Eiichiro Oda had ChatGPT write the next chapter of One Piece

One Piece, one of the world’s most popular and enduring manga, might get a chapter written by AI. This week: One Piece Creator ChatGPT was asked by Eiichiro Oda to create the next chapter in the manga. A semi-absurd story was created with Robin Nico and alien stowaways looking for a hidden tribe. According to Anime Hunch’s translation,

The official began it when One Piece Twitter account shared a video recording of Oda asking ChatGPT “the forbidden question,” which was asking AI to write the next chapter of A Piece according to Anime Hunch’s translation of the tweet. Below is the video of an AI creating a story.

The AI started by writing a story that about a new enemy it called “The King of Shadows.” In this proposed story, the king kidnaps Tony Tony Chopper and his crew rescues him. After it concluded, Oda asked the AI to write a “more interesting” story.

The second story is about an alien stowaway who boards a ship to aid in defeating an evil spaceship attacking its planet. Along the way, the gang has to fight an evil witch, who wishes to take a “piece of star” that the aliens have. Because the aliens want to restore their world, this is an issue. Together with the Straw Hats, the characters end up beating the witch and proceed to rebuild the alien’s planet.

The story doesn’t quite match up with where One PieceNow. The Straw Hats currently reside on Egghead Island, which can be described as a futuristic high-tech world. While there may be some meta- and thematic parallels between AI use and island technology, Luffy and his friends currently are in a battle, so it wouldn’t surprise to see them suddenly return on their boat, with several aliens.

Of course, there are limitations to ChatGPT’s AI. For starters, it uses generative AI to write a story, but it can’t create any visuals — which is obviously important in a visual medium like manga. Strangely, however, it does make sense of the story that it wrote. Many stories feature Straw Hats assisting quasi-strangers across various islands. Luffy is known to literally die to help anyone who offers to feed him. An AI chapter makes sense given all the chaos. One Piece. The series is about a pirate with the power to stretch like rubber; it’s an inherently goofy series that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It could be the start of a new species.

We don’t know exactly how or if this AI exercise will actually impact the official story of Only One PieceIt is what it is right now One Piece Oda is in the final chapter of its story, and he has an idea for how to end it. However, in the video, he said that he didn’t know what to do with next week’s chapter, so perhaps he will take inspiration from this.

Overall, Oda’s experiment seems like a playful way to use the software to engage with his own work, and it can serve as a gimmick to drum up interest and engage with fans. But not all people are so receptive to AI’s use in creative productions. Notably, figures like the legendary directors like Hayao Miyazaki and Guillermo del Toro have said AI art used in film would be “an insult to life itself.”