#diskurs

[fangbanger3000]

we need to talk about The Silence and The Song

[PLEASE READ] edit to add: i realise that this post has been reblogged far and wide and that there is not a lot i can do about it now, but this is me trying anyway.

posting examples from the fic about my issues with its repetitive structure was careless of me, and i apologise to those of you who read it and became insecure about your own writing style. as someone who has worked with ai in academic settings, it's incredibly difficult for me to explain to you how the tone and structure of ai-generated fiction works and how, after reading enough of it, you can simply just tell. i do also realise that this is an incredibly weak argument, which is why i didn't include it when i originally wrote this post.

all that to say: there is an enormous difference between "beginner's writing" and ai writing. being repetitive as a new writer (or a seasoned one who just likes using repetition) is so normal. as is flowery/purple language. i've read hundreds of books and fics and the difference between these traits in ai-text and actual works is starkly clear. please don't feel anxious over the examples i've used in this post.

again, i apologise for any distress i have caused.

as per my last post, i have received a lot of encouragement to go public with this, and the more disappointed people i have in my dms, the angrier i get. so i will.

the silence and the song is an ancient arlathan au DA fic on ao3 by luxannaslut, and it is partly, if not entirely, written by an ai. i have no wish to be involved in any kind of fandom drama or witch hunting or bullying, but as a writer myself there are few things that piss me off more than watching people steal the work of others because they can't be fucked to write. it's disrespectful to your fellow writers, it's disrespectful to your readers, and it's disrespectful to the authors of the works the ai is stealing from.

ai is a plague that has no business being in creative spaces and you must do better.

the writing pattern

there was something very odd and monotone about the sentence structure of tsats that i couldn't quite place, so i fed chatgpt a prompt along the lines of "two people in a fantasy novel hate each other, but they secretly desire one another, and they kiss", and the screenshots above are the results. the third one is an excerpt from chapter 40 of tsats. the writing pattern is identical and it doesn't seem like the "writer" has even bothered to pretend they wrote it. if you're going to use ai, at least be sneaky about it. you know, paraphrase a little.

nonsense descriptions

"her nimble fingers worked with quiet precision" (ct. 1), "his grip firm but tender" (ct. 33), "her gown pooling around her like embers" (ct. 1).

fingers don't make sound, so what does quiet precision mean? as opposed to what? her joints cracking with every movement? how is a grip firm but tender? what does that mean? since when do embers pool?

the entire fic is littered with these adjectives that contradict each other or just straight up do not make sense, because all an ai does is generate descriptive language with no understanding of what the words it's spitting out actually mean. i could spend hours picking out examples from the seven billion pages worth of text, but i quite frankly have better things to do and would simply challenge you to try getting through a chapter or two without noticing the pattern.

repetition at structure-level

all the scenes in this fic are described in pretty much the same way. they open with purple prose vomit of the surroundings; solas is standing somewhere looking "unreadable as ever"; ellana's fiery golden molten fire copper ember ginger red hair is flowing this and that way; there's some dialogue with whoever is present and it leaves ellana feeling different variations of "something she couldn't name". this is, once again, a blatantly obvious sign of ai. below is the result of me feeding chatgpt the line "write me a scene from a fantasy novel where a woman with red hair is sitting on the ground in a magical garden at night", and side by side with that is the opening scene of the fic. make your own judgement.

repetition at word-level

this one speaks for itself. we fucking get it. her dress is orange, her hair is red, mythal's presence is heavy in the room, solas looks unreadable, compassion is sitting on her head like a crown, solas' ears are betraying him and ellana's move with every thought she thinks. we get it. the issue here is that an ai remembers the info you feed it, but not necessarily the info it shits out. if it's being told to write scene after scene of an elven woman with a gown that looks like fire doing xyz, it's going to do so with no regard for how many times the reader has already been informed of these details.

lastly: the breakneck speed

359,6k words in four weeks by a person who allegedly is employed and married and hasn't pre-written anything? no. any writer will tell you that this simply isn't possible. it absolutely infuriates me to see how much praise this "writer" gets for posting up to three full chapters in a day without anyone calling bullshit. i am pulling out my hair, you guys.

why i'm not going to live and let live this one

perhaps i would be less angry if the fic was some silly bullshit court intrigue Y/A stuff, but this is a text that handles very heavy and triggering topics such as SA, coercion, domestic abuse, and other things of the same vein. to sit back and put your feet up while having a robot write these extremely sensitive and very real human experiences with words it has stolen from texts written by actual persons is fucking heinous. the "writer" should be deeply ashamed of themselves and i'm sick and tired of watching people eat up their bs.

and on that note: the amount of people in my dm's telling me that they feel stupid and naive for not clocking this has infuriated me more than anything else. you're not foolish for this. being fed ai-generated bullshit is not what is supposed to happen on any creative platform and much less a fandom-centred one, so of course no one approaches a fic through that lens. fandom and fic writing is supposed to be about passion and the only person in this situation who needs to do better and change their behaviour is luxannaslut. polluting our creative spaces, wasting the time of your readers, and minimising the effort of actual writers who are working hard to provide content for us all to share and enjoy is vile and so, so lazy. i beg of you: do better.

[zaunwelt]

Philosophischer Diskurs

Der berühmte Diskurs beginnt mit Fjodor Dostojewskis Erzählung – Die Brüder Karamasow –, wo der Sohn am Sterbebett seines Vaters fragt, wenn es keinen Gott gäbe, was wäre dann? Der Vater antwortet ihm, ja, dann wäre alles erlaubt.

Friedrich Nietzsche greift den Diskurs auf und erklärt, es gehe um den Zerfall der Gesellschaft, nicht nur der Vater sterbe, auch Gott sei tot.

Doch Sigmund Freud widerspricht, Gott lebe weiter, aber er sei im Unbewussten des Menschen verdrängt worden.

Nun tritt Jacques Lacan auf den Plan und sagt, ja dann lassen sich die beiden ersten Punkte auch verknüpfen und die Aussagen umkehren. Wenn Gott im Unbewussten des modernen Menschen weiterlebe, dann ist es doch so, dass die eigene Instanz alles sabotiere, da der einzelne Mensch sich nichts mehr erlauben könne und sich alles und jedes verbiete.

Insbesondere die Hedonisten unter uns, alle vermeintlich nahe dem Glück, erfahren das jeden Tag. Sie nickten bloß bestätigend stumm vor sich hin.

Da tritt am Schluss der Philosoph Slavoj Zizek auf die Bühne und meint, ja gut, alles sei verboten, außer bei den religiösen Fundamentalisten. Diese könnten schalten und walten, wie sie wollten, denn sie drückten nur den Willen ihres Gottes aus. Deshalb sei ihnen alles erlaubt.

[benkaden]

"In offering alternative geographies the postcards puncture the singular narrative of a controlling cartographic governmentality"

Das und die damit verbundene Idee von postcards-as-cartography nehme ich aus dem sehr lesenswerten Aufsatz "Representing Freetown: Photographs, maps and postcards in the urban cartography of colonial Sierra Leone" von Milo Gough mit. (In: Journal of Historical Geography, Volume 81, July 2023, Pages 3-15 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2023.04.001)

Ein bildanalytisches Suchen nach einer alternativen Raumerfahrung über Ansichtskarten scheint mir jedenfalls ein sehr lohnenswertes Unterfangen für die Weiterentwicklung einer deltiologischen Methode zu sein.

Sehr offensichtlich gibt es erhebliche Unterschiede zwischen der Ansichtskartenfotografie von Alphonso Lisk-Carew (1883-1969) und den in meiner Sammlung befindlichen Karten vor allem aus der DDR. Eine Gemeinsamkeit scheint mir aber darin zu legen, dass in beiden Fällen oft nicht das klassische pittoreske Bild sondern die Abbildung der sich an einem Ort bündelnden Komplexität im Spannungsverhältnis mit bestimmten Tropen markant hervortritt, zumindest bei den die Entwicklung der sozialistischen Urbanität und damit verbundener modernisierter Lebenswelten in der DDR zeigenden Ansichten. "[I]mages that were highly ambivalent, both depicting the complexities of place and shaped by the flattening effects of colonial tropes" erkennt Milo Gough in Bezug auf Alphonso Lisk-Carew. Die Tropen der DDR-Philokartie und insbesondere der, wenn man sie so nennen will, Ostmoderne-Philokartie wären allerdings keine klassisch kolonialen sondern ebenfalls im Fluss befindliche Vorstellungsbilder einer sozialistischen Moderne.

Ein sofort sichtbarer Unterschied: Die Menschen bei Alphonso Lisk-Carew erschienen in hochverdichteten und eng bevölkerten Stadträumen wohingegen die Ansichtskartenfotograf*innen der DDR bisweilen das Problem hatten, überhaupt Personen in den neuen Wohngebieten anzutreffen.

Gerade das aber macht die Analyse so reizvoll: der Mensch im Raum im Bild. Neben der Logik oder dem Eigensinn des gezeigten Ortes, im Fall von Neubaugebieten oder auch neugestalteten sozialistischen Stadtzentren mit aus dem Blick gebauter oder noch gar nicht vorhandenen Eigengeschichtlichkeit, und der sozialistischen städtebaulichen und architektonischen Gestaltungen, Ikonografien und, was zu untersuchen wäre, vielleicht auch bildkompositorischen Spezifika (= die Tropen), wären die konkret gezeigten Menschen in ihrer Positur, Bewegung und Beziehungen eine dritte zentrale Größe für das Close Reading der Ansichtskartenbilder.

Mehr oder weniger intuitiv nähere ich mich dem bereits über die Bildausschnitte an. Der nächste methodische Schritt wäre der Versuch, das weiter zu systematisieren. Und dies würde dann erwartungsgemäß auch genau die Aspekte herausheben, die Bestätigungen und Diskrepanzen zwischen Tropus und lebensweltlichen Raumerfahrung aufzeigen, eventuell auch fotografische Lapsus, die aus der Hektik und Unkonzentriertheit der Aufnahmesituation entstanden und so das eigentlich gewünschte Narrativ des Bildes beiläufig, nun, punktieren.

[craft2eu]

... noch ein Abschied: Ade MK&G messe Hamburg

Zum Jahresbeginn 2025 sorgt ein Schreiben, unterzeichnet von Tulga Beyerle, der Leiterin des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg sowie von Sebastian Giesen, dem Vorsitzenden des Freundeskreises, der Justus Brinckmann Gesellschaft, für Unruhe in der Szene angewandter Kunst. Daraus zitiere ich: „Wir, das Museum für Kunst & Gewerbe (MK&G) und der MK&G-Freundeskreis, die Justus Brinckmann…

[jjr1971]

Der heutige Diskurs in USA

So yeah, I was a German major in college, studied abroad in Germany, and taught High School German (all levels) for a year (which I fucking hated, btw). I do watch some German TV (news) over my Roku to keep up my listening comprehension, and some movies, too.

[inkognito-philosophin]

Technodizee – Leibniz für heute

Die Technik, die wir schufen, um freier zu werden, schränkt uns zunehmend ein. Zumindest besteht diese Gefahr. Vor dem Hintergrund der düsteren Prognosen zum Klimawandel will auch die Technik – bzw. deren Entstehung, Entwicklung und Nutzung – gerechtfertigt sein. In seinem Aufsatz „Malum technologicum. Die Technodizee als Transformation der Theodizee“ entwickelt der Philosoph Hans Poser den Gedanken, das Grundübel unserer Zeit bestehe in der Möglichkeit einer Einschränkung menschlicher Freiheit durch die negativen Folgen der Technik.

Poser umreißt die Analogie zu Leibnizens Argumentation wie folgt:

„In seiner Rechtfertigung Gottes ist für Leibniz das Übel um der Harmonie in der besten aller möglichen Welten willen als unvermeidlich zuzulassen. Als verwandelte Form der Theodizee ergibt sich das Technodizee-Problem, in dem nicht Gott, sondern der Mensch für die üblen Folgen seiner Schöpfung angeklagt wird. Als Mängelwesen mit Vernunft ist der Mensch einerseits auf die Technik angewiesen, andererseits gefährdet er durch die unvermeidlichen zerstörerischen Folgen technischer Schöpfungen sein Überleben und stellt vielleicht sogar das eigene Dasein in Frage“.

Die Argumentation läuft bei Leibniz über drei Ebenen: 1. die der Möglichkeit (Gott wählt aus den Möglichkeiten die beste aus), 2. die der Verantwortung Gottes für die erschaffene Welt und 3. die der Wertung, das heißt es muss klar sein, was „gut“ und was „böse“ bedeutet. Diese Ebenen, so Poser, finden sich auch im Technikdiskurs wieder.

Der Ermöglichungsgrund einer besseren Welt

Zunächst geht es, so Poser, um den „Ermöglichungsgrund einer besseren Welt“. Es gibt drei Varianten des Technikgeneseverständnisses, die jeweils einen anderen modalen Status haben. Zum einen kann der Ingenieur als derjenige angesehen werden, der an die Stelle des Schöpfergottes tritt, der aus einem Ideenreich die beste Möglichkeit für eine Maschine o. ä. identifiziert, auswählt und konstruiert, so wie Gott aus den möglichen Welten die beste identifiziert und erschaffen hat. Das setzt freilich eine platonische Denkweise voraus, die Annahme, dass es ein solches ���Ideenreich“ gibt. Eine solche Ontologie vertreten heute nur noch wenige Technikphilosophen. Zum anderen ist es denkbar, dass Technikentwicklung quasi automatisch abläuft, unabhängig vom Menschen. Dieses Nichtsteuerbarkeitspostulat wird von einer technikkritischen Richtung vertreten, häufig in Anbindung an Joseph Weizenbaum.

Die dritte Option geht davon aus, dass Technik von allen Menschen geschaffen wird. Damit liegt die Technikgenese weder in den Händen eines Einzelnen (des „Schöpfer-Ingenieurs“), noch entsteht und entwickelt sich Technik „einfach so“. Vielmehr verlangt die Gesellschaft nach technischen Lösungen, und Menschen aus dieser Gesellschaft befriedigen diese Bedürfnisse zum Wohle aller (oder besser: vieler). Das mögliche Übel, das Technik mit sich bringt, wird hierbei nicht als Hemmnis betrachtet, das die Reduktion technischer Eingriffe nahe legt, sondern als Aufforderung zu mehr – und im Sinne des Fortschrittsoptimismus – besserer Technik. Ein Beispiel dafür wäre die Suche nach „sicheren“ Atomreaktortypen für die Energieerzeugung.

Das Problem der Verantwortung

Sodann muss sich Gott in Leibnizens Theodizee für die von ihm geschaffene Welt angesichts des in ihr spürbaren Übels vor der menschlichen Vernunft verantworten. Dieses Verständnis von Verantwortung übertragen auf die Technodizee führt zu der Formel, dass sich der Mensch vor dem Menschen für die Schaffung und den Gebrauch von Technik verantworten muss. Unterstellt, dass Technik weder die einsame Schöpfung eines Ingenieurs und auch nicht ein sich immer weiter verselbstständigender Prozess ist, sondern gesellschaftlich generiert wird, geht es in der Technodizee also um die Mitverantwortung aller Akteure, also auch der Konsumenten, die eine bestimmte Technik wollen, nicht um die Generalverantwortung eines einzelnen Forschers oder Ingenieurs und auch nicht um die bloße Rezeption einer schicksalhaften Entwicklung, für die niemand Verantwortung trägt.

„Mitverantwortung aller Akteure“ – das macht die Sache schwierig, weil Abgrenzungen kaum vorgenommen werden können. Wer trägt die Verantwortung, wenn ein Flugzeug abstürzt? Der Konstrukteur, der Pilot, der Mehrheitsaktionär, der immer stärkeren Druck ausübt auf die Fluggesellschaft, Kosten zu reduzieren oder gar der Fluggast selbst, der immer billiger und schneller ans Ziel kommen will? Alle – irgendwie. Jeder Einzelne trägt einen Teil der Verantwortung, weil jede und jeder Einzelne an ihrer oder seiner Stelle mit ihren oder seinen spezifischen Ansprüchen das System „Technik“ – hier: das Flugzeug – generiert, auch wenn für Konstruktion und Produktion die allerwenigsten Menschen konkret verantwortlich sind.

Das Werturteil über technische Systeme

Schließlich sei die Frage nach der Bedeutung von „gut“ und „böse“ gestellt. In der Theodizee Leibnizens ist das klar. Es herrscht das Prinzip des Besten, das Gott veranlasst, ein Maximum an Ordnung wirklich werden zu lassen, was ein Maximum an Harmonie und Vollkommenheit in der Welt bedeutet, keine absolute zwar, jedoch eine größtmögliche. Was aber ist das Prinzip des Besten in der Technik? Hier gibt es aufgrund der unterschiedlichen Interessen der am gesellschaftlichen Geneseprozess beteiligten Akteure auch unterschiedliche Gütevorstellungen: Dem Ingenieur geht es um Funktionalität, dem Aktionär um Wirtschaftlichkeit, dem Kunden um Freude bei der Anwendung.

Ferner stellt sich das Problem der Abschätzung von Folgen: Das Prinzip des Besten in der Technodizee ist an den Wissensstand des endlichen, fehlbaren Wesens Mensch gebunden, hat also nicht die unendliche praevisio des allwissenden und allmächtigen Gottes im Rücken, die Leibniz in der Theodizee als Schöpfungskonstitution unterstellt. Darin liegt eine besondere Brisanz, denn es sind ja gerade jene Folgen, mit denen keiner rechnet, die so verheerend sind, weil nichts an Schutzmaßnahmen ergriffen wird, einfach deshalb, weil das Problembewusstsein fehlt. Man denke etwa an die Mineralfaser Asbest oder an den Kühlstoff FCKW, die in den 1960er Jahren in erster Linie als eines wahrgenommen wurden: als preiswert. Und im 19. Jahrhundert hätte kein Mensch daran gedacht, dass die mit fossilen Brennstoffen angetriebene Industrialisierung einen derartigen ökologischen Einschlag haben würde, Stichwörter: Kohlenstoffdioxid, Treibhauseffekt, Klimawandel.

Die Strukturanalogie und der Technikdiskurs

Was bedeutet dies nun für den Technikdiskurs? Die Strukturanalogie von Theodizee und Technodizee legt im Ergebnis nahe, nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen eine Bewertung von Technik jenseits der eindimensionalen ökonomischen Verwertungslogik vorzunehmen, d.h. soziale, gesundheitliche und ökologische Folgen hinreichend zu berücksichtigen. Die Strukturanalogie gebietet ferner, die für die Technikgenese Zuständigen – und das sind wir alle, jede und jeder von uns – stärker in die Verantwortung zu nehmen, ganz im Sinne einer depotenzierenden Theodizee-Deutung im Perspektivwechsel von der Ursachenforschung zur Überwindungsambition, etwa bei Hans Jonas. Das Ziel muss dabei sein, künftiges Technik-Übel, künftige Katastrophen zu verhindern, auch wenn dieses Ziel nie gänzlich erreicht werden kann.

Die Analogie bedeutet aber auch, dass wir sämtliche strukturelle Schwierigkeiten des Theodizee-Topos in den Technikdiskurs mitnehmen, einschließlich einer möglichen Unlösbarkeit der Technodizeefrage aufgrund der Undurchsichtigkeit des wissenschaftlich-technischen Systemzusammenhangs. Wenn die Wege des Herrn unerforschlich sind, wie das der Apostel Paulus schreibt, und die Theodizee für die menschliche Vernunft nicht fassbar ist, wie Kant meinte, dann könnten auch die Wege technologischer Entwicklung und deren Folgen in technischen Systemen unerforschlich sein. Die menschliche Vernunft könnte also ebenso an der Technodizee scheitern.

Hans Poser sah diese Probleme, doch zugleich sah er den Wert der Technodizee darin begründet, dass mit ihr ein gedankliches Instrumentarium zur Verfügung steht, sich der Frage nach der „Gerechtigkeit der Technik“ anzunähern, und zumindest von wissenschaftlich-technologischen Lösungen in Gestalt konkreter Techniken nicht nur gefordert wird, dass sie sich rechnen, sondern dass sie – nach allem, was wir wissen können – dem Menschen und der Umwelt gerecht werden.

[fangbanger3000]

feel free to read this long explanation stating the same thing i stated in my post:

ai detectors are only reliable to a point.

as we knew. as has been stated from the start. if you decide that the results presented to you regarding the two fics are coincidences with no tethers to reality, slay. as you were.

if you decide to cherrypick what parts of the posts in question you consider while choosing to ignore factors such as insanely high word counts, little to zero typos/mistakes across 700k+ words, and admission of guilt, i fear you and i are at an impasse.

as for how much harm and irreparable damage my post specifically has caused as well and in regard to my own vicious cruelty, let me point out what hasn't happened:

the author of tsats has not been "run off the internet". last i heard, she is alive, active, and well on her private x account, is still actively working on her fic, and has many followers and readers who still support her and are excited for the republishing of her fic.

no one has been harassed on my accord. from the beginning, i have discouraged harassment and witch hunting because that wasn't what my post was about.

i made that post with less than 100 followers. it has less than 1k notes. i understand that this might feel grand to you if this sphere is the only fandom space you frequent, but i assure you this scandal in the dragon age community is not as big as you think it is. the fandom will be just fine.

i have made no personal attacks against anyone because, respectfully, why the fuck would i give a shit. my intention was to spread awareness, and i have. if my tone has been impolite in response to people telling me i should commit suicide and harassing my friends, i don't apologise. the behaviours springing from that post were unacceptable and entirely undeserved.

i have made no posts 'across several platforms'. i believe i tweeted about it once without mentioning titles or names before i made the callout post, and that tweet along with my account has since then been deleted. mind you, i had less than ten followers on there.

now, let's assess what has happened:

the author of tsats pulled all her work from ao3 and privated her x account

i did go about my post the wrong way. i was careless and i made a lot of people nervous. this is something i have addressed and apologised for because it's true and it was never my intention. however, durgeapologist did reach out to the author first to no avail whatsoever, and a lot of people are attacking them anyway.

my friends and i have been harassed relentlessly both by people who were loud and proud about it and by anonymous mice behind burner accounts.

i have had my fucking address sent to me twice

i have been told almost every single day that i should harm myself on a broad spectrum of severity

a person who did nothing but share my post to x was dogpiled, harassed, and was attacked by anti-semitic slurs and spammed with swastikas, and was then accused of orchestrating harassment despite strongly discouraging it.

people have spoken to and about me in a manner i have not once reciprocated. i've been called the most horrible person alive, a dumb slut, a bully, various synonyms for genitals, fangfuckface (personal favourite i'll be honest), a tranny, a jealous bitch, a cranky bitch, bitch featuring whatever adjective fits the mood that day, and many more. i have been misgendered and accused of wanting to start a fandom war (which, by the way, makes me hurl a little in light of the current political climate. there are people that are dying, kim. don't call online slap-fighting a "war").

the writer called out in durgeapologist's post is a moderator on the solasmancers subreddit and is actively erasing and banning any trace of our arguments against her. she has deleted our comments, locked the post sharing the callout, and has made a long comment slandering the entire dreadrook server. after banning us from the entire subreddit so we couldn't speak out against her, of course.

i'm not pointing fingers at sib. i understand wanting to defend what you care about as well as your friends, and i truly don't mind that you disagree with my post. your opinion is valid and the world is plenty wide for both of us to co-exist peacefully.

but i will not have words put in my mouth or be painted as a bully with some strange, harmful scheme to 'divide the fandom', because it isn't true. all the other things being said about me are a matter of opinion, i guess, but claiming that my friends and i have acted with malice at any point in this is false.

now, please don't make me make another post about this mess. i stopped talking about it and moved on, and so should you.

We Need to Talk About AI Detectors

Over the past few weeks there have been two posts in particular that have come out against two authors in the community that have resulted in near witch hunts for one, and essentially driving the other off the internet from all the bullying and hate received. These posts were related to the potential use of AI in fanfiction, as well as using supposed “AI Detectors” to support their claims. With the help of friends, we have been able to look into the AI claims that were made against both The Silence and The Song and Ir Abelas, Da’ean.

We were curious about how and why these posts were being flagged with high levels of “AI Probability” when the authors have been adamant (either in chats or in public) that they have never used generative AI for their work. So we did the most logical thing, put on our detective caps, and rolled up our sleeves. We would like to note that we do not wish to have philosophical discussions, we wish to have transparency and honesty.

Spoilers: We found inaccuracies almost IMMEDIATELY.

Firstly, we looked into the weakness of AI detectors, and read through online posts where people voiced their frustrations with detectors. One thing that we noticed was that the common denominator was that well written articles were being flagged as “Likely AI”, particularly with Originality, and that the solution was to either “dumb them down” or to remove punctuation such as commas, which immediately improved the score, tipping the scale to “Likely Original”.

For the second step, we ran some of our own works through Originality AI checker–works that were made prior to the creation of AI and generative AI. However, after punctuation was removed, this magically changed from 50% likelihood of AI to 100% original work. Again, these works were from before the dawn of generative AI, and therefore could not have been created by AI. For fun, we even ran the first chapter of Harry Potter through it–a novel that is objectively without AI, which still did not come out with results stating 100% original work. We then removed almost all of the punctuation from it, and it actually improved the originality score by 3% (from 95% to 98%).

Personal fic, before and after:

Next step, we ran our own scans through Originality and Quillbot.This includes full chapters of Ir Abelas, Da’ean, both with and without punctuation in Originality, and excerpts in Quillbot. Interestingly, the excerpts in Quillbot pinged as “0% likely AI”, and that is without any removal of punctuation. Across the board, the removal of punctuation from the chapters caused an immediate and dramatic increase in the score, from “100% likely AI” to “96% likely Original”. We have found that the more grammatically correct a work was, the more likely it was to be flagged as “AI”, much like how the freelance writers were complaining about.

Chapter 1 of Ir Abelas, before and after:

Chapter 1 through Quillbot:

Chapter 45 of Ir Abelas, before and after:

Chapter 45 without commas or double hyphens:

Chapter 45 through Quillbot:

Even the Ai detection websites caution against this:

To Durgeapologist, Fangbanger3000, and friends: If you do actually read this, I hope you realize that your posts have done more harm than good to the community. You are correct that AI is a potential threat to creative spaces, but you have gone about addressing it in the worst possible way. By creating multiple posts across platforms with the intent of creating a negative perspective toward certain authors and their fictions rather than the use of AI as a whole—not to mention the counter-accusations with personal attacks rather than focusing on the issue at hand—you are creating an environment that fosters negativity, bullying, and division—none of which are directions to take a sustainable and healthy community. AI Detection is the Wild West right now. There is no way to determine if something written is AI through the use of algorithms, and it requires the use of human intervention and careful comparison to previous works to be within a certain level of certainty that it is AI. Our hope is that in the future, you will take time, step back, and consider all possible sides before causing a stir in the community like this.

[fangbanger3000]

a last note on the ai-fic bullshit

a couple days ago, a person i had never spoken to before shared my call-out post on x with the earnest intention of spreading awareness of the issue. she was attacked and harrassed so harshly by the same group of people who have been dragging my friends and i through the mud that she ended up having to deactivate.

this group of perpetrators then did their very best to turn this whole conversation on its head by accusing the poster of being anti-solavellan, of sharing the post with malicious intentions of dividing the fandom and tearing down amateur writers, and grouping her and i/my friends as antis and what not.

my thoughts on that development aren't any that i can express with any diplomacy or maturity whatsoever, but @drakonmo herself did a wonderful job at gracefully carving out the very important conversation we, as fans, need to have within our communities. whether you observed or participated in the conversation surrounding the silence and the song and the following shitstorm, i strongly urge you to read her post (here) (on x).

tldr/to those who might be in a rush, let me pull out some highlights:

by deleting the evidence and refusing to acknowledge the public claims were ever made, these people who despise me and wanted to foment discourse could succeed, armed with the trust and respect of loyal followers.

suddenly, the entire wall of text of explanations, of signs, of concerns were reduced to nothing but one portion of the whole. people began to attack OP and me and write threads, posts, etc, saying we were insulting all creators everywhere and we were - singlehandedly - the reason people didn't share their artwork.

clearly, these people argued, this insult and injury to all writers everywhere was a sign of these posts being a hate campaign. suddenly people could completely ignore the fact that the OP is a HUGE shipper, and i have been the world's most vocal proponent of shipping the particular character with anyone and/ or everyone.

i saw some people ask questions - what's happening, what's the drama, what's the situation? and they believed blindly the first things said to them without even trying to seek the truth or sources for themselves - and i truly mean this was an issue on both sides, for both people who ultimately agreed with me and people who did not.

the people that deliberately misrepresented what was being said, who nitpicked so that they could justify choosing "us versus them" - i ask that you consider, if you can and you would like to, to internalize and reflect how you may be susceptible to situations like this happening OFFLINE.

if ONLINE FANDOM misinformation can rouse such a level of discourse, hatred, fear, and anger over a fanfiction or ship ...what are the implications for REAL LIFE?

are you possibly reading a headline and believing it without reading the full article?

are your political and personal opinions swayed heavily by your peers, rather than being shaped by information and political education?

are you well informed and checking for bias from your chosen news sources?

do you exist in an echo chamber that has actively harmed your ability to understand other perspectives and worsened your capacity for allyship?

we best fight FASCISM when we recognize how we approach the people and issues around us, no matter how small. supporting artistic integrity in your fandom is a low rung on the ladder, but your approach to a sense of community and how news, conflict, and opinions form and spread IS vital.

thank you for reading, and thank you to those who have stuck by me (and by mo) despite the backlash it might have caused you. this has been insane and i look forward to never discussing that fucking fic again, but that doesn't mean we get to turn our heads on how this all turned to shit in the first place.

as a self-proclaimed safe space often characterised by escapism, we owe it to one another to make sure this community is as safe as can be and remains one where we care for one another despite which fictional characters we think should kiss.

[toletoletole]

Supervision und die Verschiebung des Sagbaren – das Sagbare ermöglichen, das Unsagbare hüten und begrenzen

Der aktuelle Jahrgang der Zeitschrift Organisationsberatung, Supervision, Coaching ist bislang gesellschaftlichen Themen gewidmet, die nicht nur die breite Öffentlichkeit bewegen, sondern zunehmend auch in Beratungskontexten auftauchen oder thematisiert werden, und in bezug auf die sich Berater aller Formate positionieren müssen. Im ersten Heft ging es um die Rolle der Beratung in der…

[my-life-fm]

Wir hatten hier in unserem Land mal Zeiten, in denen es einen richtig intensiven öffentlichen Diskurs über die politischen Belange der Gesellschaft gab. Und in denen dieser Diskurs zumindest in einem Teil der Presse, im Radio und im Fernsehen reproduziert wurde und zu einer größeren Durchdringung der Gesellschaft mit den Pro- und Contra-Argumenten beitrug.

Diese kommunikative Kultur ist seit dem Ende des Kalten Krieges mehr und mehr verschwunden. Mit dem Ende der Systemkonkurrenz verschwand auch der Anspruch auf gelebte Demokratie.

Und mit den folgenden Jahren des Wirtschaftsliberalismus und Neokonservatismus wurde alles zunichtegemacht, was als Widerspruch gegen die uneingeschränkte Herrschaft von immer mächtiger werdenden Finanzmonopolen stand.

Der Prozess der Zerstörung eines öffentlichen Diskurses, in dem zumindest die unterschiedlichen Positionen gehört werden, wurde durch das Verhalten der Regierung bei der Corona-Krise und, noch einmal gesteigert, seit dem Krieg in der Ukraine, beschleunigt. Frei nach „Überlebensstrategie: ein Leben ohne Staat und Medien?“ in M7 von Dr. Gerhard Mersmann am 26.04.2024. Den vollständigen Artikel im Wortlaut lesen: https://form-7.com/2024/04/26/uberlebensstrategie-ein-leben-ohne-staat-und-medien/

[fangbanger3000]

ah, the lengths people go to.

this writer has admitted to using ai, consistently uses ai voices to play around with their work, and has been booted from an online space before for using… guess what…. ai. there's nothing sinister or cruel in this post, it's a very simple request for taking accountability.

if this post sparks any anger in you toward the people who made it, i implore you to sit with that for a moment and carefully reread it. spoken as someone who wrote a callout post that was a bit mean, this is clearly not that.

it is so tiring to see a post containing absolutely no malice be turned on its head and made out to be bullying. i understand that ai accusations are scary and it's wobbly ground we haven't treaded before, but you guys. asking for accountability and transparency is not bullying or witch-hunting. criticism is not bullying or witch-hunting.

in a time where ai is gathering momentum as quickly as it is right now, it's important to keep each other honest. even if, and perhaps especially if, the persons in question are people we like and consider friends.

Whether you choose to use AI in your own fandom works is entirely at your own discretion. However, it is important to be transparent about such usage.

also, in premature defence of this post based on some of the criticism i got on my own: this is not cancel culture. this is not about cancelling anyone, and i think that's quite clear if one doesn't skim read the text and fly to the replies going directly for the jugular.

as i've said before: please be kind when you can. this post was clearly not made with ill intentions, so try not to respond to it as if it were regardless of whether you agree with the findings or not.

Let's Talk About Ir Abelas, Da'ean

As some of you may know, I am vehemently against the dishonest use of AI in fandom and creative spaces. It has been brought to my attention by many, many people (and something I myself have thought on many times) that there is a DreadRook fic that is super popular and confirmed to be written at least partially with AI. I have the texts to prove it was written (at least) with the help of the Grammarly Rewrite generative feature.

Before I go any further, let it be known I was friends with this author; their use of rewrite features is something they told me and have told many other people who they have shared their fic with. It is not however, at the time of posting this, tagged or mentioned on their fic on AO3, in any capacity. I did in fact reach out to the author before making this post. They made absolutely no attempt to agree to state the use of Rewrite AI on their fic, nor be honest or upfront (in my opinion) about the possibility of their fic being complete generative AI. They denied the use of generative AI as a whole, though they did confirm (once again) use of the rewrite feature on Grammarly.

That all said: I do not feel comfortable letting this lie; since I have been asked by many people to make this, this post is simply for awareness.

You can form your own opinion, if you wish to. In fact, I encourage you to do such.

Aside from the, once again, high volume word output of around 352K words in less than 3 months (author says they had 10 chapters pre-written over "about a month" before they began posting; they are also on record saying they can write 5K-10K daily) from November until now, I have also said if you are familiar with AI services or peruse AI sites like ChatGPT, C.AI, J.AI, or any others similar to these, AI writing is very easy to pick out.

After some intense digging, research, and what I believe to be full confirmation via AI detection software used by professional publishers, there is a large and staggering possibility that the fic is almost entirely AI generated, bar some excerpts and paragraphs, here and there. I will post links below of the highly-resourced detection software that a few paragraphs and an entire chapter from this fic were plugged into; you are more than welcome to do with this information what you please.

I implore you to use critical thinking skills, and understand that when this many pieces in a work come back with such a high percentage of AI detected, that there is something going on. (There was a plethora of other AI detection softwares used that also corroborate these findings; I only find it useful to attach the most reputable source.)

Excerpts:

82% Likely Written by AI, 4% Plagiarism Match

98% Likely Written by AI, 2% Plagiarism Match

100% Likely Written by AI, 4% Plagiarism Match

Some excerpts do in fact come back as 100% likely written by human; however, this does not mean that the author was not using the Grammarly Paraphrase/Rewrite feature for these excerpts.

The Grammarly Paraphrase/Rewrite feature does not typically clock as AI generative text, and alongside the example below, many excerpts from other fics were take and put through this feature, and then fed back into the AI detection software. Every single one came back looking like this, within 2% of results:

So, in my opinion, and many others, this goes beyond the use of the simple paraphrase/rewrite feature on Grammarly.

Entire Chapter (Most Recent):

67% Likely Written by AI

As well, just for some variety, another detection software that also clocked plagiarism in the text:

15% Plagiarism Match

To make it clear that I am not simply 'jealous' of this author or 'angry' at their work for simply being a popular work in the fandom, here are some excerpts from other fanfics in this fandom and in other fandoms that were ran through the same exact same detection software, all coming back as 100% human written. (If you would like to run my fic through this software or any others, you are more than welcome to. I do not want to run the risk of OP post manipulation, so I did not include my own.)

The Wolf's Mantle

100% Likely Human Written, 2% Plagiarism Match

A Memory Called Desire

99% Likely Human Written

Brand Loyalty

100% Likely Human Written

Heart of The Sun

98% Likely Human Written

Whether you choose to use AI in your own fandom works is entirely at your own discretion. However, it is important to be transparent about such usage.

AI has many negative impacts for creatives across many mediums, including writers, artists, and voice actors.

If you use AI, it should be tagged as such, so that people who do not want to engage in AI works can avoid engaging with it if they wish to.

ALL LINKS AND PICTURES COURTESY OF: @spiritroses

[benkaden]

"Ein Urteil aus dem Jahr 1905 lautete, das Recht, ein fotografisches Negativ von allem, was ein Individuum sieht, für die Reproduktion auf Ansichtskarten und Filmrollen anzufertigen, folge aus dem jedem Individuum zustehenden Recht, alles, was sich auf der Straße befindet, zu betrachten."

(John Tagg: Eine Rechtsrealität. Die Fotografie als Eigentum vor dem Gesetz. In: Herta Wolf (Hrsg.): Paradigma Fotografie. Fotokritik am Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters. Band I. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002. S. 239-254. Fundstelle: S.245)

[craft2eu]

ORTSZEIT IV – Maurinmühle Teil 2: Carlow bis 10.09.2023

Installationen | 15.07. – 10.09.2023 | MaurinmühleWahrheitsfindung und Versöhnung: Ein Kunstprojekt mit geschichtswissenschaftlicher Begleitung arbeitet sich an einem vergessenen Ort und verborgenen Spuren der Erinnerung ab. Dabei loten 14 Künstler:innen aus Deutschland, der Schweiz und Polen die Möglichkeiten der Kunst aus. Im Rahmen des Schönberger Musiksommers zeigt das Projekt „ORTSZEIT IV –…

[sammeldeineknochen]

Was war aus der Gewissheit geworden, dass es keine absoluten Gewissheiten gibt, weshalb an allem gezweifelt, über alles gesprochen und gestritten werden muss?

Juli Zeh: "Über Menschen", S.69

[bauerntanz]

"Die Brandmauer zum Irrsinn..."

"Die Brandmauer zum Irrsinn wid gerade eingerissen..." @cem_oezdemir via @NurderK

„Die Brandmauer zum Irrsinn wird gerade eingerissen. […] Wir verlieren da alle als Demokratie und das Endstadium davon ist die USA, wo die eine Hälfte der Gesellschaft der anderen nicht mehr glaubt, wo Fakten, wo ein Wahlergebnis in Frage gestellt wird.“@cem_oezdemir bei #Lanz pic.twitter.com/PMjadc9mG4 — Nurder Koch (@NurderK) June 6, 2023