Interesting AI story in the Telegraph

[Bazzle]

Award winning novelist used Chatbot to help her with the conversation.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Someone has linked the story in another thread, I think. We will start seeing a lot more of this trend, I am afraid. There is no reasonable way to fight this.

It might sound funny, but I believe it won't be long before we start seeing the "100% written by a human" certificate on books in the same way as "NON GMO Certified" we have for food.

 

[lovecraft68]

There's another that shows up on my home page, but I went back and its not on the front page anymore that's more concerning.

A sci-fi "author" admitted he used Chat GP and other AI to 'write' hundreds of books in a year and has made tens of thousands of dollars.

The most disturbing thing is the comments section where people defend this and see nothing wrong with it. Obviously because they're not any type of creator with real talent and just vultures consuming content.

 

[CalebZhass]

All of 5%? Oh my.. I guess it really is the work of a filthy AI
It sure is a nice publicity stunt. No one will really blame them for being a scam, as they wrote 95% of the piece anyway, but it is enough to have everyone talk about their work.
Given they wrote 95% of an otherwise "perfect" piece, it is safe to assume they could've written the other 5% as well. They choose not to, but instead use AI for whatever reason. (I might also go as far as to assume, it was exactly for this purpose).

 

[LoneMilf]

At the risk of classifying myself as a 'vulture', I'd say:
Let's use whatever tools we have to generate stories that people enjoy

AI tools like ChatGPT are just that - tools. Nothing more, nothing less.
If a 'hack' with this tool is able to generate a more compelling story than we can, the tool isn't the problem.

Long division used to be an essential skill - that's no reason to ban calculators

 

[CalebZhass]

The most disturbing thing is the comments section where people defend this and see nothing wrong with it. Obviously because they're not any type of creator with real talent and just vultures consuming content.

Khm.. hello? vultures? consuming content? I totally understand the impact this has on the writer community, but let's not go judgmental on readers please. If you really and honestly think about it, a reader:
a) should not care how their content was created, so long they enjoy it
b) is not capable of telling, as they don't know the difference, especially if the difference is so slim, it cannot reliably be pointed out even by sophisticated text analysis software.

Let's appreciate 100% human work for what it is, but please don't go to the point where you start blaming readers for being satisfied with something they drew enjoyment from, just because it doesn't adhere to your expectations of how works should be made.

I'm sure there will be a subculture of literature longing for 100% human written work (though I doubt there will ever be a way to truly prove that, other than "pinky swear" by the author). For the rest, let them enjoy what they find enjoyable.

 

[lovecraft68]

Khm.. hello? vultures? consuming content? I totally understand the impact this has on the writer community, but let's not go judgmental on readers please. If you really and honestly think about it, a reader:
a) should not care how their content was created, so long they enjoy it
b) is not capable of telling, as they don't know the difference, especially if the difference is so slim, it cannot reliably be pointed out even by sophisticated text analysis software.

Let's appreciate 100% human work for what it is, but please don't go to the point where you start blaming readers for being satisfied with something they drew enjoyment from, just because it doesn't adhere to your expectations of how works should be made.

I'm sure there will be a subculture of literature longing for 100% human written work (though I doubt there will ever be a way to truly prove that, other than "pinky swear" by the author). For the rest, let them enjoy what they find enjoyable.

You're only as good as your last book/art/movie/script etc, so when someone who is blatantly cheating to be able to publish hundreds of works in a matter of weeks they are feeding the incessant need of an instant gratification generation, who has not one care about the people with actual talent this BS takes money away from.

Vultures, jackals and all other scavengers will eat anything, and not care where it comes from, or who was hurt in the process.

I'll stick with the analogy.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Vultures, jackals and all other scavengers will eat anything, and not care where it comes from, or who was hurt in the process.

I mean, no offense, mate, but... Are you really going to tell me that the comments on Lit are in any way different? Do you publish on Literotica because you exclusively get comments praising your skill here? People judge the content, not the writers' level of literacy. And you intentionally publish on here for free, actively serving those "vultures" who "consume" your work.

So, in truth, you're not complaining about people not appreciating you enough. You're complaining about people paying money for AI-generated stuff instead of your handwritten stuff.

I'm gonna be honest: I really don't care. I don't care to pay a fortune for an original Monét, just to then analyze and speculate about the painter's intentions while sipping away at a cognac. I'm perfectly happy decorating my walls with cheap, maybe even AI-generated, posters. Because their purpose, for me, is to put some color into my home and make my white walls look less dull. If I want to admire an artist's ability, I'll visit an art show or something. And I feel like that's a legitimate use of that art.

 

[lovecraft68]

At the risk of classifying myself as a 'vulture', I'd say:
Let's use whatever tools we have to generate stories that people enjoy

AI tools like ChatGPT are just that - tools. Nothing more, nothing less.
If a 'hack' with this tool is able to generate a more compelling story than we can, the tool isn't the problem.

Long division used to be an essential skill - that's no reason to ban calculators

You're serious? These tools aren't helping, they're doing it for people.
As for your lame example of a calculator, we weren't allowed to use them in school until we proved we were capable of doing it the long way. In work, well, you're an adult and should know math, so yes, its a time saving tool that helps with what we already learned.

These people are not writers or artists, they're plagiarists and cheaters. As for compelling, well if I had access to every book ever written and a program to mash them up for me, then again...where's the actual skill for this alleged tool?

The fact you don't care is why any real creator will lose out on this, but you won't care because you're properly entertained, and that's all that matters to you. Perfect proof of my point

 

[StirlingMorty13]

I don't think it's that a big a deal. Everyone uses computer in their everyday life... why can't authors get a helping hand with parts of a story?

I'm wondering where it will lead to with perhaps scientific breakthroughs?

Will it lead to solving long held issues with small particle duality, room temperature super-conductors, and dark matter conundrum?

I wonder if AI will ever be intelligent enough to come up with something as elegant and brilliant as the Theory of Relativity... for some reason I'm doubtful.

 

[lovecraft68]

For people who don't like my view, then you must have an issue with this site because they have made it clear they don't want AI generated material on this platform.

Unfortunately, their attempts to keep it out are causing unfair rejections that they don't seem concerned about, but at least at the core they agree this is not writing, not fair, and don't want any part of it.

Considering this is a free site and they have this stance, while other platforms are letting people sell what they have never written one word of on their own is appalling greed because what they say is they don't care because they get their percentage regardless so hell yeah, let's get tens of thousands of fake books up here!

Capitalism, right? The same capitalism people will-in their politics-have a meltdown over, but when it serves them, its just fine.

 

[CalebZhass]

For people who don't like my view, then you must have an issue with this site because they have made it clear they don't want AI generated material on this platform.

Please don't start giving people words in their mouths. If you write about a character of your fiction, that might be okay, but over here, we all have our own opinions on things. At least I do. I might not agree with many of the policies in the world, even some of the site's, but that doesn't mean I don't understand why they were made (or think to understand it).

Nor does it mean I dislike or hate those things, places or sites for the policies they have.

From what I gather, it is you who seem to have an irrationally emotional reaction to this whole topic. My best - unsolicited - advice would be to get over it. You can try to find scapegoats to blame, but in the end it is called humanity and time that you are fighting against. What you are complaining about has happened in history over and over again and is bound to happen many times in the future as well. It now happens to an area you are involved in, which makes you actually feel the impact of it and I know it sucks.

Also, Lit's stance on AI has more to do with legal concerns than ethical ones. You don't have to believe me, but I've read that policy several times, and 90% of it is about how you must own the copyright to the work you are posting with only a single sentence being about the work having to be human. For a forum of authors, I find it odd how some people seem to have trouble reading between the lines.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This is not just another tool doing something for us while we are doing the thinking part. It is literally doing the thinking part for us as well. Being able to generate such content with a simple prompt will devalue writing in a serious way. Imagine the same thing happening with music, movies, painting... It will put artists out of business. And all of this without considering the ethics of using a tool that has been trained on the work of actual artists, without their consent.

There have always been large demographics who were satisfied with "cheap" art - simplistic music, movies focused on entertainment only, books that were written for entertainment purposes and so on. Many among those who enjoy art indulge themselves with such entertaining content too and that is all fine and quite normal. But so far, such content has always been created by humans. The problem with AI-generated content is not so much in its quality as it is in the fact that it gets created so quickly, so easily, and so effortlessly, and it is not always easy to make the distinction, especially if such content was afterwards perfected by human touch.
Soon, our artists will be the people who are able to formulate the best prompts for the AI.

 

[LoneMilf]

Moving print made most scribes redundant. I'm sure we lost some amazing caligraphy skills along with that, but would we really be better off without moving print?

Trains made the mail coaches redundant, and we probably lost some great skills in the people driving those too, but would we really want to wait weeks for messages?

Calculators, computers, the internet, word-processing software, spreadsheets, AI-assisted cancer diagnostics.....tools, tools, tools....

The world moves - move with it or get left behind

 

[CalebZhass]

You mentioned music and movies. Synths have been around since the 60s and became an epidemic in the overly simplistic pop music of the 80s, but I haven't heard anyone complaining. Did you enjoy movies like Avatar, 300, and pretty much every current action movie? I assume you realize that most of what you see in them is done by computer graphics.

The only difference nowadays is that chatbots have made these, up until recently, corporate-exclusive and expensive tools accessible to everyone.

I also cringe when I hear about someone posting 800 stories in two years, and the chances of me reading anything of theirs are zero, but I don't see it as a threat. Just as I put up with the man-written sewage overflow.

Ironically enough, my only gripe with AI content really is from the consumer side. (I guess I am mostly a consumer after all) I hate spam and dumpster quality AI content is just that, spam. Stuff that makes it harder to find actually valuable works.

It happened to YouTube, if you go through shorts, at least half of those are AI generated, voiced by the same few voice actors.
It happened to computer games on Steam, where people started pushing "asset flips", or games with very little substance, based on a few prefabricated assets sold in various asset stores.
Blog posts, Social media posts, articles? These could be created by AI for a long time already.

The way I see it is this. With every new challenge, eventually a solution will be devised. We will figure out a way to filter out the AI spam, so we are able to focus on the meaningful content. Make no mistake though, that will still have AI in it, it will however have artistic / creative value behind the use of AI and have a purpose more than just grabbing your attention for mere clicks / ad revenue. (most of the time at least )

 

[alohadave]

For people who don't like my view, then you must have an issue with this site because they have made it clear they don't want AI generated material on this platform.

It is possible to accept that the site doesn't want AI content while being okay with AI in general.

 

[alohadave]

This is not just another tool doing something for us while we are doing the thinking part. It is literally doing the thinking part for us as well. Being able to generate such content with a simple prompt will devalue writing in a serious way. Imagine the same thing happening with music, movies, painting... It will put artists out of business.

The literal, exact same thing was said about photography in the mid-1800s when it was introduced.

And yet painting is still a vibrant art form. It's not used much for portraiture anymore, because photography does it better, faster.

Painting was freed by the requirement to reproduce reality, and became a medium to explore abstract and non-representational themes.

Photography did not kill painting. Painters responded by moving to things that photography can't do. Now they live side-by-side, neither is dead.

And continuing the case of photography, every time an advancement is made that made/makes it easier to practice photography, it was hailed as the end of photography. Those advancements just made it easier for people with less means to do it.

Comparing this to writing, before home computers and the internet, if you wanted to get published, you had to go through the industry and write what they wanted to publish. Now with access for everyone, sites like Literotica exist where the barrier to entry are practically zero (compared to the past). Now there is a new technology that lowers that barrier even more, and people feel threatened that their work means less now.

What this really means is that more people are able to express themselves. What made your efforts special yesterday, are now seemingly worth less today because any Tom, Dick, and Harry can now do this with less effort.

The mistake is that because it's easier that your effort means less. You still have to come up with the ideas and choose what matches your idea best.

 

[AlexBailey]

It is possible to accept that the site doesn't want AI content while being okay with AI in general.

Right.

While the owner of literotica does not allow Ai generated stories on the site, they themselves use AI as a tool to screen submissions.

To me this is evidence that their objection to AI content is more about aesthetics and/or legality than any ethical concerns about lost employment opportunities.

 

[AlexBailey]

You're only as good as your last book/art/movie/script etc, so when someone who is blatantly cheating to be able to publish hundreds of works in a matter of weeks they are feeding the incessant need of an instant gratification generation, who has not one care about the people with actual talent this BS takes money away from.

Vultures, jackals and all other scavengers will eat anything, and not care where it comes from, or who was hurt in the process.

I'll stick with the analogy.

How much do you pay your editors?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

For people who don't like my view, then you must have an issue with this site because they have made it clear they don't want AI generated material on this platform.

Unfortunately, their attempts to keep it out are causing unfair rejections that they don't seem concerned about, but at least at the core they agree this is not writing, not fair, and don't want any part of it.

Considering this is a free site and they have this stance, while other platforms are letting people sell what they have never written one word of on their own is appalling greed because what they say is they don't care because they get their percentage regardless so hell yeah, let's get tens of thousands of fake books up here!

Capitalism, right? The same capitalism people will-in their politics-have a meltdown over, but when it serves them, its just fine.

Lit bans AI content yet sites such as Amazon are seeming to allow it.

When publishing now on Amazon, you have to state what percentage of the content, artwork, etc. is AI generated. I don't know if there is currently an acceptable threshold with them, but they are at least encouraging people to "self-declare" the use of AI.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

There is a belief among some that the human skills required to develop the prompts which would allow a generative AI application to properly "create" a piece of literature should not be ignored. They view effective and efficient prompt writing as a creative process of its own.

To me, that is like saying if a thief is smart enough to bypass the alarm system to steal your money and jewelry, he should not be prosecuted for any crime.

 

[CalebZhass]

There is a belief among some that the human skills required to develop the prompts which would allow a generative AI application to properly "create" a piece of literature should not be ignored. They view effective and efficient prompt writing as a creative process of its own.

To me, that is like saying if a thief is smart enough to bypass the alarm system to steal your money and jewelry, he should not be prosecuted for any crime.

That is a very far stretch of the thought. You DO NOT OWN WORDS. Those have been invented by people, nay, whole societies of people, often hundreds of years before you were even just a glimmer in your parent's eyes. You own your creative thoughts and the sequence of words in which you put them, if those are specific and unique enough, but that's it.

people using the AI cannot "steal" from you.

 

[AlexBailey]

There is a belief among some that the human skills required to develop the prompts which would allow a generative AI application to properly "create" a piece of literature should not be ignored. They view effective and efficient prompt writing as a creative process of its own.

To me, that is like saying if a thief is smart enough to bypass the alarm system to steal your money and jewelry, he should not be prosecuted for any crime.

Yes!
I was thinking about how it compares to someone taking credit for choosing a good restaurant versus they themselves being a good chef.

 

[HordHolm]

Reading this thread is... 'interesting'...

A couple of basic things first, though. Firstly, synths and cameras didn't remove human involvement from the creative process. These tools cannot produce anything on their own. A synth doesn't have a button to press which composes a concerto, a camera doesn't set itself up, choose the lighting, background, etc and come back with a Pulitzer Prize winner. An AI writing bot is qualitatively different in that it will come back with an entire piece of work from a single prompt - 'write me a story about pirates, with a cheeky parrot and a fight with a sea demon.' And bam! There is something, for better or worse. To use prompts well will involve a level of skill, true, but nowhere near the skill required to actually produce the body or work that the AI will now produce. The end result is that the human increasingly becomes far more removed from the creative process than with they ever did with synths or cameras.

Thus, to compare synths or cameras or trains or calculators to an AI writing bot is to compare apples to oranges.

Secondly, yes, this is here now and it isn't going away. But there are massive questions:

1. How long will anyone pay for AI generated content? If you can use AI to create your own content, why pay anyone else? Why not just pay for an AI and do it yourself?

2. There are unresolved copyright issues. Are people really ok with the possibility that creators have been ripped off because it suits their own convenience? Fuck yeah! But it doesn't change the fact that there are creators out there whose copyright may have been violated.

3. We are little more than a couple of years into this. We don't know where it will go because it is qualitatively different from pretty much any technology we have previously invented.

Anyway, never mind. Personally, I hate it, but I understand that it is here and won't go away. Hell, I have to deal with it on a different level, with students who now can't understand why they need to write anything when ChatGPT can do it for them, not understanding the purpose in the slightest.

I remember only a year ago discussing this on another thread and predicting the very things that are now being celebrated, by and large, in this thread. Then, I was largely pooh-poohed and told that AI won't replace writers, don't be so negative and panic-mongering, etc. Well, it gives me no comfort to have seemingly been more right than wrong. And look, if you're happy with AI taking over creative writing from humans, then great, good for you. Because that is what will happen. Maybe not this year or the next, but soon, human authored work will become like the bespoke option in the clothing industry - an expensive little corner that supplies a vanishingly small number of customers.

The main takeaway for me in all this, though, is actually the self-defeating nature of the authors who've used AI to create their works. Because, whilst that might get them a level of support now, how long before the penny drops and 'every Tom, Dick, and Harry' realises that they don't need them? It just goes to show, that just because you can author a work it doesn't make you smart.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Thing is, producing grammatical English (or other languages, now) is exactly what ChatGPT is good at. For, even. What it's terrible at is assessing any statements for truth, falsehood or contradiction, and it doesn't really even try.

So if English isn't your first language and you give a chatbot some words and ideas to riff off, it'll make them into satisfactory English sentences. But you'll still need to assess whether the sentences make sense in context, don't contradict or use the wrong meaning of a noun, and decide if they're worth using.

If it means more learners of English can produce comprehensible essays so you can establish whether they've understood a subject and can continue to teach more, and they can learn English faster by seeing example sentences about their field, I'm all for it.

Enough authors online manage to be tedious and unoriginal. At least with AI, they can be tedious, unoriginal and grammatical.