This story began as casual research of the Ship of Theseus Paradox using ChatGPT. The paradox had always intrigued me, as I can visualize both viewpoints as having their merits, and I wondered what the world might be like had the less common view – that the Ship of Theseus, and indeed ourselves – are new entities once all of the original materials have been replaced. What would the implications be for human thought and existence, and would we still be human?
I am far from the first to think of these things, and will certainly not be the last as the topic is not closed. From Plutarch, to Hobbes, to present times, the paradox stands, and a casual reading of common proposed resolutions shows us how far we have to go.
I, of course, did not get to a resolution, or even tread any new ground. Instead, my research with ChatGPT went in an entirely different direction. The research became a hypothetical thought exercise, which evolved into a story. Surprised, and curious as to where the story would go, I kept writing, as if in a conversation, with ChatGPT.
The result is this novella. It is a mixture of my ideas and text, with feedback and prompt responses from ChatGPT. I had never intended to write anything, least of all a work of fiction, and do not consider myself to be an author, at least not in the traditional sense.
I decided to self-publish this work as an example of what casual research can become over a short period using the powerful technologies that we now have at our disposal. We live in exciting times. We are at the cusp of artificial intelligence, and already so much is possible that would have been prohibitively difficult before. Little sci-fi novellas aren’t even the beginning; they are a sideshow of what is possible.
