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Three ideas for foiling AI spamming of SFF zines
According to Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld (as quoted in this Guardian article), there are get-rich-quick schemers out there who are encouraging people to submit AI-generated stories to high-paying, highly regarded venues. Clarkesworld has seen an increase from an average of 10 to over 500. As a consequence, Clarkesworld has closed submissions.
Another venue said it would only accept submissions from known authors.
That’s a terrible blow for up-and-coming writers and ultimately for the whole ecosystem. How to solve it?
First, I want to clarify the difference between the problem as it exists now and the ultimate problem. Judging from the fact that Clarkesworld was able to recognize and reject 500 stories as AI-generated, the problem right now isn’t that AI-written stories are indistinguishable from human-written ones; right now it’s a problem of spam. It’s a problem of a deluge of trash submissions making it untenable for zine teams to sort through to find the genuine ones.
Ultimately, as AI-generated stories get better, we’ll have the problem of distinguishing them from human-produced ones—if we decide that's a problem—and the solutions will be different, but I have some ideas for right now.
Idea 1: a cool-off period. Writers submit their names only. They are contacted a month later and invited at that point to submit their story. This ought to deter most spam.
Idea 2 a change in directionality. What if instead of authors submitting to publishers, publishers went looking for authors? This is already what’s had to happen to increase submissions from marginalized, lesser-heard-from demographics: publishers have actively sought them out. It’s distressing for writers to have to sit around like flowers in a garden waiting to be picked, but it’s a possibility.
Idea 3: writing circles. Essentially groups of writers who choose to come together to write in a certain style or about certain topics or just because they get along. They share writing with one another, talk about and share stories they’ve read as well. They would share some writing publicly (for free), so that there would be a public record of the circle’s existence and the sort of work its members produced. Then once every [time period], circles would make recommendations to zines of works to consider for publication. In other words, writers themselves would be doing first-level slush management, and zines could judge the types of stories they’d likely be getting from the circles by the work posted publicly.
These ideas have drawbacks, I realize, but maybe with refinement one or several of them could work?
Another venue said it would only accept submissions from known authors.
That’s a terrible blow for up-and-coming writers and ultimately for the whole ecosystem. How to solve it?
First, I want to clarify the difference between the problem as it exists now and the ultimate problem. Judging from the fact that Clarkesworld was able to recognize and reject 500 stories as AI-generated, the problem right now isn’t that AI-written stories are indistinguishable from human-written ones; right now it’s a problem of spam. It’s a problem of a deluge of trash submissions making it untenable for zine teams to sort through to find the genuine ones.
Ultimately, as AI-generated stories get better, we’ll have the problem of distinguishing them from human-produced ones—if we decide that's a problem—and the solutions will be different, but I have some ideas for right now.
Idea 1: a cool-off period. Writers submit their names only. They are contacted a month later and invited at that point to submit their story. This ought to deter most spam.
Idea 2 a change in directionality. What if instead of authors submitting to publishers, publishers went looking for authors? This is already what’s had to happen to increase submissions from marginalized, lesser-heard-from demographics: publishers have actively sought them out. It’s distressing for writers to have to sit around like flowers in a garden waiting to be picked, but it’s a possibility.
Idea 3: writing circles. Essentially groups of writers who choose to come together to write in a certain style or about certain topics or just because they get along. They share writing with one another, talk about and share stories they’ve read as well. They would share some writing publicly (for free), so that there would be a public record of the circle’s existence and the sort of work its members produced. Then once every [time period], circles would make recommendations to zines of works to consider for publication. In other words, writers themselves would be doing first-level slush management, and zines could judge the types of stories they’d likely be getting from the circles by the work posted publicly.
These ideas have drawbacks, I realize, but maybe with refinement one or several of them could work?
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But yeah, it's not as sustainable way of dealing with the problem!
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(3.141592653589793238462643383279502.... etc. So since today is Feb 23, the next open day would be March 3, and after that March 4, then 7 ... )
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Yeah, that is not in any way viable. I got some of my best submissions from people I had never heard of.
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I do think however that other magazines, that are open for say 7 days in every month, or every fourth month, are likely doing better than Clarkesworld in this regard.
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I think of idea 2 as being precisely for *finding* people in the global south etc etc, but it really would depend on zines making an effort, and will they? hmmm
--But more generally, yeah, ideas 2 and 3 put big stumbling blocks up, and even if they didn't, they're kind of what-if solutions that aren't immediately put-in-place-able.
Probably something like what you're saying about having narrow--and shifting! opening windows, and then maybe something like no. 1 could mechanically deter spam.
But it is a huge problem.
Re no. 3, I do think people up and just forming groups and then sharing writing publicly would be ways in which we could get to learn of new writers (or relatively unknown ones--I count myself in that number)--imagine this scenario:
Joyce Chng or Eve Shi (just to take two people I know of who are in the Global South right now) form a writers circle with some of their acquaintances both local to them and far flung across the internet. That group shares stuff publicly and announces it via various social media. Someone like me, who follows them online, shares what they've shared. Now I'm a nobody, but I'm friends with people who aren't nobodies. Maybe CSE Cooney, who follows me and is more widely known, shares what I share--and so people get known.
If I form a writing circle, I would love you to join--in all seriousness (but also: no pressure). Unlike the crowdfunding for buying twitter, this is something I may actually do.
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re: 3, I like the idea now I've understood it a bit better! I would be delighted to join a writing circle with you--I've read just a little of your work but enjoyed it enormously. I'm actually on the lookout for such a thing, the one I participated in previously has sort of stalled and I've had trouble finding something new.
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Re the writing circle, I will pose some questions here and there to get a sense of preferred modalities, frequencies, etc., and see what I can put together! ... I am theoretically going away for some time next month, but I am serious about this, even if it takes some time
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Not to get too all-about-me, but just to use myself as an example, between various RL reasons for a long semi-accidental hiatus and just the luck of the editorial acceptance gods, all I've had is one reprint in the last 8 or so years. I've been submitting a lot and trying hard not to get discouraged, but the Clarkesworld thing is a blow, and the Grimdark Magazine announcement is a much worse one. Not because Grimdark is a venue that matches what I write terribly well -- I don't know that I'd ever have anything to submit to them personally, although I guess never say never -- but because lots of venues deciding to only go to known authors and solicited submissions means I would probably never have another story published, ever.
And, obviously, I'm one person and it doesn't, broadly speaking, matter that much to the industry if nobody publishes my stories. But I think there are a lot of writers in my shoes, and a lot of them less privileged and less connected than I.
I do at least tell myself that smaller magazines and magazines with shorter and more on-and-off submission windows, as you say, are likely getting hit less hard by this than the Clarkesworlds of the world. I hope so, anyway. But the whole thing feels awful.
I do think Idea 1 is a clever one, though! That, or variations on it, could be interesting approaches.
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The good thing about idea 1 is that it's a mechanical approach that could foil spammers with very little ill effect on writers and not much effort on the part of publishers. Maybe more thoughts along those lines will generate other, similar tactics--things that don't cost much in terms of money or effort.
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Which is what's so rough about the situation. A few bad faith actors with some time and technology on their hands, making things harder for so very many of good faith actors.
But anyway, yes, very true about idea 1! (And for all my little self-pity party moment up there, I do really appreciate that you're looking for productive ways to address the issue, whereas I've just been hoping that the people who run magazines figure it out. Not optimally helpful!) There could also be green M&Ms clauses of sorts, if you know what I mean -- something to include in your submission file to show that you read the directions, that changes venue to venue or even month to month within a venue. I do really like the idea of little tests like that that shouldn't take writers much effort beyond reading the submissions page, but would weed out the spammers who can't be bothered to do that.
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If you start one, please invite me.
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We don't know each other really (I don't think? Forgive me if I know you under a different name!), but conceptually, sure, it would be possible! Any of us can/could create--and join--as many different groups as we think we can handle.Now I do remember you! You wrote a cool story where prey animals like rabbits were in control of a situation, rather than predator animals, right? I loved that [even though as my very hazy one-line summary shows, now my memory of details is poor...]
So yeah, a more definite affirmative :-)
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BTW, Blackburn is a black ops intelligence specialist as well as a negotiator. He has quite the history....
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(I'm not a professional writer nor trying to be, but that's just how it seems to me.)
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I definitely wouldn't want writing circles to be the only way for writers to get published. Frankly, I think there is zero chance that the no. 3 scenario will ever become the one-and-only route to publication in a well-known zine. Probably there's zero chance that it even becomes **one** way. But I do think it would be good for writers to find ways to share work--for example, the way many already do on AO3--that helps them build a name for themselves, and I think this is one possible way to do that. And meanwhile, even if places like Clarkesworld do close down to submissions, there are other places that will stay open and other ways to cut down on AI spam (see
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Sure! I can see lots of benefits to writing circles as a voluntary thing. I just really don't like it as a step in deciding who is even allowed to hit the submit button -- and that's the context in which it was introduced here.
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