AI Allegations Thread

[MillieDynamite]

I don't believe they actually suck, they just aren't polished at all. Sometimes, I don't polish mine enough, either. They make mistakes, big ones, at times. But so do humans. They take crazy turns, and so do human writers. If used as a tool for ideas on how to continue, outlining, inspiration, and not as the main input, I have no issue with it. And if it writes the whole thing, I don't think it will be very well written or make much sense in certain parts. For better or worse, the future is here, and AI is a part of it. How to determine what is AI and what is HI, in my opinion, has yet to be determined.

Yeah AI can do somethings well, but they suck at writing stories.

 

[onehitwanda]

Wow. I'm no longer drunk enough to deal with this thread.

 

[onehitwanda]

Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!

That would be anatomically difficult, but good attempt. Oh, look, an ignore button. I wonder what it could possibly do.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Rejections are the worst, I agree. But some of us are being rejected based on the erroneous allegation that we're committing plagiarism,

This is the first mention of plagiarism in this discussion that I've seen.

Plagiarism is quite different to using a prompt based AI tool. I wouldn't blur the issues, if I were you. They're two separate things.

 

[EmilyMiller]

No, I'm not going to pump the brakes. Since I've begun this thread, I've had my writing attacked, and now I'm being questioned for writing quickly.

She absolutely wasn’t saying that, hun.

Em

 

[mirafrida]

Because you've been very helpful, just want to let you know that I posted my stats from another one of my accounts. Same writing style, same fast writing pace. Take a look before the account's deleted, because I requested it be deleted. Last published there in late 2021. No ChatGPT available then. So that would definitely indicate that my account is being erroneously flagged now. Whatever system is being used is FLAWED and INACCURATE.

Speaking purely factually, making no accusation, GPT-3 model was accessible to beta users from sprimg 2021 i believe

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Just a word of advice to the OP. If you started this thread to vent your frustrations and to find a sympathetic ear then that is great. It is what the forum is for, among other things. But you seem to be holding onto some wrong ideas as well. Speaking as someone who has criticized Literotica and Laurel more than once, I can tell you that she doesn't care much about this thread you started, nor do I believe your stories being taken down has anything to do with it. Many of us ranted on this forum so many times yet there was never any sign that she even reads these threads.

If your stories were taken down it means she found them suspicious in some way unrelated to this thread. If her suspicions are well founded or not, I really can't say since I haven't got the faintest idea. The woman puts CIA to shame in her secretiveness and that is why I am pretty sure that there are no friends of hers here on the forum, nor does anyone here have her ear. Nobody here is out to get you.
Anger and frustration can make us lash out randomly so I can understand your posts, but I am still giving you the only advice I find reasonable. PM her politely and ask about your stories. Make your case. That is the only constructive thing you can do apart from leaving Literotica and finding some other website to publish your stories.
Best of luck.

 

[u1u1u1]

I'm sorry you're going through something that is obviously causing you understandable stress, MW.

Look, you're clearly very good at what you do. Cut Laurel out and start self-publishing. A novel available for 0.99 on Amazon will get you interest and from there you could sell your next one for more.

 

[ElectricBlue]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/writing/is-using-ai-the-same-as-plagiarism

According to this article from Microsoft: "Ultimately, using AI to generate content and passing it off as your own is plagiarism."

Numerous universities are taking this stance as well.

I'm using plagiarism in its traditional sense, as a direct lift of another writer's published content, demonstrable with a sentence by sentence comparison.

Microsoft and universities are using the term in its broadest "protect your ass" policy sense, but that's not really relevant to your problem.

The issue you're facing here on Lit is how to get over the accusation that you've used a prompt driven AI text generator (trained on billions of words scraped from copyright content), not plagiarism per se.

They're separate issues - Lit knows how to deal with plagiarism, because people have been ripping content out of other people's stories since it began, but Lit is struggling with this new technology.

You've not been suspected of plagiarism in the traditional literary sense (which can be immediately proven by comparing two slabs of text, side by side). Yours is a more problematic issue, which comes down to the style of your writing versus the "style" of an AI generator. It's not about identical content, stolen from another writer. You''ve got a technical problem, not an ethical one.

Regardless, we need clarity and guidelines, which I'm sure Laurel knows.

 

[StillStunned]

I feel like some of this is gaslighting, which, to be fair, the person accusing this place of being a clique says that many writers do to those who have complaints. I feel I have definitely experienced that. Go back and read the threads. Not only I, but others in this situation, have been told again and again, that the problem is us. Someone posts a sample of writing that got rejected, and they're told it's because their writing has the same bland style as AI uses. I show an example of a new story I posted on a new account, with my same writing style, that published without issue, and no one has an answer for that.

The thing is, you've been asking the same question over and over, and no-one here has an answer. People have offered what suggestions they can, people have expressed sympathy.

But you keep asking, and demanding answers, or an explanation, or something, but there's nothing anyone here can do about it.

No-one is Laurel in disguise, no-one has a secret code to solving your problem, no-one can give you what you're demanding. Others have asked before for explanations, for openness, for guidelines. They didn't get them.

The idea of this thread was good when it started, but it's devolved into you shouting at the world. Sorry, we can't help.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Many of us ranted on this forum so many times yet there was never any sign that she even reads these threads.

On the contrary, I've been in the AH for nearly ten years, and there have been enough clues over the years that Laurel does keep a watching eye on the AH. She pops up with posts from time to time, and takes action behind the scenes to remove toxic content. You don't always see it overtly, but I reckon she keeps an eye on what goes on.

Right now, I'd say she's figuring out what to do with this AI problem, which clearly is problematic.

 

[StillStunned]

The reason it devolved is because people like you, who aren't in any way affected, keep coming in and telling us what we're doing wrong. That's happened in plenty of other threads. READ THE TITLE OF THIS THREAD.

Really? I thought it devolved when you started having conversations with yourself.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Not to split hairs, but we're in a brave new world now, and the traditional sense really doesn't apply anymore.

It does, if you want to compartmentalise the issues, and solve the technological problem.

The overt plagiarism issue was solved centuries ago - you've got yourself a new one, and that's what needs to be fixed. If you dilute the core problem with something extraneous, the eye goes off the key issue.

 

[ElectricBlue]

And I've read either you or someone else mention that she does keep an eye on it. This person is writing as if they know she doesn't. Can you see why someone who's only been here six months would be confused at the process? And who would also be very impatient with those not affected hopping in and claiming to know what we're doing wrong to cause this issue?

All I can offer is the perspective of someone who's been around this forum for a long while, versus someone who's not been here as long.

I don't know for sure how often Laurel might come by and browse the threads, but I know for sure that she does, because she's posted, and I've seen housekeeping go on (that might be the AH Mod, but I have no idea who that is).

I get the confusion, and I get your impatience, but for a problem to get fixed, it needs to be precisely stated, and looked at calmly. That's all I'm trying to say.

 

[mirafrida]

Do you know what kind of quality it was producing then? Because as someone who's never used it, I'd be curious as to how the beta version was doing. Everything I've read about it said it was pretty clunky at first, even when initially released to the public.

I understand it's the same engine that was in chaptgpt when it was introduced in 2022. You can google "gpt-3 samples 2021" and see a fair number of things, it was big news around that time. Definitely not up to gpt-4 level, but enough to get people pretty psyched.

From your perspective, as stated, of course yhe situation maddening.

From Laurel's perspective, a new writer appears, just around the time when these ai models came out, is VERY prolific, writes technically correct text with very simple sentence structure (i mean, the 2021 stories do seem stylistically evocative of gpt to me), and she has no way to verify what you say.

If / when i ever find myself in that boat, I'll probably try PMing her interim drafts of the story, to show the editing process i went through...

 

[AwkwardlySet]

On the contrary, I've been in the AH for nearly ten years, and there have been enough clues over the years that Laurel does keep a watching eye on the AH. She pops up with posts from time to time, and takes action behind the scenes to remove toxic content. You don't always see it overtly, but I reckon she keeps an eye on what goes on.

Right now, I'd say she's figuring out what to do with this AI problem, which clearly is problematic.

Since I joined the website, I haven't seen her post anything anywhere on AH. She only does announcements for contests and such. Maybe she does lurk in the shadows and read our stuff but no one can really know that. Those deleted posts could be Manu as well, or it could be someone using Laurel's account. And those deletions happen rarely, even in some inflaming threads.

 

[mirafrida]

Again, another claim that I write like Chat GPT. Did you ever stop to think that they might have trained Chat GPT on *my* work? (That's a joke.)

We don't know exactly what openai fed into the meatgrinder, but in effect it's trained on all of us

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'd take a deep breath, and say fuck it. I'd then think about my case, and state it. But by professional training and my own personality, I know that getting emotional won't help, because ultimately, tears of rage and fury get in the way of rational argument.

I've also learned over decades not to worry about those things I can't control, but to do something about those things I can.

I'm also a one-percenter in terms of very high psychological resilience, so I'm probably not the best person to ask, "How would you feel?"

Now I understand my time is done here. (Question: if I delete this account, do all my posts on the forum disappear too?)

No. If you want to purge yourself from the forum, you have to go through and delete your posts before you ask for your account to be deleted. But if someone else has re-posted, those re-posts remain.

If your writing means so much, though, you shouldn't give up. You might not want to be the champion of this cause, but you could be.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Since I joined the website, I haven't seen her post anything anywhere on AH. She only does announcements for contests and such. Maybe she does lurk in the shadows and read our stuff but no one can really know that. Those deleted posts could be Manu as well, or it could be someone using Laurel's account. And those deletions happen rarely, even in some inflaming threads.

You've been here a year, I've been here nearly ten. Just because you've not seen it happen, doesn't mean I've not seen it. I've also had direct responses to several questions over the years, so there's that. Your experience is different to mine, is all I can say.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Your experience is different to mine, is all I can say.

Exactly.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hi,

I’ve only been here a while. Not years. But this Laurel doesn’t reply shtick isn’t true. She doesn’t always reply. She sometimes sends a very short reply. She has directed me to FAQs as well. But…

When I have gone to her with a problem, she has always helped. We have had PM convos. Sometimes I got help and no reply. Then I tend to say “no need to reply” unless I really need a reply.

I don’t think I’m at all special or one of her favorites. I’m not a major author. I do gum up the forums with my nonsense, but I seriously doubt that gives me any privileges, probably the opposite.

But she is not this remote uncaring figure that I see some people mention. She’s just very busy.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

If you PMed her today. Then wait 24 hours and follow up on the PM.

I’m sure you would be, but politeness is helpful. As is acknowledging she is busy.

Em

 

[lovecraft68]

Wow

Talk about a thread that makes a lot of forum regulars show their true colors. Attacking someone for having an issue here, then having the audacity to not just shut up and go away.

Welcome to the AH, a fun place if you're a cool kid who falls in line, but have your own mind or call BS?

This is what happens.

Over the 13 years I've been a part of the forum, its had different phases, different cliques, different dramas, different trolls, and its own group of fun and talented authors, but this by far is the worst era of the Ah I've seen.

Not everyone of course, there's some decent folks here, but the vocal majority? Worse than a bunch of mean spirited children upset when someone has a legit issue that shows how poorly this site is managed. Because of that they're now enduring abuse, accusations and insults.

Great community we have here.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Here is what I wrote at 7:14 AM last Thursday (before I realized she might not be American and might not be celebrating Thanksgiving! )

"Happy Thanksgiving, Laurel!

I've been having an issue submitting parts of this story. After I submitted Pt. 02, the submission went into pending for 36 hours and then reset to the current time, as if I'd resubmitted it, which I hadn't. Then it remained in Pending for a long time, so I was afraid it was lost, and I resubmitted the entire story, including a Note to the Admins explaining the situation. The story posted with no problems. I submitted Pt. 03, and after 24 hours, its submission date reset as well. Again, I resubmitted the story, including a Note to the Admins. After another 24 hours, it reset yet again, and when I looked over the submission, I saw that the note to the admins had been deleted. This morning, I received a rejection, stating that the story was written with AI and couldn't be accepted. I have never used AI to write anything, and from what I see in the AH, others are experiencing this issue as well.

I'll be happy to resubmit the story with a note specifically stating that I DID NOT use AI to write it, but if the note is somehow getting deleted before the story can be reviewed, I'm not sure that's going to work."

This is when I was still more worried about the submission reset date glitch than the AI rejection. I didn't receive a response. Just 31 stories pulled this morning.

The stories going must be a gut punch. All you can do is keep following up.

Em

 

[ElectricBlue]

I do not have the emotional stamina to wade through 31 rejected stories and try to somehow rewrite them,

That's a new wrinkle. Usually, a story gets taken down only if it's been reported, and it gets automatically bounced back to the author. There might be a cursory human intervention, I'm not sure - I suspect it's automatic.

This might be a foot in the door, to get Laurel's full attention. She's going to see a big take down like that, and if you resubmit the earliest of those rejected stories as is, no changes, and restate your case, you might get another, more detailed look.

There have been recent examples of contentious stories (for content, to be clear) which were taken down, the author appealed, and a few days later, they got reinstated.

But if you don't do something with one of those stories (resubmit it), they'll stay down, and the case is closed.