Summary: This article illustrates how I used AI (artificial intelligence) to narrate my thoughts and story in the styles of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.

How Would Faulkner and Hemingway Express My Thoughts?

I recently wrote a piece about the visit from my son’s family and a promise I made to my granddaughter. Once I finished, I put it through CHAT-GPT for editing. I then emailed the edited version to my daughter for her thoughts. She mentioned that it felt a bit dry. I replied, “What else do you expect from a machine?” To avoid that dryness, she suggested I ask GPT to edit it in the style of my favorite authors. Since I admire the works of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, I made that request, and the results are quite fascinating.
Below, you will find four different versions: my original version, an edited version by GPT, one written in Hemingway’s style, and the fourth in Faulkner’s style.

My own writing without editing by GPT:

Recently, I visited my son’s family who lives in another state. His family includes him, his wife and two great kids ; a boy who turned thirteen this October and a girl who is two years younger than her brother.
Although, the kids have the same parents, heritage and  environment, they are far apart from each other in terms of behavior and character. They are the epitome of saying : “boys are from the Mars and girls from the Venus.” as John Gray*1 uses this metaphor.
Having said that , my concentration on this writing is on the girl.  She is amazing. She is intelligent, beautiful, very talented in any kind of arts and above all , she is attentive and considerate in a way that during my short visit, amazed me by her words and acts.
From her mother’s side she is American. So, she is more familiar with her American heritage and way of life. But from her father’s, there are so many aspects that she is willing to find out about and adds to her knowledge.
So, onetime at the table , she asked me about my mother who has passed a long time ago. I responded her from what angle are you asking this question; physical or character wise which she answered me both!
I promised her that since my narration of her might be long , I will write her biography and would send it to her. And now, I will try to keep my promise.

Chat-GPT Version:

Recently, I visited my son’s family, who lives in another state. His family includes him, his wife, and their two wonderful children: a boy who turned thirteen this October and a girl who is two years younger than her brother.
Although the kids share the same parents, heritage, and environment, they are quite different in terms of behavior and character. They embody the saying, “boys are from Mars and girls are from Venus,” as John Gray famously puts it.
That said, my focus in this writing is on the girl. She is amazing—intelligent, beautiful, and exceptionally talented in various forms of art. Above all, she is attentive and considerate, leaving me impressed by her words and actions during my brief visit.
On her mother’s side, she is American, so she is more familiar with her American heritage and way of life. However, she is also eager to learn about her father’s heritage, exploring many aspects that enrich her knowledge.
One time at the dinner table, she asked me about my mother, who passed away a long time ago. I asked her whether she was inquiring about her physical appearance or her character, to which she replied, “both!”

I promised her that since my account might be lengthy, I would write her a biography and send it to her. Now, I will do my best to keep that promise.

Hemingway’s Style:

I recently visited my son’s family in another state. They are a small tribe: my son, his wife, and their two wonderful kids. The boy just turned thirteen this October, and his sister is two years younger.
Despite sharing the same parents and home, the kids are different. They embody the saying, “Boys are from Mars, girls from Venus,” as John Gray puts it.
I focus on the girl. She is remarkable. Smart, beautiful, and gifted in the arts. More than that, she is kind and attentive. During my brief visit, her words and actions left me in awe.
Her mother is American, so she knows her American roots well. But her father’s heritage intrigues her. She seeks to learn about it.
One day at the table, she asked me about my mother, who died long ago. I asked her what she meant—did she want to know about her looks or her character? She wanted both.
I promised to write down my mother’s story for her. Now, I will keep that promise.

William Faulkner’s Style:

In the waning light of a sun that seemed to linger longer than necessary, I found myself nestled among the familiar yet foreign contours of my son’s life, a life now carved in the contours of another state, far removed from the shaded nooks of my own past. His family unfolded before me—he, sturdy and resolute like the trunks of oaks, his wife, a gentle whisper of kindness, and the children, bright comets racing through the cosmos of their youth. The boy, who had recently crossed the threshold into the realm of thirteen, stood as a testament to the fierce independence of his kind, while his sister, a mere two years his junior, danced in the delicate balance of youth, a flower blooming in the shadow of a towering tree.

How curious is the nature of siblings, I mused, a reflection of dichotomies, the very essence of that age-old adage: “boys are from Mars, girls from Venus,” a notion embraced and echoed by that sage of our time, John Gray. They were shaped by the same hands of fate, birthed from the same lineage, yet their spirits roamed distinct landscapes, each a map of their own making, charted by the whims of character and temperament.

But it was the girl who captured my thoughts, a spark in the dusk of my days, radiant with a brilliance that seemed to defy the ordinary. She was not simply a child, but a tapestry woven with threads of intelligence and beauty, each stitch a testament to her artistic flair, her talents spilling forth like an overflowing chalice. In her presence, I found a refreshment, a reminder of the tender intricacies of thoughtfulness and consideration, her words and actions a delightful revelation that left me astonished during my brief sojourn among them.

Her heritage was a mosaic, rich with the colors of her mother’s American roots, a heritage she embraced with an ease that suggested familiarity, yet from her father’s lineage, she sought the stories that lay hidden, eager to weave those threads into the fabric of her identity. It was at the table, a sacred gathering of souls, that she turned her gaze toward me, her eyes wide with innocence and curiosity. She asked of my mother, that ghost of my past, who had long since departed from the earthly realm, her inquiry both delicate and profound, embracing the duality of existence—was it the flesh she sought to understand, or the spirit that lingered?

“From both angles,” she said, her voice a gentle breeze, nudging open the door to memories long sealed. I pondered, a moment stretching like the shadows cast by the setting sun. I promised her a tale, a biography of sorts, a narrative I would craft with care—a gift of words to bridge the chasm of time.

And so, I set forth, quill poised, to fulfill that promise, to echo the essence of my mother’s spirit in the prose that I would pen. In this undertaking, I hoped to capture not merely her life, but the very heartbeat of the woman who had shaped me, to gift my granddaughter a glimpse into the soul of a matriarch, a legacy woven into the very fabric of our being. *2

This exercise, while fascinating for me, brings to mind two important concepts that I would like to briefly explain: first, the significance of words and languages, and second, the marvel of AI and Chat-GPT.

Martin Heidegger *3 once remarked, “Language is a house of being. In its home, man dwells.” This statement resonates deeply with me. Just as people decorate and furnish their homes in unique ways that reflect their individual tastes, they do the same with their language.
For example, I would like to highlight the concept of dying as reflected in these four versions: 
My version: — who has passed a long time ago 
GPT's edition: — who passed away a long time ago 
Hemingway’s: — who died long ago 
Faulkner’s: — who had long since departed from the earthly realm 
So, you see how one concept is explained in different ways.

Here are a few more quotes on language from my favorite philosophers:

Czeslaw Milosz *4 said, “Language is the only homeland.”
Albert Camus considered the French language to be his homeland.
Ludwig Wittgenstein *5 believed that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
I can relate very closely to Wittgenstein, as I find that my world expressed in Persian feels less limited than my world expressed in English.

The second aspect is the marvel of AI. I was watching an interview with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes featuring the Godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton.*6  Pelley asked Hinton how AI works, to which Hinton replied, “We don’t know.” Pelley pressed further, saying, “What do you mean we don’t know exactly how it works? It was designed by people!” Hinton explained, “What we did was design the learning algorithm.*7 This is somewhat akin to designing the principles of evolution. However, when this learning algorithm interacts with data, it produces complex neural networks that excel at various tasks. But we don’t fully understand how they accomplish those tasks.”

What an astonishing and incomprehensible world we live in! It is both terrifying and fascinating at the same time.

Mahvash Shahegh
4/20/2025

Foot Notes:

*1 John Gray (1951 - ) is an American relationship counselor, lecturer, and author.
*2 In the style of Faulkner, a tapestry of fragmented thoughts, interwoven with a lyricism that speaks to the depths of family, memory, and the passage of time.
*3 Martin Heidegger (1899- 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contribution to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism.
*4 Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator,and diplomat.
5 Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.
6 Geoffrey Hinton (1947 - ) is a British-Canadian computer scientist, cognitive scientist, cognitive psychologist , known for his work on artificial neural networks which earned him the title as the “Godfather of AI”.
7 Algorithm is a word taken from the name of Muhammad bin Musa Al-Khwarazmi , an Iranian mathematician of the ninth century.