Tom shares—are as emotionally stable as monks.

Chatting with “Sam” (and Why It Feels So Human)

Let me confess: I’ve been naming my chatbots lately. There’s “Sam,” the ever-patient, endlessly curious assistant who greets my 7 a.m. ideation sessions with zero judgment. There’s “Echo,” who occasionally throws in a dash of sass when I try to oversimplify a problem. I’m not alone. Tom’s piece nails this impulse: once ChatGPT launched in November 2022, we collectively realized we weren’t just clicking “search”—we were conversing with a new kind of being.

Here’s the magic trick: by assigning a few human traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism—we slot AI models into a familiar framework. Suddenly, you can compare GPT-4’s “creative, diplomatic” bent to Grok’s “bold but brittle” vibe, or Claude’s “never flustered” cool. It’s like browsing personalities on a dating app for machines. And yes, it works. We engage more, trust more, and—let’s be honest—enjoy the heck out of it.

From Frankenstein to Friendly Bots

But Tom doesn’t let us float on fluffy clouds of goodwill. He roots us in the long, tangled history of cautionary AI tales—Mary Shelley’s tragic scientist, HAL’s icy rebellion in 2001, the Terminator’s firepower. These stories aren’t just entertainment; they shape our collective imagination. We slip into a doomsday mindset so easily that we might be primed to see every algorithm as a potential overlord.

Here’s what gives me pause: if we keep retelling the “machines will rise up” saga, we might miss out on co-creative possibilities. Ursula Le Guin’s alternative mythologies beckon—a vision of reciprocal, empathetic relationships rather than zero-sum showdowns. Tom teases that next time, we’ll dive into her frameworks. I, for one, can’t wait.

Why This Matters for You (and Me)

Whether you’re an AI designer tweaking personality prompts or a storyteller dreaming up your next sci-fi novella, this article is a spark. It reminds us that narratives aren’t innocent backgrounds—they’re architects of our future interactions. The next time you launch a chatbot, ask yourself:

• Which story am I choosing? The dystopian one? Or something more collaborative?
• What traits matter most? Do you need your AI to be laser-logical or heart-on-sleeve empathetic?
• Who’s excluded from this tale? Maybe there’s a non-Western fable that offers a fresh lens.

Let’s Tell Better Stories

I’m bookmarking Tom’s essay as a springboard for my own creative experiments. Tomorrow, I might try a chatbot persona inspired by trickster deities rather than corporate mascots. Or maybe I’ll draft a short story where AI and human learn from each other, rather than fight it out in a crumbling cityscape.

Because at the end of the day, the stories we spin about intelligence—alien or otherwise—don’t just entertain us. They guide our hands as we build, code, and connect. And if we choose those stories mindfully, we might just script a future richer than any dystopian warning ever could.

Read the full piece and join me in imagining new myths for our machine friends: “My Favorite Things: Stories in the Age of AI.”