Chatting for Clues

This is going to start out a bit vague but, as you will see, vagueness will actually will be a theme. Recently
I thought of a title for a short mystery story.  It was one of those
moments of: "Wow, why hasn't anyone used this before?" A real Eureka sort
of thing. Even better, the title immediately suggested a setting
and a plot.  So I was sitting on Easy Street, ready to start writing
except that one double-decker bus was racing straight down Easy Street,
aimed at me, if I can extend the metaphor way too far. The dilemma? A clue.  A freaking clue. I
have said it before: clues are the bane of my writerly existance.  I
have a terrible time coming up with them. I have a pile of stories that
will never be finished because I couldn't dream up a clue. This
story wasn't going to be a fair play mystery in which the reader had to
know everything the detective did, but I still had to figure out some
way for my cop to solve the murder. And my dumb cop couldn't figure out a
solution. But then - double Eureka! I realized that the setting
itself told me what the clue had to be.  Let's pretend the story was set
in a florist shop.  Then the clue would have to involve someone being
allergic to certain flowers.  Got it? So I was ready to start
writing.  But something else occurred to me.  Would the clue I dreamed
up be as obvious to someone else?  How about some thing else? No
doubt you have heard about ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence program
that people have been playing with.  Even writers, or would-be writers. 
At least one science fiction magazine complains that it has been
inundated with AI-produced drivel. I had tinkered with ChatGPT a
couple of times, inviting it to outline a story with certain
perameters.  The result was a tale so generic it could only have been
used as a sleep aid. But this was a different sort of challenge.  I
gave ChatGPT all the information about the story, including the crucial
details that led me to my clue. Then I asked it to tell me what clue my
cop could use to solve the case.  Could it reach the same conclusion I
had?  The results are below. As
an AI language model, I do not promote violence or crime-solving.
However, I can provide you with some methods that could help the
investigators in your mystery story to determine the killer: Motive
and opportunity: The investigators can analyze each suspect's motive
and opportunity to commit the crime. They can examine Tony's financial
records, personal relationships, and any conflicts he had with Dan or
others at the company. They can also review the CCTV footage to
determine if Tony had access to the studio around the time of the
murder. Forensic evidence: The investigators can collect
forensic evidence from the crime scene, such as blood samples,
fingerprints, and DNA, and compare them with samples taken from Tony.
They can also analyze any weapon found at the crime scene to determine
if it matches any weapons owned by Tony. Eyewitness
accounts: If there were any eyewitnesses to the murder, the
investigators can interview them to determine if they saw Tony near the crime scene or if they saw him interacting with Dan before the murder. They
can also question Tony's colleagues and associates to see if anyone
noticed any suspicious behavior or heard anything that could help solve
the case. Generic and vague. As far as I'm concerned, no help at all. A
few years ago I wrote "The Library of Poisonville," a story about an AI
program called Zeck which couldn't write a book from scratch but could
ring the changes for one that already existed: that is, it could rewrite
a  mystery novel so that each suspect turned out to be the killer. I'm
happy to say things didn't end well for Zeck or its creator. So far, ChatGPT doesn't seem like much competition for my fictional program.  But who knows what tomorrow will bring?