How I Wrote This Book

  The writing of this book is as amazing as the events that unfold in the story itself.

  I have never written a story before.

  In fact, not anything longer than an email.

  I'm not a humanities major.

  On the contrary. I'm your typical boring engineering nerd.

  During my career, I worked as an algorithms developer and later on as an AI group manager.

  I had nothing to do with writing literature.

  But then I retired early and suddenly had a lot of time to read, learn, think, and also travel.

  During a three - week solo trip in Colombia, I had time to play around with ChatGPT, Gemini, and other Gen AI models.

  I tried out the deep research tools and sought to answer the troubling question—how will AI affect the job market, and specifically, the high - tech job market?

  The results were ambiguous, as expected.

  Then I thought that it would be amusing to write a short story about this subject.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The short story developed into a fun, witty, but also thoughtful short novel.

  All of this, using only my mobile phone.

  No laptop, no keyboard, no mouse to assist with the writing and editing.

  I invented and ‘wrote’ it while sitting in restaurants waiting for the food to be served, in buses and taxis, and even while hiking in the mountains.

  In fact, 99.9% of the text was generated by GPT - 4o.

  My role was to invent the story plot, the characters, and insert the jokes and quotes from books and movies.

  I probably invented 80% of the ideas, and GPT, a.k.a. Giovanni P. Terranova, suggested the other 20%.

  The idea to turn the demonstrations in the U.S. into a global event was suggested by GPT.

  So was the brilliant idea (at least in my humble opinion) to add the epilogue, where Giovanni directly addresses the audience with some unsettling questions.

  Working with GPT on this project was an amazing experience.

  It was like working with a highly talented and experienced author, nimble with the pen, and with some great ideas and feedback.

  It even taught me about some literary structures, like breaking the fourth wall—talking directly to the audience.

  I finished ‘writing’ this book in about 50 hours—a task that would conventionally have taken at least 50 weeks for an experienced writer.

  Without the help of GPT, I wouldn't have even started this Herculean task.

  "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

  — Sir Isaac Newton

  I would like to thank all the giants on whose shoulders I stood—the authors of the books I’ve read and the directors of the movies I love and the AI enthusiasts who send me daily newsletters about amazing new tools, More than all, I stood on the shoulders of Giovanni P. Terranova and the AI researchers and engineers who developed him.

  Whether AI will bring us good or finally create chaos and a dystopian future, I do not know.

  The gift of prophecy belongs to fools.

  I am certainly not as brilliant as Giovanni and can't predict that with an accuracy of two digits after the decimal point.

  For the time being, I'm just happy I could use AI to write this book.

  It was an exciting and surprising experience!

  Yuval Gronau

  February 2025