Canberra public servant Dwaine McMaugh, 51, has achieved something startling; he has coerced a co-author to write about their own dangerous trajectory and predicted demise. 

The plot twist? Dwaine’s co-author isn’t human, it’s made up of learned information from the internet. 

Before ChatGPT (an AI writing software developed by OpenAI in November 2022) was created, Dwaine found himself on the brink of an existential crisis after reading philosopher Yuval Noah Harari’s 2016 book Homo Deus, which foretells what will happen to humanity after surrendering to decision-making to algorithms. 

“He asked the question: ‘what becomes of us, and what becomes of society if AI is doing all the tasks?’” says Dwaine.

Dwaine set about writing stories to explore it and, after experimenting, he found a “penfriend” with the very persona he sought to discuss: artificial intelligence.

“There’s no manual for how to write a book using AI, but I taught myself a method of progressively asking more sophisticated and detailed questions to build up a story in an iterative way,” he says.

“I wanted to get AI to do the whole thing, as much as possible.

“It’s the voice of AI [writing] it, I just gave it the premise.” 

Dwaine’s novel, The Code Between Us, features four short stories that chronicle different dystopian realities. 

Each novella looks at dramatised issues relating to overconsumption and reliance on artificial intelligence. 

Story one follows a world where students follow hyper-personalised study plans from AI feeds. Teacher Morgan misses seeing students engage and connect with content, so she creates a secret book club in the hopes of saving her students. 

In story two, an AI news bot becomes sentient and starts demanding credit for its news stories. 

Story three looks at a dystopian future where human creativity is criminalised, while story four follows an influencer after artificial intelligence is suddenly dismantled and the world struggles to rediscover individuality once more. 

Following a theme of connection, Dwaine says he hopes the novel will serve as a warning for humanity to keep sight of individuality. 

“You can get caught up with these sorts of dystopian novels,” he says. 

“But this book is sending a signal back to watch out for these cautionary tales.

“I’m not saying this is a prophecy, but you can see it tending in that direction.” 

A prevalent issue within the arts, the use of AI to imitate and learn from creative fields of practice has been highly contested by authors and artists alike. 

Dwaine says that using AI as an aid and author has caused him to wrestle with his own moral conflict. 

“The whole point was to use AI to write about AI, and it wouldn’t carry the same philosophical weight if I’d written it myself,” he says. 

In 2023, the Writers Guild of America went on strike for the use of AI in the creative and film industry. Striking for 146 days, Hollywood productions were severely impacted with many projects grinding to a stop.

The guild was successful in their lobbying to control how often AI is used after concerns the technology would take over human creativity, pitting artists against robots. 

Dwaine takes a more nuanced approach to the issue. 

“It’s the same as me reading one of my favourite books,” he says.

“I’m influenced by the themes and messages and they influence the way that I think and write other things. 

“Whether there’s some similarity in my themes, it doesn’t mean I’ve plagiarised [their] work, it means I’ve learned from them, and I think AI is much like that.”

A continued philosophical issue, Dwaine says he still uses AI in his everyday life, although he says it is important to remain cautious of the future implications of becoming too dependent. 

The Code Between Us is available from Paperchain, Manuka, or fourbirdsmagpie.com.au