More rejects or more AI?

Part of what got me thinking about this was the How To for new authors I am working on. What do people think about this excerpt for new authors. This is in the section of having your story sent back.

Thoughts on this?
Not all newbies read the How To's or the stickies, judging by the regular turn of threads on the repeat repeat issues. It's been that way for the last decade, despite there being FAQs covering most of the questions they're asking. Your approach is admirable, but I don't think it will make much difference.

All you can really do is what I've done over the years, and patiently answer the same questions over and over again - and avoid the tendency to reduce the newbie question threads to the same old same old unhelpful non-information, or intolerance of their questions. We were all newbies once, trying to figure out the answers. People seem to forget that, and for me, that's what gets tedious, not the fact that the questions are being asked, again.
 
All you can really do is what I've done over the years, and patiently answer the same questions over and over again - and avoid the tendency to reduce the newbie question threads to the same old same old unhelpful non-information, or intolerance of their questions. We were all newbies once, trying to figure out the answers. People seem to forget that, and for me, that's what gets tedious, not the fact that the questions are being asked, again.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
 
Not all newbies read the How To's or the stickies, judging by the regular turn of threads on the repeat repeat issues. It's been that way for the last decade, despite there being FAQs covering most of the questions they're asking. Your approach is admirable, but I don't think it will make much difference.

All you can really do is what I've done over the years, and patiently answer the same questions over and over again - and avoid the tendency to reduce the newbie question threads to the same old same old unhelpful non-information, or intolerance of their questions. We were all newbies once, trying to figure out the answers. People seem to forget that, and for me, that's what gets tedious, not the fact that the questions are being asked, again.
If a non-zero percentage of them read it, I have accomplished something.
 
Laurel has delegated the job of answering all these questions - AI, underage content, pending times and so on - to the AH. I consider it the price of having this forum. Laurel doesn't have to take time out of reviewing stories, and there's generally someone here who has time and energy to answer.
Not to mention some amount of credibility.

That's what "delegation" signals, so, Laurel must anticipate that at least some of us will give credible answers.
 
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Part of what got me thinking about this was the How To for new authors I am working on. What do people think about this excerpt for new authors. This is in the section of having your story sent back.


Thoughts on this?
Just a minor nit: This sentence...

Did you use a tool like Grammarly to rewrite the text of your story anywhere “to fix the grammar and punctuation”.

...should end with a question mark. Maybe get rid of the quotation marks, or use them only around the word 'fix.'
 
@iwatchus You're correct. To some extent it's going to be both. If it can falsely flag human writing as AI, it can also falsely identify AI writing as human. I'd bet that there's at least one AI story on the site somewhere. I don't know that and I'm not about to go looking for it, but it stands to reason, because as you said, no AI detector is perfect. Some are pretty close, but none is 100% perfect.

Still, there ought to be some way to correct the AI system's mistakes as much as possible.
 
But, to the core of the original question, is it worse to imprison an innocent man, or allow a guilty man to go free?
The reality is there are AI generated stories up on the site right now. We've discussed the flaws in AI detection and it would be foolish to think it only errs in one direction.
So, how many legit stories get rejected to keep an AI story out?
It's easy to say, "as many as it takes" when it isn't your story getting rejected.
But what's the cost to the site? How many potential authors take their ball and go home because of the frustration of dealing with that?
There's certainly a cost.
I agree with this 100%.
 
AI has taken huge leaps in short time and detectors won't be able to keep up. I'm sure the day that AI is able to create human-like fictional content, indisquinciable from human, is not far.
I recall at least one poster saying that you can get your human writing flagged for AI, then run it through a humanizer, which is AI, to make it sound more human. He was noting the irony that using AI to "humanize" your human writing might make it sound less AI, thus more likely to "pass."
 
I have been thinking about this for the last few days. No filter for keeping out AI will be perfect.

Should the site err on the side of keeping out AI, with the cost of some false accusations?
Or should the site let more AI slip in to allow real writers to submit dubious works?

It is going to be one or the other. (To some extent it will be both.)
The "site" gets about 75 new stories per day to publish, so much that they can stagger some stories over days to help balance out the categories.

So, if the site rejects a story for being AI-generated, that's as if they're saying "Your writing style sounds like a robot! Give us a break and give it another shot to sound at least a little more than a second-grader with 'See Spot run.' type of monotone sentences."

I may write like shit. But at least they KNOW there's no AI ignorant enough to write like I do.
 
The "site" gets about 75 new stories per day to publish, so much that they can stagger some stories to help balance out the categories.
Just being pedantic but the site publishes close to 200 a day. If they reject 20%, they review about 250 per day. I have no idea what the real rejection rate is.

I looked this up to talk about in the How To for new authors. The most I have seen in the last two weeks was almost 1500 in a week. Right now, the previous week is just under 1300, or just under 190/per day;
 
Just a minor nit: This sentence...

Did you use a tool like Grammarly to rewrite the text of your story anywhere “to fix the grammar and punctuation”.

...should end with a question mark. Maybe get rid of the quotation marks, or use them only around the word 'fix.'
I'll bet Grammarly would have caught that... 🤭
 
Beyond AI writing software, most AI companies that allow for creating AI art and audio, have a VERY draconian TOS to prevent them being used in any erotic/pornographic manner.

Which is odd from a profit standpoint; they are basically leaving money on the table.
 
Beyond AI writing software, most AI companies that allow for creating AI art and audio, have a VERY draconian TOS to prevent them being used in any erotic/pornographic manner.

Which is odd from a profit standpoint; they are basically leaving money on the table.
It's not all about profit. Sometimes it's about not getting busted for child porn.
 
It's not all about profit. Sometimes it's about not getting busted for child porn.
True, but I feel that the platforms I've used are vetted and transparent enough that anyone trying to use them for that, will get caught immediately and suffer the consequences.

But yeah, I can see the "better safe than sorry" approach to a relatively new and polarizing technology.
 
True, but I feel that the platforms I've used are vetted and transparent enough that anyone trying to use them for that, will get caught immediately and suffer the consequences.

But yeah, I can see the "better safe than sorry" approach to a relatively new and polarizing technology.

It does seem like an odd exception to porn driving certain technologies like home video.
 
It does seem like an odd exception to porn driving certain technologies like home video.
I think there's delineation. On a free site like this and without the strenuous checking, CHILD porn could become an issue very easily. There are other similar sites that don't vet their authors' works. Some have been listed in previous conversations like this one.

Also, with some states, like Texas, adding additional identification requirements for 'porn' site access; i.e., uploading your drivers license, I think Lit is doing what it can to stay out of that sandbox(restricting nude images).
 
I think there's delineation. On a free site like this and without the strenuous checking, CHILD porn could become an issue very easily. There are other similar sites that don't vet their authors' works. Some have been listed in previous conversations like this one.

Also, with some states, like Texas, adding additional identification requirements for 'porn' site access; i.e., uploading your drivers license, I think Lit is doing what it can to stay out of that sandbox(restricting nude images).
I'd forgotten about stupid, fucking Texas and their new (old?) rules on porn.
 
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