We Need To Talk About AI - Please Read

boo-hoo for us robots. 

I was recently in an editing studio with my wife (she does allot of media, events, news, interviews & press stuff).... They were doing text (subtitles) & voice overs in 4 languages & 2 dialects on work that just 18 months ago took the better part of a work week to do, sent around online to a group translators & editors.... now a 3 min video & 4. (15) second spots +... takes like under 3 hours, with a near perfect readable transcript =90% in those languages & dialects = All-AI * (server-cloud-based) in the sense the user doesn't download anything, no app, link-in & play vs. plug & play....

In the back of my mind, I was wondering when this was going to be an issue in the Lit world.....

ABC is on it ! (right-on I-Ponce)*.... It needs a gate keeper to keep it pure here.... 

My I suggest, as the editors and board of directors address this issue;

In general terms, describe what the limitations are, or more definitive boundaries, in editing software vs, AI writing the bulk of the story & claiming it in name as the author, etc.

In the sense, generally, the public, has a kind of 5 dimensional understanding, perception wise vs. actual clarity of its employment/deployment and use thereof; edting-software, spell check & phrase app's, paragraph storyline assist etc. Beginning in the rudimentary sense, when we text on phones, the corrective AI auto kicks in vs. what writing AI is, actually does, evolves in your system and even plagiarizes exchanging words written in the writer/authors style and grammatical technique.

*AI commonly scans, or has already scanned, vast amounts published works/data as it assembles its thought process and adapts to users writing style. 

This is works in 2 ways as applied to this discussion at present:

(a) Common apps, in use/we use are scalable in nature, desensitizes people in a gray a zone of help/assist and/or fun, cool, = a little more AI, no harm done = its easy to scale & escalate...  

(b) It scares the S*+öüT of people & could even start a paranoid, critical culture within. + arm chair critics.

My point is; a statement, guidelines, rational & logical, in definition, subject to the discretion & judgment of the editors & board of directors, even acting as a self governing regulatory body = something in that zone.

These issues are overcome on much more complex matters, in the sense in the past I dealt with regulatory bodies in that; we had to identify in a paragraph statement much more harsh risk as technology was escalating, in a disclosure statement, subject to, terms and conditions - agreement, before participating, therefore knowing the risk of being limited or even canceled at any time.

(ABC - Reserves the rights to....... at our discretion... based on, on the basis.....)..etc.

In the sense, better addressed now, than later, when its actually imbedded and in common use, by default becoming an un-addressed, unrecognized, unregulated standard liken to other assist app's we use that have actually evolved.

I'm being diplomatic and polite here....if you catch my drift...(?)

It's just a suggestion.....

Meanwhile I'll crutch along on basic spell check, sweat it out, and let the ABC writers & editors shred me when I Booboo, stumble, trip, drool and flatulate on my writing attempts herein.

What is the creative world coming to? I can't imagine wanting to use AI to write anything personal, as there is so much to write about without help, but I suppose it would be interesting to experiment with. It does go against the point of a creative writing site.

I'm gonna make a statement here (wrapped), its every bit with the best of intent in kindness, care, concern and loyalty to ABC as the Artificial Intelligence (AI) issue has got me thinking and I did bit of research, spoke to a colleague that exists in this space & weighed & pondered this from my own experiences.

With said, I’m NOT trying write cryptically, it’s a perspective, view, theoretical, in a white paper liken commentary.

Opportunity-Macro:

In a vertical sense, there is an asset value by being the 1st, ahead of the curve, in addressing this issue in a paragraph as related to - the aforementioned - applied to a creative writing, non-profit, network public forum with the pedigree, etc. =ABC. Measurably, at this time, an opening exists, that could be utilized, thereby setting an industry standard.

Practically Applied:

* A simple statement = ‘AI is not tolerated’ as a start, awareness wise sends the message.

* The asset value would come from developing & publishing a policy in a disclosure or memo format. Not a technical document, a standards & ethics disclosure, even addressing a mission statement.  

* The policy, ethics & standards, rules of engagement/use, would be a living set of guidelines that evolves as the AI issue evolves.

* Defining the A, B, C’s (no pun intended) clarified, for example; to preserve/preservation of; a culture, tradition, standards & ethics, +. (so it doesn't get over run or drowned out by tech pundits & critics). IMO, there’s more than enough talent herein to eloquently write a standards and ethics piece defining ABC’s role/mission in culture, creative literature addressing the AI issue.

* When defined, it needs to be announced/distributed as such. Published, distribution will follow, and others in the literary world will and should be invited to refer too; mimic and/even copy those standards & guidelines, as ABC evolves on this issue, others will to, in the sense; a well-defined paragraph (or two) is a leadership role in the world of literature/creative writing & AI, rapidly encompassing this creative art form.

It doesn't need to be perfect, it needs to be 80% on target = open ended.

It can be revised and updated i.e. a living document/statement.

It’s an opportunity, a 1st of its kind in a vertical market sense.

In closing;

Beware of AI self proclaimed experts, false profits, and the whole connected in the know crowd. There are unforeseen corrections in hyper-speed technology disruptive changes & adaptations. At the end of the day its about taking the higher ground, in ethics, culture, standards and the defense thereof, that will survive and evolve. (Hence ‘The Asset’).

I write in general terms, as a participant in other such evolutions & revolutions.... there's an open door here. Thankfully because of this forum, this blog, all of us can be part of it, at the very least learn, be aware, witness and experience it.

(thats a wrap)*

I can't even imagine how AI could be used to write. 

Out of interest I looked up AI writing. I didn't realise such stuff existed and now in one minute I found five apps.

My message to anybody using this crap for creative writing would be - don't be so fucking lazy there is no shortcut 

I only just now played with it. The prose it creates is pretty awful. (Although scarily competent.) I asked it to give me story prompts, and it came up with something interesting. (But that was my imagination extrapolating very far from what it originally wrote... and I've written stories using prompts before.) However, I find it way more efficient than Google trying to look up specific things, like a common brand of cheap motorboat from the 1980s and does pretty good work as a thesaurus. Are these specific examples out of bounds or is it just using its prose?

As as an example, only, test-experiment by Open AI, the company (only for informative purposes)

Referring to my earlier comment, already integrated, log on & play vs. download or plug & play, Microsoft is now using browser applications (integrated) in whats referred to as; 3rd party App´s.

Its a snap shot of how its being integrated & where this is going.

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March 14, 2023:

OpenAI updated technology passed a simulated law school bar exam with a score around the top 10% of test takers; by contrast, the prior version, GPT-3.5, scored around the bottom 10%. GPT-4 can also read, analyze or generate up to 25,000 words of text, and write code in all major programming languages, according to the company.

OpenAI described the update as the “latest milestone” for the company. Although it is still “less capable” than humans in many real-world scenarios, it exhibits “human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks,” according to the company.

GPT-4 is the latest version of OpenAI’s large language model, which is trained on vast amounts of online data to generate compelling responses to user prompts. The updated version, which is now available via a waitlist, is already making its way into some third-party products, including Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing.

Ref: https://chat-gpt.org/

I'm not competant to either fully understand or argue the pros and cons of AI in any role, either as a primary source in writing here, or as supportive tool such as a thesaurus. That said it seems obvious to me that there should not be allowed any material on this site that has AI as its source. 

I've been playing with AI quite a bit now since I wrote my last comment. I agree with the sentiment that a creative writing site can't or shouldn't accept AI generated prose or poems where the user simply copies and pastes text based on a prompt. One thing AI can't do is write a story like I would write it (believe me, I tried!) and therefore I have no interest in asking it to write a story for me. But what I think it's useful for are things that I've already been using AI for in some capacity. It's convenient and -- here is my Star Trek fandom showing -- it's amazingly close to what they would do on that show. You have an actual conversation with it and you can even suggest further clarifications or refinements for what you're looking for (research-wise), and it gives me refreshingly reliable results. I did the same thing with Google and the results are far less reliable and takes an extra amount of digging. I've used Google frequently to research facts or even give me ideas for details to put into descriptions (which I'm pretty sure these days use AI). As someone else here pointed out, spell check and grammar check use some form of AI already. I even asked the Chatbot to give me quirky sounding names for characters, which replaces the random name generator or a phone book. I think asking it to check grammar or suggest ways to rewrite sentences shouldn't be off limits either, because those exist now anyway. But what should be off limits is again directly copy and pasting text from Chatbot. I see this ultimately as being against the rules or unethical for the exact reason that plagiarism is against the rules and unethical. I think that was also the point of Nick Cave's concerns as well. Maybe it sparks an idea for how to better express a feeling, but AI cannot by itself convey emotion from one human to another, which is the point of creative writing. My comments from the peanut gallery :)

Hello great artists of the written word. Please do not allow your personal muse to be usurped by an artificial interloper. Be you - only you as your writing unwinds into creative strands. -Richard LP. 

Okay, here is my two cents on this subject…or at least here’s a penny for my thoughts:

To be human is to be imperfect. I could not claim to be a writer if a synthesized text was being propagated in my name. I don’t care if it mimicked my syntax, my way of writing and fooled the world; it wouldn’t fool me. It’s not me. I’m a simple human and AI is not. So I’m imperfect, but I’m comfortable in my imperfections, in fact, as I’ve aged, I’ve owned them even more. I don’t want to ignore the mistakes I make, not in life or in writing. And at times I’ve even found mistakes endearing, in myself and in others. In life, as in writing, mistakes are part of the process and sometimes they’re even the best part of the story. So I don’t want to be fooled by a story written by a contrived, coded rhythm and I don’t want to applaud a scrubbed of the human element talent. There is no substance in that, nothing, or no one, to commiserate with on the difficult writing challenge; I understand the AI text could be fine, the wording immaculate and might produce a gem of a poem but, if its filtered through AI, that gem is a façade not an achievement, for whose achievement would it be? Not the writer’s, if they cannot claim the sweat of the process. We write with angst, sorrow, love and most often, with corrections. I can honestly say, a myriad of mistakes is my personal process and most important, our posts on abc reflect us; warts and all...humanly structured, maybe not always with impeccable grammar but always, always, revealing our soul.

So, in my long winded way, what I’m saying is, I believe we need to keep AI out of this creative venue. But for those who wish to dabble in AI, and cleanse their writing into a perfect something…I don’t know; I think there should be a different venue for that, a venue that clearly states what the reader is reading, labeled as ‘AI enhanced’.

I was worried as I didn't know what AI was as I didn't want to do it not even by accident! So I asked my Daughter what it was and she told me. Phew. like you say what is the point?

I have never heard of AI till tonight when I saw it on here, I am not really into computers I have my laptop it is just for ABC LOL and only when I write do I look on my unread emails so those are the two things I use my laptop for nothing else. 

I think I would have to Google how to use it. But it would not be for me I like things from my own mind and head. 

I have to be honest I'm getting terrified about uploading a story I've been working on because I've used ChatBot instead of Google. I can only promise from the bottom of my heart it's still my own voice!!

Robot artist recites its poetry at Oxford museum - BBC News

With all due respect to Donignacio and all the contributers - it is now too late, Pandora is already out of the box. Google and Microsoft - to name just two, are launching AI chat bots that can compose poetry, and its well worth googling the above BBC item. So I can't see how any poetry site moderators or editors will be able to tell the diference between ordinary human inspired work and an AI work. My firmly held convicton is that we are seeing the beginning of the end of human creativity.  

This might add a bit of clarity (further prospective) on the issue....

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2023/07/business/detect-ai-text-huma...