If you want to use AI, then you should be open about it and target those who are ok with it. 


Or use some other obvious method. There are people who do NOT want to support AI or the people that use it. And readers who would be very angry if they felt tricked into financially supporting someone using AI. 

Telling people you created something done largely by AI could be considered fraud by some. I'm sure that will be explored in the legal arena very soon.

I'm hereby marking all my current and future work with labels like HumanMade and NotAI. 

Most people who use AI do put work into it, though. Using an AI to help you generate a plot isn't going to write the novel. And many generate images they then use as the basis for painted artwork. Where do those stand? And where do you draw the line between, say, using an AI to help you generate a plot, and using something like Save the Cat to generate a plot? 

I'm not against the tag idea but 1) you will have people lying about their AI use, and 2) you'll need some more rules to flesh this out if you want it to catch on. 

I mean we have this guy proudly saying he's planning on going to comic conventions to sell 'his art', which is all AI generated, and that he will never say it's AI because he thinks people are stupid and nobody will be able to tell. 

And another guy who published a children's book drawn by AI that he 'co-wrote' with. Which is immediately being torn to shreds. 

Also I don't actually think there's... a huge glut of artists desperately needing AI to help them, or to 'generate images they then use for painted artwork'. Most would probably use things like google images or their own minds for that, I'd think, rather than relying on AI. 

I know there's an image floating around of an artist who generated an AI picture, then painted it with oil paints, while copying all the errors the AI made.

VVerity Wrote: Also I don't actually think there's... a huge glut of artists desperately needing AI to help them, or to 'generate images they then use for painted artwork'. Most would probably use things like google images or their own minds for that, I'd think, rather than relying on AI.

Hobby artists, perhaps not. But the industry artists are often a different story. AI art cannot be copyrighted and it is not useful for production-level art, so completely replacing artists is not something the industry needs to worry about. But if an artist can use AI art in order to speed up their workflow by concepting stuff like color and composition, then the industry isn't going to care. It's an industry, and artists need to keep up with an expectation of faster work as a result of AI. Much like how, say, many concept artists already needed to know photobashing. It's a time saver. 

It's not about needing AI to be able to make art, it's about keeping up with the increased work output of other artists. Personally, I use this method mostly for studies and practice (Midjourney is great for studying composition, texture and color theory to say nothing about costume and character design), but AI is much, much more useful than google in this case because 1) Google images are almost for sure copyrighted, and 2) you can easily do stuff like re-use a specific color pallet. 

Once industry artists do it, it'll filter down to those peoples hobby art and to other hobby artists. No different from how photobashers also do photobashing for their private projects. 

Ultimately, I see no reason not to use AI in my workflow, at leats not the early stages and the moodboarding (and what is really the ethical difference between using Pinterest and Midjourney for moodboarding? The actual production/painting stage yeah sure, but moodboarding?). There are things it cannot do, but there are other things (like value and composition) that it does better than even most professional artists IMO. Other artists are going to use that, and I can't afford not to or I'll not be able to keep the same output. It's unfortunate but I think that's just where we're at right now. 

Timothy Wrote: by Author Name + AI

This seems fair. 
Tags are always nice, and it's kinda free advertising for the AI being used as well.

VVerity Wrote: And another guy who published a children's book drawn by AI that he 'co-wrote' with. Which is immediately being torn to shreds. 

Without further context, this seems incredibly insecure.

Timothy Wrote: If you want to use AI, then you should be open about it and target those who are ok with it. 

by Author Name + AI

Or use some other obvious method. There are people who do NOT want to support AI or the people that use it. And readers who would be very angry if they felt tricked into financially supporting someone using AI. 

Telling people you created something done largely by AI could be considered fraud by some. I'm sure that will be explored in the legal arena very soon.

I'm hereby marking all my current and future work with labels like HumanMade and NotAI.

I'm in the camp that if any part of a text is created by AI, it has to have a large and bright tag on it saying so. How to enforce that? I have no idea. 

AI is just another tool (at least for now). Do artists ethically need a disclaimer when they use Microsoft Word, Scrivener, any Adobe software, iMovie, or so on? There are people that don't want to support Adobe or Apple, but that doesn't mean the artist is trying to trick anyone or force the audience to support the creators of the software they used.

It's only unethical if it's purposefully deceptive or otherwise engaging in unethical behavior. It's not inherently unethical in and of itself. Context matters. Plenty of scenarios are totally fine if you don't yell it from the mountaintops. Others are firmly in the "douche" category.

Ziggy Wrote: AI is just another tool (at least for now). Do artists ethically need a disclaimer when they use Microsoft Word, Scrivener, any Adobe software, iMovie, or so on? There are people that don't want to support Adobe or Apple, but that doesn't mean the artist is trying to trick anyone or force the audience to support the creators of the software they used.

It's only unethical if it's purposefully deceptive or otherwise engaging in unethical behavior. It's not inherently unethical in and of itself. Context matters. Plenty of scenarios are totally fine if you don't yell it from the mountaintops. Others are firmly in the "douche" category.

I mean... AI can literally generate you chapters with dialogue, plot, mood and direction. I think it would be fair to tag that. 

 With how much I've abused that poor thing, it should be getting royalty checks as well.

Sadly, there's no chance in heaven I'm putting something so stupid on my fic page. If the people can't obviously spot the filthy AI hands on my fic, why should they care?

And Adobe and other programs can completely alter the image from top to bottom with barely any work from the user with the software doing all the heavy lifting. It's the same thing. We just view one as different than the other because of some arbitrary line in the sand.

And similar to AI, the same logic applies to Adobe. Context matters. There are times it's equally as unethical to not disclose that you've used Adobe to create your image. With it being totally fine in other circumstances.

Ziggy Wrote: And Adobe and other programs can completely alter the image from top to bottom with barely any work from the user with the software doing all the heavy lifting. It's the same thing. We just view one as different than the other because of some arbitrary line in the sand.

And similar to AI, the same logic applies to Adobe. Context matters. There are times it's equally as unethical to not disclose that you've used Adobe to create your image. With it being totally fine in other circumstances.

I don't think you understand what's even being discussed here. 

CrowsCrowCrow Wrote:

Timothy Wrote: by Author Name + AI

This seems fair. 
Tags are always nice, and it's kinda free advertising for the AI being used as well.

VVerity Wrote: And another guy who published a children's book drawn by AI that he 'co-wrote' with. Which is immediately being torn to shreds. 

Without further context, this seems incredibly insecure.

I can give you further context! This man wants people to pay for these books. It's a bit unfair to sell poor quality books to children because you consider them an easy source of money.  People can spend months working on children's books and this guy does it over a weekend and wants people to reward him with cash, even though the art isn't narratively coherent and the story is bland. If this man thinks himself an artist, why not critique him? (Of  course, in his own twitter thread he said he was actually just interested in combining the technologies, the 'art' part apparently wasn't a concern?  Hmmm)

Here's a direct link to his twitter post, where it becomes clear in the comments he didn't actually consider where the art was actually being sourced from, that he can't actually copyright it, and just because he's donating some for free doesn't change the fact he still has paperback as an option to profit off of even though he could have just set it as free on kindle unlimited. 

Smuts Wrote: I don't think you understand what's even being discussed here.

Just reread it to make sure. Nope, I'm good. My statements are still accurate and relevant.

How do you classify "AI"? Does the program have to have "AI" in the name? Or just the programs that write for you? Where do you stand on programs like Grammarly and Hemingwayapp or ProWritingAid?
What about calculators? I'm sure as hell not doing any math in my own head, I'm typing numbers into a computer program and then putting the numbers it gives me into the story. Does that count as using an AI?

Look, I know where you're coming from. You don't want computers to take your job.
But every single time there's an advancement in technology, people freak out about it for a couple years, then it becomes mainstream, then some new big evil thing gets created for people to freak out about.
When calculators were first invented, people haaaaated them. Said they'd be the downfall of human civilizations. Schools and various companies completely banned them. And now I'm pretty sure the number of humans without access to a calculator is about 0.
In the art community, when tablets and photoshop started becoming widely available, people gatekept the hell out of it, saying that anything drawn on a computer wasn't "real art". It must be on canvas or paper or it isn't valid as art!! Aaaaand now? I think most artists know how to use some photoshop-like program. They may prefer painting on canvas, but that's a preference. And very few people will tell you nowadays that stuff drawn on a tablet instead of paper isn't real art.

So yeah, AIs are the new big evil thing that everyone hates with a passion. Good for them. Give it a decade, and I'd put money on AI writing being mainstream. It'll take a few years for people to figure out how to use it well, but it'll happen.
And guess what? People who still enjoy writing... will still enjoy writing. Because humans are creative. We like making things. And if we want to solve writer's block by shoving the last chapter we wrote into a generator and see what it comes up with, that doesn't make us less creative. It's just using the tools we have available.

Mad Wrote: How do you classify "AI"? Does the program have to have "AI" in the name? Or just the programs that write for you? Where do you stand on programs like Grammarly and Hemingwayapp or ProWritingAid?
What about calculators? I'm sure as hell not doing any math in my own head, I'm typing numbers into a computer program and then putting the numbers it gives me into the story. Does that count as using an AI?

Look, I know where you're coming from. You don't want computers to take your job.
But every single time there's an advancement in technology, people freak out about it for a couple years, then it becomes mainstream, then some new big evil thing gets created for people to freak out about.
When calculators were first invented, people haaaaated them. Said they'd be the downfall of human civilizations. Schools and various companies completely banned them. And now I'm pretty sure the number of humans without access to a calculator is about 0.
In the art community, when tablets and photoshop started becoming widely available, people gatekept the hell out of it, saying that anything drawn on a computer wasn't "real art". It must be on canvas or paper or it isn't valid as art!! Aaaaand now? I think most artists know how to use some photoshop-like program. They may prefer painting on canvas, but that's a preference. And very few people will tell you nowadays that stuff drawn on a tablet instead of paper isn't real art.

So yeah, AIs are the new big evil thing that everyone hates with a passion. Good for them. Give it a decade, and I'd put money on AI writing being mainstream. It'll take a few years for people to figure out how to use it well, but it'll happen.
And guess what? People who still enjoy writing... will still enjoy writing. Because humans are creative. We like making things. And if we want to solve writer's block by shoving the last chapter we wrote into a generator and see what it comes up with, that doesn't make us less creative. It's just using the tools we have available.

It's hard to make a living off of artistic endeavors when everyone becomes acclimated to getting instant art from AI whenever they want. Why buy a book, or read someone's work, when you can just get an AI to do it? An AI can go on forever. It doesn't lose inspiration, or motivation. It doesn't get sick. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse. And it will not stop. Ever.

GRRM is gonna bite the bullet one day. Kurt's gone. Tolkien's in the grave. They cannot make new stories for us to enjoy. An AI doesn't have mortal limitations. You can have an AI continually update a story, every day, on the same hour, consistently, for as long as servers remain up. 

The creation of potatoshop, GIMP, clipstudio, were not revolutions of AI technology that took away the jobs of artists. They are actual tools that artists who could not afford the expenses of paint and fresh canvases for every work of art. It made art far more accessible.  People got to look at art, for free, on the internet, without paying money!  Artists (and writers) were not some sort of elite bourgeoise class hoarding all the art to themselves.

Part of what makes art amazing is that you made it. You drew those lines. You chose those colors. You wrote those words. You, in the paraphrased words of Kurt, learned a little more about yourself. You learned about becoming. Who cares if you aren't drawing on the level of Caravaggio? I drew the cover of my own book, you might not think it looks like much but I'm pleased as peas with it. I did it myself! There's a bit of me in that cover, just like there's bits of me in my writing. 

Somehow not only have people gotten the idea that artists are some sort of elite faction of whiny rich babies who deserve to be knocked down a peg, but that all art should be reduced to digestible 'content' that takes no effort and requires minimum amount of human input so we can have more, more, more, more. The people who will most profit from the AI advancements will not be artists. It will not be writers. It will not be 'the people'. It's going to be wealthy investors and corporations. 

If I use my brain? Should I add +brain? Pickle + brain?

What about my right hand? She's kinda busy right now but sometimes she helps me too. 

Just asking. Don't want to trick people into supporting a fraud using a keyboard, Antidote and electricity.

Y'all nuts.

Edit: Receiving 0.5 ratings a minute after I posted this. Like... C'mon...

I'm not going to debate, I'm just going to say:

Support and consume work made by real human beings.

An AI will not insert your own anecdotes or beliefs or soul or anything of yours into its writing. Even if you do edit it, you're simply adding to a framework and will never be influenced by you.

You are robbing yourself of your own belief and your own values and ideals influencing your work. You're removing the soul from your work. No matter what you do, your writing will never truly be your own. Your personality alters your work in the most subtle of ways.

AI is cheap. That's the easiest way to put it. AI writers are removing the personal aspect of writing and replacing it with ease and speed. They are commercializing their writing and handing it out to a computer to do it all for them.

This isn't just harmful to RoyalRoad, it's harmful to the base artform of writing. It's removing every single personal aspect of it and replacing it with an end product based on the work of others. Art is expression, but AI art expresses nothing but the most basic and generic.

VVerity Wrote: It's hard to make a living off of artistic endeavors when everyone becomes acclimated to getting instant art from AI whenever they want. Why buy a book, or read someone's work, when you can just get an AI to do it? An AI can go on forever. It doesn't lose inspiration, or motivation. It doesn't get sick. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse. And it will not stop. Ever.

This is true.
But I won't stop writing until the day I die. I write because I enjoy it. If other people enjoy it too, great! If not, I don't care! (Well, I might care a tiny bit.) If readers choose to exclusively read AI-written novels (which, I doubt will ever happen), I'll continue writing.
Then again, I'm not writing as a job. I write because if I don't, the stories would cycle through my head endlessly. I write to figure out how I'm feeling. I write to express emotion, and to make myself smile. I don't write for other people. And I certainly don't write for money.
So I don't care if AI novels become popular. It will in no way affect how, what, and why I write.

VVerity Wrote: The creation of potatoshop, GIMP, clipstudio, were not revolutions of AI technology that took away the jobs of artists. They are actual tools that artists who could not afford the expenses of paint and fresh canvases for every work of art. It made art far more accessible.

You could argue they were. I make covers by finding art on the internet similar to what I want for a cover, downloading it, uploading it to a program, tweaking colors, adding a filter or two, and slapping on words. Instead of commissioning an artist for a cover (which I've done twice out of 29 stories).
I don't call myself an artist. I suck at drawing. If GIMP and potatoshop didn't exist, I probably would have commissioned another two or three covers. I would have paid people for art, but I didn't because it's just as easy to do it myself with stuff ripped off Google.

Writing AIs, same as grammar AIs and editing AIs, are just a tool. A tool to help people who are really, really bad at writing do a creative writing thing. I haven't used a writer AI, but if I ever hit a creative block I might fool around with it to see what inspires me. Like how some artists use AI to fill in backgrounds. It's not that big of a deal.

People have strong opinions now, but give it a year and AIs will have found their place. Humanity just needs to get used to this new thing that exists.

Since folk love hypotheticals, how about this?

Hypothetically if someone made an account and published 10 AI made stories simultaneously, using a bot to publish a new chapter every hour every day, would that be okay? What if there's two or three or four people doing the same thing? It's already hard enough to be noticed on Most Recently Updated, but now you'd be competing with machines that can keep up that pace without stop. Writers can be quickly drowned out. 

BB Wrote: It's actually very simple.

Mass manufacturing an AI are very good for creating tightly machined parts and mass raw goods.
Raw finished goods need to be created by skilled human craftsmen.

How long does a tee-shirt you wear once a week last? 2 years if you wash it regularly?
I made a Hawaiian shirt for my husband that he still wears, and washes, every week in the summertime. It is still almost as good as when I first sewed it... in 1994.

My grandfather, who was a skilled carpenter, made my mother a coffee table out of scrap lumber before I was born. She gave it to me, and now, 55 years later, it's needed a refinishing, but it's still tough and held up to all abuse. My computer desk, which I bought for 300 bucks at a big box store 5 years ago, is falling apart.

Machine manufacturing has it's niche, but in the end, no ai-written story is going to even resemble quality. SURE it could probably write  a better story than the crap coming out of Disney nowadays, but a book written like a big-budget SFX disney movie will flop, and flop hard.

The problem is self-correcting.

Your tee-shirt example isn't great because people are still required to make shirts. A lot of the process is automated but there's still enough labor done by human hands that sweatshops continue to be a huge issue. People continue to choose the shirt from Forever 21 over personally asking you to make them a Hawaiian shirt. Bespoke clothing is extremely expensive. Why do you think so many people get premade stuff? Even my friend's wedding dress came from a template and was only adjusted for size (and  even then, she would have gone for the cheaper one that did fit her without any stitching if it wasn't for her mom putting in the extra $250)

I've already pointed out that quality will not save us. If it did, then we wouldn't have things like reality television, the MCU, or formulaic romcoms. 

VVerity Wrote: Since folk love hypotheticals, how about this?

Hypothetically if someone made an account and published 10 AI made stories simultaneously, using a bot to publish a new chapter every hour every day, would that be okay? What if there's two or three or four people doing the same thing? It's already hard enough to be noticed on Most Recently Updated, but now you'd be competing with machines that can keep up that pace without stop. Writers can be quickly drowned out. 

BB Wrote: It's actually very simple.

Mass manufacturing an AI are very good for creating tightly machined parts and mass raw goods.
Raw finished goods need to be created by skilled human craftsmen.

How long does a tee-shirt you wear once a week last? 2 years if you wash it regularly?
I made a Hawaiian shirt for my husband that he still wears, and washes, every week in the summertime. It is still almost as good as when I first sewed it... in 1994.

My grandfather, who was a skilled carpenter, made my mother a coffee table out of scrap lumber before I was born. She gave it to me, and now, 55 years later, it's needed a refinishing, but it's still tough and held up to all abuse. My computer desk, which I bought for 300 bucks at a big box store 5 years ago, is falling apart.

Machine manufacturing has it's niche, but in the end, no ai-written story is going to even resemble quality. SURE it could probably write  a better story than the crap coming out of Disney nowadays, but a book written like a big-budget SFX disney movie will flop, and flop hard.

The problem is self-correcting.

Your tee-shirt example isn't great because people are still required to make shirts. A lot of the process is automated but there's still enough labor done by human hands that sweatshops continue to be a huge issue. People continue to choose the shirt from Forever 21 over personally asking you to make them a Hawaiian shirt. Bespoke clothing is extremely expensive. Why do you think so many people get premade stuff? Even my friend's wedding dress came from a template and was only adjusted for size (and  even then, she would have gone for the cheaper one that did fit her without any stitching if it wasn't for her mom putting in the extra $250)

I've already pointed out that quality will not save us. If it did, then we wouldn't have things like reality television, the MCU, or formulaic romcoms.

You get it.