Mastodawn

Kelly McCullough May 28, 2023

I’m not concerned about AI outcompeting competent writers or impacting my career directly. I am deeply concerned about AI swamping submission systems and destroying the ability of editors and readers to find the next generation of writers.

AI is very much a danger to the long term health of the field not because of competition for quality readable fiction but because of its ability to create dreck in previously unimaginable quantities and drown submission systems and indie publishing in shit.

Martin Johnstone

@KellyMcC a submission system that doesn't delineate between humans and non humans isn't a submission system. It's a commercial enterprise engine.0 Run by entities. Not people. I'll invite you to reconsider the use of the term AI by considering you are both Sapient and Sentient. No machine in my experience, after over 30 years working with evolving neural networks, is actually intelligent.

Nick Xylas May 28, 2023

@thecharmingcompany @KellyMcC Sure, any halfway competent editor will be able to distinguish the good stuff from AI-generated dreck after they've read it. The danger is that the quantity of submissions rises to unmanageable levels due to AI dangling the false promise of being able to submit stories without the effort of actually writing them.

Allie Potts May 28, 2023

@nxylas @thecharmingcompany @KellyMcC this is the situation I’m in at my day job. Yes, we absolutely can spot the dreck, but there is SO MUCH OF IT! It’s causing huge delays getting back to those human writers who actually put in the effort, and by then there’s a real risk they’ve moved on. I hate the thought that someone out there is giving up on writing just because too many others are trying shortcuts.

Martin Johnstone May 28, 2023

@alliepotts @nxylas @KellyMcC it happened in comics in the 90s. The best work never saw the editors desk... Because of shortcuts.

Court Cantrell does not comply May 30, 2023

@alliepotts @nxylas @thecharmingcompany @KellyMcC I am more and more convinced that I've made the right choice sticking with self-pub. I have practically zero reach, but at least I know my work is out there and not moldering beneath a pile of AI dreck.

Martin Johnstone May 28, 2023

@nxylas @KellyMcC the pressure, ethically, should be on the submitter, no? To flag the source?

Kelly McCullough May 28, 2023

@thecharmingcompany @nxylas Sure, but I don't think the people submitting AI written works are going to be big on the whole ethical submission thing.

Miss Rocks May 28, 2023

@nxylas @thecharmingcompany @KellyMcC editors you say...

...a dying job description, replaced by software.

Nick Xylas May 29, 2023

@Mr @thecharmingcompany @KellyMcC I think AI will have to improve significantly before that happens. At the moment, it can make a decent fist of copy editing. But it's one thing to be able to spot spelling and grammatical errors, quite another to be able to tell the difference between a good story and a bad one, or offer suggestions for improving a story that's not quite there yet.

Martin Johnstone May 29, 2023

@nxylas @Mr @KellyMcC so perhaps it's. Far from intelligent

Cookiefiend Aug 6, 2023

@nxylas @Mr @thecharmingcompany @KellyMcC
Speaking as a career copy editor, I can tell you that spotting spelling and grammatical errors is the least of what a copy editor does.

Kelly McCullough May 28, 2023

@nxylas @thecharmingcompany All this, right here.

Kohan Ikin May 29, 2023

@nxylas @KellyMcC Does this mean there's an opportunity to jump ahead of AI submission queues by creating a compelling, personalized & inventive submission package?

Derek Sivers wrote about the Captain T conspiracy theory submission pack:

https://sive.rs/capt

(And Nick, since I think I recognize your name - I'm imagining a demo CD that comes with a tiny glitter sparkle Porcupine toy, a little cardboard robot, and a postcard story about a Robot that won't Obey and wants to be a Porcupine.)

Captain T | Derek Sivers

Miss Rocks May 28, 2023

@thecharmingcompany @KellyMcC one doesn't need a machine to be intelligent, just the ability to emulate such.

Which is precisely the point we have reached.

As technology advances, emulation will far outstrip actual intelligence, of which, humanity (on average) seems to have a hard enough time demonstrating itself.

It was only a few years ago, that people were saying that AI wouldn't be creative, that out of all the jobs threatened, artists and writers would be unaffected.

That didn't last long.

Imagine where things will be in another few years.

Kelly McCullough May 28, 2023

@thecharmingcompany LLMs obviously aren't intelligence in any meaningful way, but that's the term that is in common use, and I don't see a lot of point in trying to cram all of the reasons that's not a great term into a post discussing the impact of the systems on the artistic submission process. I could certainly right a thousand word essay on why AI isn't but it's at best peripheral to my point.