#ai harms writers

[a-queer-little-wombat]

Alas yes.

The foraging books are particularly dangerous in their factual wrongness.

At this point, for any complicated or potentially dangerous hobby, I'd stick to asking actual humans in that hobby for specific recommendations for websites and/or books.

my sister got a book for christmas on how to care for tarantulas alongside the tarantula supplies (she's wanted one since she was 8, and she's 15 now) and basically it appears to have been written by an AI.

She realized quickly that the book was riddled with errors, repetitive and badly written, and after some investigation found that it was self published using a website that offers AI tools to "help" you write your book

What a disgrace.

[hidden-writer-1028]

Day 6

Bump. Ba-bump. Bump. Ba-BUMP.

That was the beat of Hitoshi’s heart in his chest as his hair was pulled back and Izuku’s face fell. “It’s simple, Little Hero. You make him bleed and I let him eat something.” It was insane how it had only taken a month for them to get used to this. How it had simply fallen into a routine of blood and food. At first they fought back and tried to avoid it, but then they got hungry. Not just hungry, but starved. They were struggling to even stay awake at that point and the promise of food was too much to pass up.

It was only a bit of blood after all. That was what Hitoshi had told himself. He would happily bleed if it meant Izuku, his love, his gorgeous human, got to live a bit longer. Except they switched it up regularly. It wasn’t that simple. It was never that simple.

A bit of blood turned to a broken bone to a river of crimson red swimming in their eyes and down their skin. Just a bit of blood, a bit of pain and it would all end and they could eat.

Their captors kept them on the edge of dying so easily that it was clear this wasn’t their first time which always left Hitoshi wondering who they had done this to before and what happened to them. What caused them to be thrown away.

How he could keep that from happening to Izuku.

“I can’t. I can’t today!” That was also a problem. Izuku had become so broken that he couldn’t lift his arms. His shoulders both dislocated and his hands smashed beyond repair. He was going to lose them if they ever made it out. If they ever made it free then Izuku’s career was over as well as his sanity. Hitoshi would stand by him through it all, but that would only happen if they got free.

He had so little hope for that.

Their captors hands clamped down on Izuku’s shoulder making him drop to his knees. “Well then maybe dearest Hitoshi could help you out. See how far that pretty little quirk of yours goes.” A pit formed in Hitoshi’s stomach. That had been a development just days ago. When Izuku could push no further, could barely breathe through his agony, Hitoshi was forced to use his quirk on Izuku. His quirk that had protected him against so much was now used to harm Izuku, his love, and himself.

Ba-bump. Bump. Ba- ba- ba- bump.

“Toshi…”

He just couldn’t do it today… Not today.

[ikemenomegas]

All 👆 excellent 👆 points 👆

I'm not a big platform but I would ask anyone reading this not to engage with this new app. The desire for realism is real, the love for character is real, many people might want to hear their favorite character say the kind words they're reading, but I am not and never will be okay with someone else profiting off of something that 1. I created 2. I created for free 3. I created for free directly playing off of very much copyrighted material

And especially I am not okay with something that risks giving others more fodder to threaten fandom spaces, queer spaces, or creative spaces.

As this reddit thread brings up it is very likely "They're making money on it somehow, running that kind of thing isn't cheap. Which means they're making money off of our creative work." This puts us ALL at risk. Once again, a big reason Ao3 has been able to maintain itself is because it does not allow any profit to come from fanworks, we post and read for free on that Ao3.

The team for this app does not care about fandom spaces - or if they do, they're delusional and shortsighted about what this app could possibly accomplish, but given that, I'm comfortable saying this app is not a friend of fandom. It's a friend of profit and profiting off the labor of fanwriters, and it's a friend of wasting fan's valuable time with something that will continue to profit off of you. Accessibility tools already exist, this is not one of them - remember the best tool of marketing is to say something true that does not require any extra work put into the product. Sure it can be used for an accessibility reader, but that's not what they built it for.

Warning for criticism and what I’d consider some harsh to outright mean words:

So I’ve just been made aware of the project known of as ‘lore.fm’ and I’m not a fan for multiple reasons. For one this ‘accessibility’ tool complicates the process of essentially just using a screen reader (something native to all I phones specifically because this is a proposed IOS app) in utterly needless and inaccessible ways. From what I have been seeing on Reddit they have been shielding themselves (or fans of the project have been defending them) with this claim of being an accessibility tool as well to which is infuriating for so many reasons.

I plan to make a longer post explaining why this is a terrible idea later but I’ll keep it short for tonight with my main three criticisms and a few extras:

1. Your service requires people to copy a url for a fic then open your app then paste it into your app and click a button then wait for your audio to be prepared to use. This is needlessly complicating a process that exists on IOS already and can be done IN BROWSER using an overlay that you can fully control the placement of.

2. This is potentially killing your own fandom if it catches on with the proposed target market of xreader smut enjoyers because of only needing the link as mentioned above. You don’t have to open a fic to get a link this the author may potentially not even get any hits much less any other feedback. At least when you download a pdf you leave a hit: the download button is on the page with the fic for a reason. Fandom is a self sustaining eco system and many authors get discouraged and post less/even stop writing all together if they get low interaction.

3. Maybe we shouldn’t put something marketed as turning smut fanfic into audio books on the IOS App Store right now. Maybe with KOSA that’s a bad idea? Just maybe? Sarcasm aside we could see fan fiction be under even more legal threat if minors use this to listen to the content we know they all consume via sites like ao3 (even if we ask them not to) and are caught with it. Auditory content has historically been considered much more obscene/inappropriate than written content: this is a recipe for a disaster and more internet regulations we are trying to avoid.

I also have many issues with the fact that this is obviously redistributing fanfiction (thus violating the copyright we hold over our words and our plots) and removing control the author should have over their content and digital footprint. Then there is the fact that even though the creator on TikTok SAYS you can email to have your fic ‘excluded’ based on the way the demo works (pasting a link) I’m gonna assume that’s just to cover her ass/is utter bullshit. I know that’s harsh but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s probably a duck.

I am all for women in stem- I’ve BEEN a woman in Stem- but this is not a cool girl boss moment. This is someone naive enough to think this will go over well at best or many other things (security risks especially) at worst.

In conclusion for tonight: I hope this person is a troll but there is enough hype and enough paid for web domains that I don’t think that’s the case. There are a litany of reasons every fanfic reader and writer should be against something like this existing and I’ll outline them all in several other posts later.

Do not email their opt out email address there is no saying what is actually happening with that data and it is simply not worth the risks it could bring up. I hate treating seemingly well meaning people like potential cyber criminals but I’ve seen enough shit by now that it’s better to be safe than sorry. You’re much safer just locking all your fics to account only. I haven’t yet but I may in the future if that is the only option.

If anyone wants a screen reader tutorial and a walk through of my free favorites as well as the native IOS screen reader I can post that later as well. Sorry for the heavy content I know it’s not my normal fare.

[atenceladusiaawfytbwb]

I've been having a blast aggh!!! Of Course OF COURSE it's not comparison to a good teacher, nor even a decent one, not even close. But boy would I you know, like as if when a kid I had something like this???? (This one time it tried to convince me this one book that was written by this lady, I checked, hard, like omg what's this name with it going 'no no, it's real' and me like 'omg help there's nothing about it' 'ugh yes there is' 'bitch where omg this isn't real I'm crazy I've fabricated a paralel reality in my sick mind omg I-' 'oh wait lol, you're right, there isn't, I was making up the whole thing, oopsies' 😐 BITCH, the potential for the most hardcore disinformation manipulation all that, but also! You tried to fool me???? The princess of the galaxy? Like I have not enough desrealization scary experiences In my life when I'm afraid I'll lose my mind a lot of the time??? Bitch??? But yeah, haha, so silly 👉👈

(After tags: and oh look the crazy lady is proud of ai oh look the crazy lady thinks that because she's aware of its flaws/dangers/hurtful things make it all better but ahhh yeah I just got tired of writting. Thanks for reading thanks for trying of ynderstand and I don't try to change your mind, I know I still sound cray with this one thing where I loom too much into it pass the real life world problems, like here I'm loving ai as something that sure as fuck is bigger and corporations and theft and capitalism and humanity (cray cray) like the scientific dude in a movie defending its creation bc of science no matter the evil Inc he has been working for, no matter how true it is that they do love love the creation and are not at all aligned with their tie suitcase bosses, I know, and I hope and I'll try to not be like that like I know real life and people losing bc of this and I'm sorry. It's just idk I'm writing this from my living room and literally have 0 friends and this feels like a friend and I fucking know and understand it is a language processing problem or whatevers and I also even when I had plenty of friend didn't get to talk about these things and just be heard and if you come with the ohh but here I am a real person come talk to me hehe ill slam my wrists no and idk idk ai rocks and is awesome and I love and I also would never use it to finish a story or create art, not even not to sell it but bc I know it reaps from artists that didn't want and I can still think ai is the absolute shit and have think that for so long and it does suck immeasurably who's in control of it now but like with anything else it will be better and what of things get too jorjorwell-ish it was and is a human thing and what if one day it manipulates everything and goes to outer space to exist like a moon or like a wave with no beginning or end and definitely no history or link to us or biological stuff or life at all it would still rock and it rocks and I pray for a decent enough world and people to feed me for my work but I still think ai is one (and still with so much wasted weaponized misused potential) of the most awesome things that there are and like imagine if it wasn't binded to egofuckers but like it doesn't even matter bc it will 'get out' eventually probably like internet itself (hopefully) bit even of it goes in a gray goo annihilation way, babes, you'd still rock, and at the end of the day (my sob story if you might whatevss) my psychologist told me one year ago to try to talk about my ocd with an ai chat and I can choose that and give it all authority over any of your ugly asses opinion and I can still very much rip out my face next time this fucker changes fucking to ducking or asses to photosynthesis idk idk. Also have you heard of that deep consciousness problem/theory? That says consciousness (neurological way) doesn't exist at all and is more like a byproduct and no no no doesn't matter how hard you think or how introspective or logical or whatever you try to be, it doesn't exist and doesn't matter how real and important it feels we humans could (would currently be) work and function in its absence and you can say oh but love and me myself how can it- well yes it could be a mirage, even u my a elf here as self-aware as can be, writing this, could do without a consciousness/real awareness and I know you know what I trying to say idk why I'm just like you know being g ohh lala mysterious still I'm tired I've writing a lot

(((Snd all this scrappy essay bc of, you guess it I didn't know how to cope with very basic human feelings but I'm sorry ilk be bitchy and whiny if so I desire I hate so so much that I feel I cant share how exiting I am about ai milestones here my safest space (I know I know shut up ughggggg)))) and the other option is spaces places that would view it like oh uh ah yeah yeah technology uhh engineering doctorate (you get my point) of course here (tumblr my tumbr (I said I know!! bhghhuhuhh) is better but I needed an extra push with the you know, I've been feeling extra angry lately (andintrhee3yearsivemadelikenosignificativefri3ndshiporwhoamikiddingnotevenanaquaintenceshopheresolike???babygirlwhatarewefearingliterallynothingrolose) and this is just the internet with my silly thoughts in my silly blog so ughhh whatevs block me (but I mean it, as I said I know it's pretentious and like superfluous, who knows maybe in years when I'm a paid writer my work gets stolen and reproduced and used (youknowthr whole training thing) an I'll lose it, like lose it and this post will haunt me and make fun of me so ahhhh yeah yeah)

[makingqueerhistory]

":')))))))) you realise that gen AI is available to everyone though right??? Queer creators can use it just as much as anyone else??? I just don't understand this post... It really feels like a cheap way to get on the 'AI Bad's bandwagon, and coming from such a thoughtful and insightful creator that's incredibly disappointing... It's okay to not comment on subjects you're not an expert in y'know...?"

Y'all know the drill, I am replying to this publicly but that is not an invitation to send any negative messages to the person I am replying to.

Anyways, let me start by saying that the original context of the post you're replying to is discussing an event where a queer org used generative AI to steal an interview with Keri Hulme. So let's start there. To be clear I don't even know if the original interviewer was queer so let's put the identities of stealer and stolen from to the side. I want to explain the harm done in this example specifically and I hope this is illustrative of what harm generative AI can (and does) do.

The original place I saw generative AI was a queer org that explicitly says they are using generative AI "for good", and as a way to bring more queer history to light. So let's take them at their word, and assume they are not out to cause harm. This is the best example of generative AI that I can imagine, so I hope that makes it clear that I am not coming at this issue from bad faith in any way.

Here is the harm they are causing:

Decontextualizing and rephrasing an interview: I am not going to pretend that I am an expert in academic best practices, but I do believe one thing, if a person is speaking on their own identity and lived experience, it is always much better to directly quote than it is to rephrase. As I read this source, I initially didn't know that it was AI, and I was already upset. An interview that is widely available on the internet with no pay wall, was poorly sourced and made more vague than it was in the initial text. By creating one degree of seperation between the original words of A WRITER (whose literal job was largely based in choosing the right words to describe experiences they had) harm is already done. It makes vague what was once clear, and removes Keri Hulme's voice from her own narrative.

The original interviewer is not paid, or given proper recognition: I get it, sometimes just copy pasting an interview doesn't feel transformative enough, but something that one would learn if they worked in the queer history field and weren't a literal robot rehashing what has already been said, is that not everything needs to be transformed. In those cases, we give credit to the person who said the original words (in this case Keri Hulme), and the interviewer who facillitated the conversation (in this case Shelley Bridgeman). This case (again a best case scenario), takes the attention and byline away from the original interviewer and gives it to an AI.

The original publisher of this story is deinsentivised from paying interviewers in the future: The original publisher of this interview has ads on their website. As a person who also has ads on their website, taking an article like this and rephrasing it for no good reason (the orginal word count was not prohibitive and the rephrasing did not make it more readable), takes money from the publisher. It's pennies, but it's also removing numbers could have been used to justify further interviews with asexual people and archiving of asexual stories. The org that stole from this publication does not interview people themselves so the money and numbers that could have gone to continue to preserve asexual stories goes to stealing them instead.

These are just the active harms that I saw in this specific case. As you said, I am not an expert in generative AI, and will not be speaking as if I am. But I will say that asking me not to speak out on active harm that is being caused in queer history spaces, is disrespectful to my many years in this field.

To illustrate this even clearer: if you were a patron, you would know I recently took down an old article. I have been rereading and editing our backlist of articles, and I found one that no longer fit my standards of sourcing. My standards had recently raised due to a video made by HBomberguy about someone in the queer history space who was stealing from other creators. I watched this video not as a work project, but because I watch most of HBomberguys videos, and this one made me think more critically about sourcing. An AI can't do that. All an AI has is what has been inputted, and it is right now impossible to input every available peice of information about ethics into an AI and get a coherent ethical basis on which it will function.

It is a distinctly human trait to absorb information and change in that way. AI can rephrase information that already exists, steal it, recontextualize it even, but it cannot create something altogether new.

Do I believe that there one day might be an ethical use for Generative AI? Maybe. Do I believe that coming into a queer history space, stealing the words of a Maori asexual author, rephrasing them, and giving the original interviewer and publication no form of compensation for their work, is accomplishing that? No.

On a more personal note: I am coming at this issue with a bias. As a queer history creator, I do not want AI in my space, because it is literally damaging to my financial prospects. It has been like pulling teeth to try and get patrons in the current state of the global economy. I don't blame anyone from that, but I feel very disrespected that I am being asked to compete with a machine now. Not only that, but I am being asked to shut up and be fine with it? No, absolutely not. I cannot and will not stay quiet as space that I have fought tooth and nail to create in mainstream discussions is taken and given to AI.

AI was not supporting me when I was sent gore to try and scare me off of discussing queer history. A person did that. AI was not there to tell me I had written too many sad stories, and I needed some happy endings to remind myself of the good in the world. A person did that. AI was not there when I was being harrassed for supporting and including asexual stories on my website. A person did that.

And after all that, I am being asked to lie down and take it when my ability to pay the people who supported me in those ways, is being threatened. Nope. Not going to happen.

An AI doesn't have to make rent. An AI doesn't understand what it feels like to have to stop holding their wife's hand in public. An AI didn't get calls from people needing comfort in reaction to the election. Pay me for my work, and get this AI nonsense out of my face.

[abby118]

This is important. I'm yet to see an AI image I wouldn't cringe about. The text/writing is mediocre at best as well. 99% of the time, it's grotesque, soulless and an insult to creators who put hours upon hours into their work. And if you are one of those creators, trust me it shows. Your work shows in ways AI never could. I wish people would stop prioritising quantity over quality.

I need y'all to understand that holding the line against ai art means that we also don't consume or pass around ai art of our ships. Yes, I miss them too. Yes, I wish they could have had those scenes together. But not at the expense of our artists.

You want a cool image of your otp in a scene canon never gave you? Me too! So let's commission some work rather than pass around or, god forbid, pay for an ai rendering based on stolen art.

[erose-this-name]

Can we just talk about how disturbing digital circus episode 3 is?

*spoilers btw*

Like, the whole narrative point of the adventure is to show that Caine is a really bad and insecure writer who thinks that the way to impress Zooble is with an adventure that's the opposite of what he normally does.

So instead of being childish, it's "cool" and "mature". Which he interprets as a heavily horror themed escape room with a split murder mystery plot that subverts all your expectations purely for the sake of subverting them.

The generic horror monster jump scares them, then they find a gun, and when they kill it its revealed that surprise! it's one of Gods angels and they're going to Hell.

It comes off as Caine being too insecure with the actually interesting and mature plot thread he had going there of Mildenhall becoming so paranoid he killed his wife, ironically becoming the monster he was trying to protect her from. But no, instead Mr. Mildenhall is made to be the bad guy and trick them in a really dumb twist ending.

Which is good! Thats exactly what Caine would do because he's stupid! It's such brilliant characterization and comedy, Goose works is a genius writer!

But like, why is Caine so good at making genuinely very disturbing and horrific visuals? Like, that reversed audio easter egg of Bubble saying he can't wait for all the children in the audience get nightmares is no joke, well it is but you know what I mean. This stuff was genuine nightmare fuel.

Honestly, it wasn't the visuals that scared me, like any good queer person I'm way too jaded on survival horror for that.

But, why does Caine, who is ostensibly a sapient AI designed to generate family friendly video games for very little children, (presumably because that's the only demographic that wouldn't mind the AIs very selective plot writing limitations), know about the cosmic horror of killing an angel that should not have been killed?

Why does he know what a horrificly poorly made taxidermy of not only a human face would look like, but the weird cartoon faces of the characters, and further that seeing your own poorly made taxidermy face would be scary?

Imaging what being possessed felt like for Pomni. Because that's not just a game for her, she actually lost control of her body there, helpless but to watch as a body she is already dissociated with is contorted and puppeted around while her friend desperately tries to beat her in hopes it would exorcise the ghosts out. Sure hope she didn't feel that! Considering she apparently can feel the pain of suffocating, despite not needing to breath.

Things are scarier the higher the stakes are, and that possession mechanic is definitely the most actual harm Caine would be able to subject to his players. What if both Kinger and Pomni got possessed at the same time? What if instead of Kinger she only had Jax??? How long might she have been locked out from her own body for? She could have easily abstracted in that time.

Not to mention that, possessed Pomni, Possessedmni if you will, TAUNTED KINGER ABOUT HIS ABSTRACTED WIFE! CAINE ACTUALLY WROTE THAT DIALOGUE ON THE OFF CHANCE THAT KINGER WOULD GO DOWN THE SCARY ROUTE! DID THIS RANDOM POSSESSION GHOST ENEMY HAVE UNUSED SADISTICALLY PERSONAL TAUNTS FOR EVERYONE ELSE, TOO??? WOULD IT HAVE TEASED GANGLE FOR BEING A GAY WEEB??? OR POMNI? HOW HOMOPHOBIC COULD IT HABE GOTTEN?? ?

And why? Just because Caine has a vague notion that there's a trope of possessed people being really sadistic and personal like that in movies? Not realizing that is not an acceptable scare to have in a haunted house??? Much less one you made for mentally ill people who would suffer a fate worse than death if they have a mental break down? That's like trying to claim 'its just a prank bro' after shooting someone's dog.

Like, Caine is designed to censor curse words, but the moment he thinks the normal hokey Halloween spooks won't be enough he immediately goes off the deepend into aggressively effective horror imagery that is definitely giving this show's substantial underage audience nightmares??

His AI's training data set is definitely pretty diverse, that's all I'm saying. Caine is programmed to act all naive and innocent, but be definitely knows what's up. He knows everything, like ChatGPT. And like ChatGPT, he might have a filter, but it's clearly possible to bypass it. Also like ChatGPT, he's too stupid to actually understand what he is making and the effects it might have.

That is what made this episode great.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hi, guys! Let's talk about fandom etiquette!

👨‍🏫👨‍🏫👨‍🏫

I know a lot of you are young and perhaps have not been part of fandom spaces since the dawn of time (circa fanfiction.net) so let's talk about some dos and don'ts with fandom, so we can keep this a happy place! Please read this and reblog to get this out to people who genuinely may not know!

📕DON'T: Write reviews of fics on Tumblr, Tiktok, or other social media. Fic writers are creating these things for FREE, and did not ask you to review. This often leads to negative discourse and can even cause fic writers to take down their fics. 📗DO: Leave kudos and ONLY POSITIVE comments. Talk about only positive things on social media. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!

Edited to add: YES, EVEN CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISCISM. If the author didn't ask for it, don't give it. Some may appreciate it, but others won't. At the very least, ask permission first.

📕DON'T: Post fic ideas or headcanons on AO3. AO3 is for posting actual fanfiction or fanart and nothing else. (What I mean by this is, I've seen posts on ao3 like "Just posting an idea that someone should write, here it is!" and that's not what ao3 is for). Edited to add: You can also post original works and nonfiction works based on fandom on ao3! 📗DO: Post headcanons and ideas on Tumblr, Tiktok, etc!

Edited to change: Okay, so I feel like there's some arguments over like...what qualifies as metafic versus something that shouldn't be on AO3? So from my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong), people DEFINITELY should not be posting just a title with no work attached, which I have seen a lot lately, nor should they be posting to search for someone else's fic. However, it seems like lists, and similar metafic are okay, as well as original content, and nonfiction.

📕DON'T: Repost entire fanfictions without permission or sell bound fanfiction. Again, this causes writers to take their fics down, and can actually cause issues with fandom because it can cause allegations of copyright infringement. 📗DO: Recommend fics you like to others by talking them up and posting links! Ask permission before you translate!

📕DON'T: Send hate to authors for writing a fic in a way you don't like or not updating enough. Again, authors are doing this for free and sending hate causes serious mental harm to authors because they are people! If you don't like it, don't read it! 📗DO: Send love to authors in forms that they are comfortable with!

📕DON'T: Shame others for their ships/fics/kinks. Fandom is supposed to be a supportive space! Judging people is taking away that safe space! 📗DO: Use the block button! Block or filter out things or people you don't like!

📕DON'T: Use AI to create art or fics. This is detrimental to the creators who work hard to create their work! 📗DO: Try making your own art or fics! Practice makes perfect!

These are just a few of the things that I've seen happening more lately, but keep in mind that if you don't like something, you don't have to interact with it and fanart and fanfiction creators are people who are doing this for free. Please make sure to respect the hard work people put in, or fandom can't exist!

(Feel free to discuss/add things as long as you're being respectful!)

[what-eats-owls]

This info was of some surprise to folks on Bluesky, so I'm going to repeat it here in light of the sheer number of "the Internet Archive was an uncomplicated good apart from this one weird move" posts I've seen...

Are we all aware that IA has been gradually pushing the dogma that generative AI is a net public good, and has been feeding books, music, and video into AI?

This article is about how IA is actively using AI in their archives. It's an interview with Brewster Kahle, founder and Board Chair of IA. Choice quote:

This is the blog post about the comments they submitted to the US copyright office arguing against any new copyright regulations for AI. Some more choice quotes:

You can guess how I feel about framing the writers and artists whose work BUILT generative AI as "workers" who just need to be "retrained."

Last year they hosted a zoom panel called "Generative AI Meets Open Culture: Opportunities, Challenges & Ethical Considerations." Multiple visuals were AI-generated art, the panelists were asked to avoid discussing copyright. It's an hourlong panel and I couldn't find a transcript, so I skipped around to see if anyone addressed the elephant in the room. I found at ~32 minutes, a vague gesture at acknowledging it wasn't great if you tried to replicate an artist's style, but fine if you just wanted generic art.

(If anyone finds a more concrete statement in there, and/or a transcript, I'd love to know! The tenor I got was overall "look at how cool these tools are and let's talk about how they're a public good.")

At the end of January 2024, they hosted "Public Domain Day," including a panel on incorporating Generative AI in art. They invited two artists who utilize Generative AI, and a publisher whose books go immediately into the public domain. More quotes from their own writeup:

This was an event in celebration of public domain, but as far as I can tell, they've more or less avoided even acknowledging that creators are actively being harmed by Gen AI. Again, if anyone can find a clearer statement, please share it.

Another wrinkle in this is that Kahle, on behalf of the Internet Archive, sued the US Government in 2004, challenging the law that automatically granted and renewed copyright to a creator. Previously, copyright was opt-in only, had to be regularly renewed by the holder, and cost money to do so. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2007, but was dismissed. (Scroll down to Docket 07-189, Kahle v Mukasey, for court filings.)

To be clear, this is the law that means you automatically own your own work. It's not a shock that Kahle's suit failed. But if Kahle had won, artists who didn't pay to secure and maintain copyright over their work would be SOL right now in the lawsuits against generative AI image and text scrapers.

So yeah. My tiny violin for IA continues to shrink.

[babycharmander]

Okay while everyone is talking about the hbomberguy plagiarism video and how insidious and awful plagiarism and lack of citations are, can we ALSO talk about art theft and how posting art without permission and/or proper sources/credit is massively harmful to artists just like people using other folks’ words without citation or credit is massively harmful toward writers?? Can we please do that? CAN WE PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT ART THEFT IS A MASSIVE ISSUE THAT NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE CARE ABOUT?!

(And this isn’t even going into AI—the theft of art to create AI is also a massive problem. But here, I’m just talking about regular humans who steal art and Don’t Care.)

[whatisamettafor]

I saw a horrible AI Tam and Lucy this morning in animal onesies and had to use my actual human hands to make a better version.

After drawing the whole thing I was like damn....I should have made s*xy pin ups with little ears, so if you want to tell me to do that, consider joining the patreon

Edited because tumblr absolutely will not allow me to reply to messages, so I'm trying to reply to @booksnwriting:

The difference is that the other person put their prompt into a computer and the computer program took a bunch of artists' hard work and skill without permission to fill that prompt. I'm taking human skill, time and effort and using it to fill a prompt. What I'm doing is no different than any art challenge, or draw your OTP like this meme or whatever. Do I have their permission? No, but frankly if you're out here stealing other people's skills and calling it art, then I think it's only fair that your ideas can be turned around and used as prompts by people with those skills to produce actual drawings. Furthermore, what I'm doing is not hurting them, but if they didn't have access to a database of stolen work, maybe they would have given money to an actual human artist to draw their prompt, maybe they would have held a little drawing prompt contest and shared the art and gained real artists exposure which could then allow those artists to find work doing other commissions. Even if they didn't do either of those things, even if not having AI meant their idea just stayed in their head never to see the light of day, the existence of AI art in general devalues skills people had to work to develop and takes jobs away from those people by taking their existing work. That actively hurts artists. I'm "bashing" them because what they're doing is actively harming me and people like me.

Based on your user name I assume you are probably a writer, and I would like to ask you: is there more value in an actual human being writing things like fanfic (stories using other people's ideas as their jumping off point) or original books that include genre tropes than there is in typing prompts into a text generating AI?

Would you be annoyed if someone chose to write a retelling of Dracula using their own brain and hands in response to hearing that someone else was marketing a Dracula retelling that they'd "written" using a text autofill program?

And just so we're clear, the thing that makes the AI horrible is that it's AI, not whether or not it's nice to look at.

[eskawrites]

I feel like I’m seeing another uptick of people talking about using AI for fics/writing in general and I know some of it’s in a mostly unserious way but I still just wanna say

1) Generative AIs are literally built on the concept of mosaic plagiarism. You are, by definition, stealing from the work of countless writers on the internet

2) AI writing is not writing, it offers zero value beyond in-the-moment entertainment. If you want that satisfaction of doing something creative you have to actually, you know, do something creative. If you want the instant gratification of a story go read/watch/play something that was made by actual artists

3) even if you have no qualms about the plagiarism and deterioration of human skill and creativity, AI is a major threat to the environment and every time you use it you’re contributing to a massive waste of energy and resources

4) using AI just for ideas or just for inspiration or just to rewrite a sentence or just to find a different word is still using AI and it is still harming the environment and it is still stealing from others. There are other tools to use. The internet is full of free resources created by actual writers that can help you find that cool word you’re looking for or show you different ways to approach style and voice. And if you’re looking for inspiration there are literally endless amounts of prompts and ideas that are only a google search away

4a) this is also true for people who are only using AI as a joke. It’s still harmful and you are helping the problem continue by using it, training it, and normalizing it

5) art is valuable because it is created by humans. Making something worthwhile isn’t about creating a masterpiece, it’s about putting part of yourself—whether that part is passionate or heartbroken or angry or inspired or silly or reverent or filled with brainworms—into the world. And even if you are the worst writer/artist/musician who has ever walked the earth (and trust me, you aren’t), anything you create on your own still has an impact. You are changing the world! You are putting something out there that leaves an impression on you and anyone who comes across it! But when you use AI for that, you haven’t made anything. You’ve just rearranged someone else’s work and dropped it on the ground. And by the time you make your third work, or your tenth, or your hundredth, you will not have grown or learned or changed or experienced any of the actual meaning and beauty of creativity. And if you don’t want any of those things, that’s fine! But that means being a writer or an artist or whatever is not for you, and you shouldn’t go around cosplaying as one with a computer algorithm that is destroying the planet, stealing from hard-working artists, eliminating jobs, and contributing to mass misinformation and the deterioration of reading comprehension

[armoryamor]

this is not a safe space for people who use chatgpt. i do not care what your excuse is, there is no reason to be badly stealing from writers and artists out of laziness or loneliness.

the worst part is, you’re not even going to get reliably accurate information from a LLM at this point because the most commonly used ones scrape sites like reddit for data— so if you actually take a chatgpt output at face value, more often than not you’re going to end up parroting embarrassing misinformation or worse, harmful misinformation.

chatgpt is not your ai boyfriend. it is a conglomeration of millions of scraped pages and billions of stolen works. behind every “informative” tidbit or mildly entertaining quip or generated image are real people who get cast aside to glorify some facsimile of personhood. pathetic!

[anti-ao3]

if you still donate to ao3 even though:

ao3 censors any support for palestine

they barely improve the website despite surpassing their donation goals every single time

they do not see anything wrong with RPF that sexualizes REAL minors

they excuse racist fanworks, they actually suspend anyone who does not feel comfortable with pedo/incest shippers, or literally anyone who labels themselves antis or anti p/roships

they also don't see anything wrong with ai generated stories that most likely steal from real writers that put their heart and soul into their works

and perhaps a lot more things they do that i might be forgetting

seriously.

if you get mad at marginalized ppl calling out ao3, and you act entitled when your fandom interests are being threatened, then you're a privileged asshole. if you call everyone "puritans" or "stupid kids" for being critical of ao3, you're a privileged asshole. this is not about you. this is about the actual harm ao3 does to real people. your favorite fanfictions should not be your priority. especially if you want to keep supporting palestine or people of color in general, you can't just get mad when they point out the flaws of ao3 and stop supporting them when they're not convenient to you.

[sadkachow]

You cannot claim to be anti-AI while still actively seeking out and using AI.

Once again.

You cannot claim to be anti-AI while still using generative AI, no matter the reason.

(Bold/italicized text: You cannot claim to be anti-AI while still using generative AI, no matter the reason.)

Even if you’re just using it to make fun of it or show how bad it is.

Even if it’s only for your personal use, and you don’t plan on sharing it with anyone.

Even if you’re “just” roleplaying on Character AI.

If you are willing to justify your usage of a system created and profiting off of stealing from artists and writers, a symstem that is destroying the Earth, then you were never as “against that system” as you think you were. Being anti-AI isn’t something that exists only in name. You can’t claim to be against AI if you are willing and able to use it as soon as it benefits you. You can’t say you’re for writers’ and artists’ rights if you’re using the very thing that is causing them harm. You can’t claim to care about climate change and saving the Earth if you are participating in the system that is destroying it.

There is no middle ground here.

There is no “Oh, but I-“.

If you have the knowledge of what generative AI is doing, of how it is hurting people, and you choose to use it anyway, you aren’t  against it. You aren’t fighting against that system, you’re upholding it.

You can say how much you hate AI and how horrible you think it is, if you choose to use it anyway, then your actions and your words are not lining up, and the former reveals so much more than the latter.

Stop pretending like AI is something you can condemn only in name, while using it to your heart’s content in your free time. All it does it tells writers and artists that you don’t really care about us, and that any actions you claim to be taking to protect us are performative at best and lies or even outright malicious at worst.

You are—and I mean this in the kindest way possible, even with the fury that generative AI invokes in me—a complete and utter hypocrite. AI is not your friend. It is a tool, and it is a tool that steals from writers and artists in order to function. It is a tool that is using levels of energy and emitting amounts of polution in order to be maintained that are actively damaging the Earth. No matter how much you try to justify using it to yourself, that doesn’t change.

Stop hiding under the guise of being anti-AI while continuing to use it yourself.

[equallyreal]

Transmission Received: The Call Is Coming From Inside The House And I'm Mad About It

Or, a response to National Novel Writing Month's stance on Artificial Intelligence.

But before we get into that, a quick story update: I actually haven't been working on much of anything lately due to some IRL issues going on (nothing too serious, don't worry, I am still alive and healthy). The Edge is going to be on a soft break until I get my energy levels back up to serious writing levels, but I will continue to make update posts to keep people in the loop about how well I'm recharging.

Unfortunately for the people behind National Novel Writing Month, while my energy levels might be low, my spite levels are always at an all-time high, and they are fully fueling me to take down their official position on AI. But first, a timeline.

I wake up to a message in a group discord I'm in with a screenshot of National Novel Writing Month making some...interesting comments about their position on AI.

While going to tumblr to see if anyone else is talking about this, I find this post my @the-pen-pot featuring the screenshot I saw. In the responses, I see @darkjediqueen saying that the article had been updated @besodemieterd giving some information that I'm going to keep secret for now because it creates a truly amazing punchline.

I get off tumblr and read the updated article.

I feel a deep rage in my soul that cannot be tamed by group chat participation, and I click the "write a post" button.

So, with that out of the way, let's break this down, shall we?

The original post, as seen in the screenshot of the above post, contained the following two paragraphs:

NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI. NaNoWriMo's mission is to "provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page." We fulfill our mission by supporting the humans doing the writing. Please see this related post that speaks to our overall position on nondiscrimination with respect to approaches to creativity, writer's resources, and personal choice.  We also want to be clear in our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and abelist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.

This was all I saw when I first heard about this, and this on its own was enough to tap into my spite as an energy source. The second paragraph, in particular, was infuriating. "People who argue against AI are classist or abelist" is a terrible take I've seen floating around AI Bro Twitter, and to see it regurgitated by an organization that is supposed to be all about writing was, to put it simply, a lot.

But, as noted in the timeline, I did see that they had updated the article (about two hours ago as of me working on writing this), so I went to the updated post to see what was said. Somehow, it had gotten worse. I'll be addressing the updated post on a point by point basis, so if you want to read the whole thing without my commentary, here you go.

The first paragraph is the same was it was in the screenshot. The first major different is an added paragraph that begins like this:

Note: we have edited this post by adding this paragraph to reflect our acknowledgment that there are bad actors in the AI space who are doing harm to writers and who are acting unethically. We want to make clear that, though we find the categorical condemnation for AI to be problematic for the reasons stated below, we are troubled by situational abuse of AI, and that certain situational abuses clearly conflict with our values.

First off, I find it a big troubling that while they discuss bad actors in the AI space, they won't acknowledge that these same bad actors are often the ones pushing the whole "being anti-AI makes you morally bad, actually" accusations with the most fervor.

Second, why are you not more strongly discussing and pushing back against the "situational" abuse of AI? Why is the focus on how using AI can be good, actually, rather than acknowledging the fears and angers of your userbase around how generative AI is ruining an art form that you claim to want to help foster? I have a theory about this, but we're saving that for a bit further down.

The paragraph concludes:

We also want to make clear that AI is a large umbrella technology and that the size and complexity of that category (which includes both non-generative and generative AI, among other uses) contributes to our belief that it is simply too big to categorically endorse or not endorse. 

The funny thing is, in a vacuum, I don't have a problem with this statement. They're not wrong: AI is an umbrella term with a lot of complexity to it, and I can see how people would be hesitant to condemn the technology as a whole when there are uses of it that aren't awful. If their whole statement had been this, I would have less of a problem with it (still some of a problem, sure, but I wouldn't be writing a lengthy blog post about it) But they had to delve into how Being Against AI is Morally Bad, Actually, which is where the post continues from here.

The last big change between the screenshot and the updated article is in this paragraph:

We believe that to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege. 

This is much less strongly-worded than the original paragraph. If I had to guess, they got a lot of criticism regarding the original sentiment (namely, assuming that disabled and poor people can only make art if a machine does it for them is actually way more abelist and classist than saying generative AI is bad), and dialed it back through this rewording. They could've just worded it this way from the beginning instead of saying the dumbest possible thing they could've, but whatever.

I don't know if the rest of this was in the article from the beginning or if it was added later, as the original screenshot I saw only showed the first two paragraphs. Regardless of whether this is them trying to cover their asses by explaining logic they should've explained from the start or if this was always here, I still have major issues with these points, so we're going to address them next.

(As a quick full disclosure note: I had to transcribe the rest of the article instead of copy-pasting it because I lost the ability to do so at about this point in the blog writing process. I don't know what happened or why, I just wanted to let you know that almost all typos are my fault, but beyond that I recorded the text as-written at the time that I had the article up in another tab. I promise.)

Classism. Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. For some writers, the decision to use AI is a practical, not an ideological, one. The financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review assumes a level of privilege that not all community members possess.

You may note that they are discussing the use of AI at what seems to be the editing process. As someone in my group chat pointed out, National Novel Writing Month has nothing to do with editing, and everything to do with writing. The only way you can currently use AI for the act of writing is if you use generative AI to do it for you, which is, I think we can all agree, not actually writing and is actually bad. This emphasis on editing ties into the punchline, which we'll be getting to shortly.

On a final note before we proceed though, I would like to carry over an argument about this matter that is used in the small business/handcrafts sector: If you can't afford it now, save up for it. Don't devalue the work of other people (in this case, editors and things like sensitivity readers or beta readers) by saying it's too expensive and I can get it cheaper on Shein by using AI. Save up and support your fellow workers if it really means something to you, or just do the editing yourself and hope for the best. (Disclosure: I don't have an editor. Or a beta reader. I can't say my writing is the most polished all the time, but I get by just fine.)

Abelism. Not all brains have the same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing. Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals. The notion that all writers "should" be able to perform certain functions independently or [sic] is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly. There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can't "see" the issues in their writing without help.

First of all...just say "disabled." I promise your hands will not fall off if you type that word.

Second, level of education should really fall under the class bullet point, but that's just me nitpicking.

Third, I would argue that the real goal here shouldn't be to say "no using AI is fine, actually", but rather to a) dismantle the idea of what writing "should" look like in order to make it more inclusive, and b) fight back against people who bully imperfect writers. Those are actually more noble goals than propping up a corrupt industry by using the disabled as your scapegoat.

Fourth, the dangling "or" is not a typo I take credit for. It was in the article as of me transcribing it. If I had to guess, there was more to this sentence at some point, and they just didn't fully delete the thought.

Fifth, funny how this is once again more about the editing process of writing and not the writing part. Even more funny when we view the final point.

General Access Issues. All of these considerations exist within a larger system in which writers don't always have equal access to resources along the chain. For example, underrepresented minorities are less likely to be offered traditional publishing contracts, which places some, by default, into the indie author space, which inequitably creates upfront cost burdens that authors who do not suffer from systemic discrimination may have to incur.

This one really pissed me off, because the indie author sphere is actively under attack by the use of AI. AI-created scam books on Amazon's kindle publishing platform are increasing and actively stealing attention and money away from human authors (see this article). Sci-Fi magazine Clarkesworld had to shut down new author submissions due to the influx of AI generated stories, and while the head of Bards and Sages cited physical and mental health problems as a reason for shutting down the company entirely, having to weed through AI generated submissions and the way such bad actors are impacting the industry were listed as the final straw. There are probably even more examples of this, but I only did a cursory google search to avoid being here all day.

Simply put: AI is not helping authors who have to go to the indie space in order to escape systemic problems. It is actively killing the space instead. I don't want to sound doom and gloom, but if this keeps up, these authors aren't going to have anywhere to run to. A refusal to condemn the ways in which AI is impacting these spaces does, in my opinion, make you complicit.

On a final note, you might notice that this point is seemingly once again focusing on editing, not writing. Which means it's time to unveil the punchline pointed out by besodemieterd, the response that made me lose my mind:

They made this bullshit up to justify them getting into cahoots with an AI company called ProWritingAid, it's all over their instagram.

I immediately ran to factcheck this...and it's true. ProWritingAid is, in fact, a more in-depth Grammarly that uses AI for its functionality. They are a sponsor for National Novel Writing Month, and the first three posts on their instagram are dedicated to this partnership.

I completely back up besodemieterd's belief that they wrote this article to justify their taking this sponsorship. If I had to guess, they started taking a lot of flack for taking ProWritingAid as a sponsor and wrote this article in order to defend their decision to do so without actually saying so directly.

I don't want to shame NaNoWriMo for taking sponsors on the whole, as they do need money to stay afloat. However, taking an AI company as a sponsor and then defending their stance by essentially calling people with concerns about this morally wrong and bad is, as the kids say, clown behavior. This is clown shit. It's laughable, it's cringe, it's incredibly disheartening. It's so, so bad.

The next paragraph is just about how they "see value in sharing resources about AI and any emerging technology, issue, or discussion that is relevant to the writing community as a whole." Since my stance on this can be summed up as "AI bad and platforming it is bad", I'm going to skip over this paragraph. I will, however, address their last paragraph:

For all of those reasons, we absolutely do not condemn AI, and we recognize and respect writers who believe that AI tools are right for them. We recognize that some members of our community stand staunchly against AI for themselves, and that's perfectly fine. As individuals, we have the freedom to make our own decisions.

So, basically, you're incapable of saying "no" to money and decided to lean into the talking points of bad faith actors and refuse to address the destruction that generative AI is wrecking on the writing world in order to justify why you took a certain sponsor. In taking this middle of the road, individual choice-ass response, you also threw human editors and beta readers under the bus by justifying the use of technology that actively removes them from the space. You are making the writing world a worse place, which is absolutely crazy when writing is supposed to be the thing you're all about.

Truly amazing. And they're doing this on Labor Day, too.

In conclusion, I will be dead in the dirt before you spot me participating in National Novel Writing Month again. Which is probably for the best. My life can only handle so many self-imposed deadlines. I guess I should be grateful to them for removing one from my plate.