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AI Chatbots writing sci-fi

Laura Cynthia Chambers

Laura Cynthia Chambers

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/technology/clarkesworld-submissions-ai-sci-fi.html

Science Fiction Magazines Battle a Flood of Chatbot-Generated Stories
While the deluge has become a nuisance, the stories are easy to spot. The writing is “bad in spectacular ways,” one editor said.


By Michael Levenson

Feb. 23, 2023, 9:16 a.m. ET
It could be a tale from science fiction itself: a machine that uses artificial intelligence to try to supplant authors working in the genre, turning out story after story without ever hitting writer’s block. And now, it seems, it’s happening in real life.

The editors of three science fiction magazines — Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Asimov’s Science Fiction — said this week that they had been flooded by submissions of works of fiction generated by A.I. chatbots.
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Thankfully, human writers are still superior.
 
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I've been skeptical about chat-generated literature being used as stories - it's really the spam problem.

Can authors use an app like ChatGPT to refine parts of their work? Maybe?

I've used it to generate boilerplate "policy documents" for work. It has its strengths. But its far from replacing a human mind.
 
The time may come when old Trek novels, video games and comics can be rewritten by AI to match up with current continuity again.
 
Laura Cynthia Chambers said:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/technology/clarkesworld-submissions-ai-sci-fi.html



Thankfully, human writers are still superior.
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A couple things:
  • You quoted an entire article, which is not allowed--the guideline is to only quote a relevant paragraph or two, and then include a link to the full article (which you did that part). I have edited the quoted section down accordingly.
  • Just reading the OP, I didn't see where this had anything specifically to do with TrekLit, so I was going to move it. However, it seems other posters have brought it back to TrekLit relevancy, so I guess I'll leave it here. In the future, though, something about SF&F literature in general should probably go in the SF&F forum.

Markonian said:
The time may come when old Trek novels, video games and comics can be rewritten by AI to match up with current continuity again.
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I'm really sorry, but that sounds like an awful idea. The novels were products of their time; let's leave them as such.

Additionally... if an author wants to revisit their own work later, then that's one thing, but I don't think it's a great idea to have AI changing someone's story without their buy-in/consent.

Allyn Gibson said:
We need more adventures of Enterprise Captain Marcus Sumner. :lol:
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Turtletrekker said:
Indeed. I was deeply sad that the narrative cut off when it did. However will Captain Summer get out of this one? No living mind can tell us.
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Sorry, not really sure what you are referring to here? :confused:
 
Avro Arrow said:
Additionally... if an author wants to revisit their own work later, then that's one thing, but I don't think it's a great idea to have AI changing someone's story without their buy-in/consent.
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It's not just a bad idea, it's vandalism. Hey, let's have an AI "fix" the proportions of the people Picasso painted! Then it can fill in the gaps between the dots in Georges Seurat's work!
 
Laura Cynthia Chambers said:
BTW, elsewhere I've quoted a whole article, too, but right now I don't recall where. If you know, go thou and do likewise to that post?
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Sorry, I don't know where that would be? And I do generally try to keep up with my own forums, so I probably would have noticed it in one of mine. So I would think it might be in a forum I don't moderate, which means I would have no ability to edit anything, sorry.
 
Just put every Star Trek novel ever into the AI and have it spit out variants for the rest of eternity.

One day they'll actually be able to do that, but not for awhile, thank goodness.
 
Christopher said:
It's not just a bad idea, it's vandalism. Hey, let's have an AI "fix" the proportions of the people Picasso painted! Then it can fill in the gaps between the dots in Georges Seurat's work!
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The original work would remain in museums/on shelves. Wouldn't the AI product be akin to a reboot or remaster?
 
Markonian said:
The original work would remain in museums/on shelves.
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Not the point. The fact that Shakespeare's plays or Roald Dahl's books survive in their original form does not mean that bowdlerizing and censoring them is a good thing. The fact that movies and shows survive in black and white does not make colorizing them any less crass or pandering. Valuing conformity to expectations or standards over the original substance and identity of the work is misguided and inimical to art.


Wouldn't the AI product be akin to a reboot or remaster?
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As stated, not if it was done without the consent of whoever owns the work. Also, it's insulting to the human creators who put their care and artistry into reboots and remasters to imply that what a mindless algorithm spews out is in any way equivalent to what they do.
 
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