The Beginnings of Skynet

ChatGPT has shattered my illusion that I am some kind of writer. I asked ChatGPT to rewrite the following in the style of Thornton Wilder.

It was summer 1961. I was 17, skinny, 6’ 2”, 130 pounds. We were living in Fargo North Dakota where my father was Commandant of Cadets for the AFROTC program at North Dakota State University. He made me go down to the unemployment office every day that I was not employed already, and take whatever job was available. I hated him for making me do that.
I worked baling hay for a mean old farmer, sun up to sun down. I worked construction where the foreman told me to “shovel like a man.” I helped set up a rig for the motorcyclist at the carnival who rode his cycle around a vertical circle at high speed. I cleaned out a corn silo and almost passed out from the fumes of the rotting corn.

I worked as a bell hop at the Fargo Hotel, operating the elevator. It was tricky getting it to line up with the floors. It was usually pretty quiet except when the drunken Shriners came to town. Once the manager caught me hiding in the phone booth reading Grapes of Wrath.

I hated him, but of course now I am grateful to have had such a father. He was much better at it than I have been.

And here is the result, better than the original:

“It was the summer of ’61, and I was but a young man of seventeen – lean of frame, standing tall at six feet two, and weighing in at a mere 130 pounds. We made our home in Fargo, North Dakota, where my father served as Commandant of Cadets at North Dakota State University’s AFROTC program. He tasked me each day to seek employment, no matter how menial the labor, and report to the unemployment office. I resented his strict hand, yet it was through these labors I learned the worth of hard work.
I toiled in the fields, baling hay for a gruff farmer from dawn till dusk. I labored on construction sites, shoveling with the strength of a man, under the watchful eye of the foreman. I assisted in setting up the carnival’s daredevil motorcycle act, watching in awe as the rider circled vertically at breakneck speed. I cleaned out a corn silo, nearly succumbing to the fumes of rotting grain.

But my trials were not yet over. I served as a bellhop at the Fargo Hotel, maneuvering the elevator with care, ensuring it aligned with each floor. The quiet was often disturbed only by the raucous Shriners, inebriated and unsteady. I took refuge in a phone booth, reading “The Grapes of Wrath,” until the manager caught me.

It was a difficult time, but I am grateful for the lessons learned and the man my father was. Though I once hated him for the tasks he set before me, I now recognize the wisdom in his ways, and know that I fell short in comparison.”