Does AFF have a policy on AI generated fanfic?

[Deadman]

Just curious if AFF has a policy on AI generated fanfic?

Been hearing a lot of discussions lately about AI content and how much it’s moving forward these days. Some writers in the original space are talking about how they’re using AI to help them generate stories in various ways.

I don’t see myself doing anything with AI myself but all the conversations have me curious about what I’m going to read on the site.

Do writers here have a general view on it?
 

[BronxWench]

AI generated fanfic is pretty new, and we don’t have an established policy per se, although we may want to think about this and establish one.

In general, we do have a policy of asking that all content be the work of the uploading author. Obviously, when writing fan fiction, the universe/fandom and the characters are not owned by the uploading author, hence the disclaimer requirement. But we don’t allow large swaths of content taken directly from the fandom, or the read-the-book stories that were all the rage for a while. So where does AI generated writing fall? I’m not entirely sure. It’s obviously not written by the uploading author, but presumably, the AI program generated content based on parameters established by the uploading author.

I’m just not sure it’s really writing in the truest sense of the word. I can’t imagine any AI program could capture a writer’s voice: the way they use language, the cadence of their writing, the unique touches that make their work stand out from other writers. I might use it to generate a rough plot outline, but I think I’m still old-fashioned enough to want the words on the page or screen to be the words I chose myself, if that makes any sense at all.

[InvidiaRed]

Technology is certainly progressing faster rate now than it did.

 

I think if nothing else there should be a discussion to the powers that be if only to prevent someone from spamming ai-gen stories. Only cause I know at least someone will do that.

[Desiderius Price]

More fodder for the debate.  Sentient AI?  AI writing assistance?

[BronxWench]

2 hours ago, InvidiaRed said:

Technology is certainly progressing faster rate now than it did.

 

I think if nothing else there should be a discussion to the powers that be if only to prevent someone from spamming ai-gen stories. Only cause I know at least someone will do that.

Oh, trust me, the spamming part will get them banned. Fast.

[Desiderius Price]

So, what about AI generated reviews?

Edited April 4, 2023 by Desiderius Price

[BronxWench]

56 minutes ago, Desiderius Price said:

So, what about AI generated reviews?

Ah, the early morning poking of the undercaffeinated dragon…   

If I believe reviews are being spammed, the reviewer is subject to being banned. At the moment, no anonymous reviews are permitted, as a security measure, so in order to spam those reviews, you will need an archive account. I would be very happy to have that last another year or so.

[Desiderius Price]

40 minutes ago, BronxWench said:

Ah, the early morning poking of the undercaffeinated dragon…   

If I believe reviews are being spammed, the reviewer is subject to being banned. At the moment, no anonymous reviews are permitted, as a security measure, so in order to spam those reviews, you will need an archive account. I would be very happy to have that last another year or so.

Hmm, maybe we ought to make AI-generated-reviews a FEATURE?  Author wants such a review, press the button, ask ChatGPT for its opinion on your story?  (Secretly, we’ve hot wired it to troll/flame mode.)

Quote

ChatGPT> Your story sucks and spreads cancer.

[BronxWench]

We’ll do that when you join the staff as Review Moderator.  

[Desiderius Price]

Ah, able to withhold/delete all other reviews until my stories get some flattering ones? 

[BronxWench]

2 hours ago, Desiderius Price said:

Ah, able to withhold/delete all other reviews until my stories get some flattering ones? 

You can do that now anyway, you know.  

[GeorgeGlass]

My (admittedly limited) experience to date suggests that AI writing programs don't actually write anything: They grab pieces of text from various sources and meld them together into one. If that's how all AI writing programs work, than any text they "write"  will necessarily be plagiarized.

[BronxWench]

2 hours ago, GeorgeGlass said:

My (admittedly limited) experience to date suggests that AI writing programs don't actually write anything: They grab pieces of text from various sources and meld them together into one. If that's how all AI writing programs work, than any text they "write"  will necessarily be plagiarized.

Well, the, that makes it a bit easier. Cobblefic is plagiarism, and plagiarism is not permitted here.

[InvidiaRed]

18 hours ago, GeorgeGlass said:

My (admittedly limited) experience to date suggests that AI writing programs don't actually write anything: They grab pieces of text from various sources and meld them together into one. If that's how all AI writing programs work, than any text they "write"  will necessarily be plagiarized.

Oh that’s much less impressive so its not even AI its a copypaste machine.

[Deadman]

19 hours ago, GeorgeGlass said:

My (admittedly limited) experience to date suggests that AI writing programs don't actually write anything: They grab pieces of text from various sources and meld them together into one. If that's how all AI writing programs work, than any text they "write"  will necessarily be plagiarized.

Well this is where you run into problems in the idea of AI. I’ve had this conversation a few times with people but it’s always interesting.

If you read 6 books and it gives you an idea and you use the ideas to create your own idea, isn’t that the same as what AI is doing? Just mashing things together?

You have movies and TV shows which have vampires and werewolves and a bunch of other things that they got from somewhere else. This is kinda what AI is doing in my view. At least that’s my view.

[BronxWench]

3 minutes ago, Deadman said:

Well this is where you run into problems in the idea of AI. I’ve had this conversation a few times with people but it’s always interesting.

If you read 6 books and it gives you an idea and you use the ideas to create your own idea, isn’t that the same as what AI is doing? Just mashing things together?

You have movies and TV shows which have vampires and werewolves and a bunch of other things that they got from somewhere else. This is kinda what AI is doing in my view. At least that’s my view.

Inspiration from a book, or a tv show that uses a universal trope like vampires, or werewolves, or the undead, isn’t the same thing as taking literal text from a source and dropping it into a document that you then publish as your work. If the AI program was merely finding a trope, that would be one thing. But once it begins to incorporate things someone else wrote, well, that’s the slippery slope.

All of my fan fiction is online. Quite a few original short pieces are online as well. If an AI program were to scour the Internet, and decide to lift sentences or even paragraphs from one of my original stories, I’d be pretty damned peeved, I can promise you, and there would be a DMCA takedown notice going out forthwith. (AFF does actually have a DMCA statement in the archive’s Site Information, as any reputable site should.)

[Desiderius Price]

6 minutes ago, Deadman said:

Well this is where you run into problems in the idea of AI. I’ve had this conversation a few times with people but it’s always interesting.

If you read 6 books and it gives you an idea and you use the ideas to create your own idea, isn’t that the same as what AI is doing? Just mashing things together?

You have movies and TV shows which have vampires and werewolves and a bunch of other things that they got from somewhere else. This is kinda what AI is doing in my view. At least that’s my view.

This is where it gets dicey with ordinary copyright too.  Ideas themselves can’t be copywritten.  So the idea of a werewolf teenager slaying vampires isn’t covered, but it’s how you execute it, the words you choose.  Lifting their words, their expression, their execution, is infringement.  Creating your own narrative with your own words is fine. 

Now, if the AI is indeed lifting snippets of existing works… then it’s skirting into infringement.  If it’s generating its own prose completely, then it’s creative and its own expression.  How small do those snippets need to be until it’s not infringement and creative in its own right?  Guess we’re debating running Shakespeare through a blender vs handing a paint brush over to Data (of Star Trek TNG).

[Deadman]

18 minutes ago, BronxWench said:

Inspiration from a book, or a tv show that uses a universal trope like vampires, or werewolves, or the undead, isn’t the same thing as taking literal text from a source and dropping it into a document that you then publish as your work. If the AI program was merely finding a trope, that would be one thing. But once it begins to incorporate things someone else wrote, well, that’s the slippery slope.

All of my fan fiction is online. Quite a few original short pieces are online as well. If an AI program were to scour the Internet, and decide to lift sentences or even paragraphs from one of my original stories, I’d be pretty damned peeved, I can promise you, and there would be a DMCA takedown notice going out forthwith. (AFF does actually have a DMCA statement in the archive’s Site Information, as any reputable site should.)

I totally get where you’re coming from, though I’m not sure I think the current legal framework is sufficient. But here’s an example of where I wonder how valid it is:

https://www.pcgamer.com/one-of-bings-new-chatgpt-personalities-wrote-me-some-seriously-puggy-fanfic/

The second version comes across like a basic conception of how a Star Trek episode would really go. It’s very close to what some young fanfic writers might write.

 

[BronxWench]

22 minutes ago, Deadman said:

I totally get where you’re coming from, though I’m not sure I think the current legal framework is sufficient. But here’s an example of where I wonder how valid it is:

https://www.pcgamer.com/one-of-bings-new-chatgpt-personalities-wrote-me-some-seriously-puggy-fanfic/

The second version comes across like a basic conception of how a Star Trek episode would really go. It’s very close to what some young fanfic writers might write.

 

There’s discussion referenced in that article about the not insignificant concerns revolving around copyright violations and content attribution for the various AIs, and I have to say, those are my concerns as well. I shudder to think of some AI scraping one of my darker original pieces and creating some sort of fan fic around what I wrote, with no compensation to me as the creator. I reserve ALL rights to my original works, and I’m really not joking about that. I wouldn’t be the first author to spin a short work into a novel, and I have no intentions of winding up in a legal wrangle with someone who used an AI program that lifted my work, and who has decided they now OWN my work.

[Deadman]

1 hour ago, BronxWench said:

There’s discussion referenced in that article about the not insignificant concerns revolving around copyright violations and content attribution for the various AIs, and I have to say, those are my concerns as well. I shudder to think of some AI scraping one of my darker original pieces and creating some sort of fan fic around what I wrote, with no compensation to me as the creator. I reserve ALL rights to my original works, and I’m really not joking about that. I wouldn’t be the first author to spin a short work into a novel, and I have no intentions of winding up in a legal wrangle with someone who used an AI program that lifted my work, and who has decided they now OWN my work.

Yeah, I understand that concern for sure. I’ve thought about it in regards to humans doing it. I know some creators aren’t fans of fanfic of their work when written by a human being. I can imagine the same would be true of AI, but the problem with an AI is that you’re going to have no one to necessarily go after. But I’m not necessarily as concerned about fanfic of my original work. I would prefer to have my own version on TV, which is where my original work is intended to go, but I’d be okay with having someone make fanfic based on the TV show.

[BronxWench]

23 minutes ago, Deadman said:

Yeah, I understand that concern for sure. I’ve thought about it in regards to humans doing it. I know some creators aren’t fans of fanfic of their work when written by a human being. I can imagine the same would be true of AI, but the problem with an AI is that you’re going to have no one to necessarily go after. But I’m not necessarily as concerned about fanfic of my original work. I would prefer to have my own version on TV, which is where my original work is intended to go, but I’d be okay with having someone make fanfic based on the TV show.

Fair enough. I on the other hand would like to be asked first before anyone uses my original work in any way, including writing fan fic for it. Well, unless It was one of the authors whose work I read compulsively, but I’m pretty sure none of them even know I exist.  

[Deadman]

13 minutes ago, BronxWench said:

Fair enough. I on the other hand would like to be asked first before anyone uses my original work in any way, including writing fan fic for it. Well, unless It was one of the authors whose work I read compulsively, but I’m pretty sure none of them even know I exist.  

Totally get it. I would love to have some of the writers who I grew up watching their shows to be writing on my TV show. It’s coming from the same basic place but I know it’s just as ridiculous as hoping they would write fanfic.

There’s one fandom I love, The 100, where I read that the creator of the original books the TV show was based on actually wrote it originally as fanfic of two characters from Gossip Girl after the apocalypse. She then rewrote it as an original story in book form.

[Desiderius Price]

10 hours ago, BronxWench said:

Fair enough. I on the other hand would like to be asked first before anyone uses my original work in any way, including writing fan fic for it. Well, unless It was one of the authors whose work I read compulsively, but I’m pretty sure none of them even know I exist.  

Given we’re on a website for posting fanfiction, I’d say somebody writing fanfic for your books would be a sign of success.  Me… never got into writing until I had read/watched *ALL* the available material for that universe (at that time), yearned for more, and found fanfiction, wasn’t satisfied and began to write.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Desiderius Price
typo fix

[BronxWench]

1 hour ago, Desiderius Price said:

Given we’re on a website for positing fanfiction, I’d say somebody writing fanfic for your books would be a sign of success.  Me… never got into writing until I had read/watched *ALL* the available material for that universe (at that time), yearned for more, and found fanfiction, wasn’t satisfied and began to write.

I’m pretty sure no one needs fan fic of my darker works. I mean, seriously… Fan fic of the published stuff? Sure. It’s kind of fluffy and mostly HEA. Fan fic of my short original stuff here?  Only if you hate sleeping in the dark and don’t mind drinking a lot.  

[Wilde_Guess]

12 hours ago, Deadman said:

Well this is where you run into problems in the idea of AI. I’ve had this conversation a few times with people but it’s always interesting.

If you read 6 books and it gives you an idea and you use the ideas to create your own idea, isn’t that the same as what AI is doing? Just mashing things together?

You have movies and TV shows which have vampires and werewolves and a bunch of other things that they got from somewhere else. This is kinda what AI is doing in my view. At least that’s my view.

The differences between AI/copypasta and what you’ve described are creativity and imagination.  An AI program will only operate according to its own rules.  Creative people, by their very nature, go beyond the rules, but in a way that still makes sense, if you will.  An AI can plagiarize a collection of historians writing about the War of the Roses and mash it up with plagarized Tolkien.  It took a real person to write the book series A Song of Ice and Fire.