Sci-Fi Mag Pauses Submissions Amid Flood of AI-Generated Short Stories
The rise of AI-powered chatbots is wreaking havoc on the literary world. Sci-fi publication Clarkesworld Magazine is temporarily suspending short story submissions, citing a surge in people using AI chatbots to “plagiarize” their writing.
The magazine announced(Opens in a new window) the suspension days after Clarkesworld editor Neil Clarke warned about AI-written works posing a threat to the entire short-story ecosystem.
At the end of last year, the sci-fi publicationencountered a rise in plagiarism as AI-powered chatbots gained the public’s attention, Clarke wrote(Opens in a new window) in a blog post. Since then, Clarkesworld has seen a massive spike in short story submissions, but much of the writing appears to come from humans relying on AI tools to pump out the text.
In his post, Clark declined to specify how he detected the AI-generated writing, saying he had “no intention of helping those people become less likely to be caught.” Nevertheless, he said the alleged AI-based works show “some very obvious patterns.”
“What I can say is that the number of spam submissions resulting in bans has hit 38% this month,” he said. “While rejecting and banning these submissions has been simple, it’s growing at a rate that will necessitate changes. To make matters worse, the technology is only going to get better, so detection will become more challenging.”
Hence, the AI-generated writing threatens to hinder legitimate human-written works from reaching the prestigious sci-fi publication. Currently, Clarkesworld has a policy against any “stories written, co-written, or assisted by AI at this time.”
AI-generated writing is likely flooding the magazine because it pays 12 cents a word for each short story accepted. “From what I
Read more on pcmag.com
