Suggestion: A button next to the Like that lets readers express if they think the chapter is AI written

[The Vale]

I've been seeing a lot of stories lately that match patterns of style, sentence structure and odd grammar that makes me think there's people being less than honest about how much of their writing they are actually writing vs letting the computer do it for them. And honestly a lot of those style quirks are annoying as hell. But I'm left wondering, is it just me? Posting about it in the thread would seem off topic, but having a number next to the number of likes would be able to let you say at a glance if the readers think it is generated.

Part of it is just my curiosity about getting an idea of what other people think, part of it is me wanting the option to try and avoid those really annoying, recurring elements that I think come from LLM generation. The data isn't there either way. But if we tracked "AI Gen" numbers like we track "Likes," at least on Creative Writing subforums, that could be helpful, and interesting to know.

 

[BronzePlaceWriter]

That would quickly be weaponized in order to hurt stories or authors that people didn't particularly like, and while I am no fan of Ai-written stories, I am also not a fan of handing people tools to witch hunt bad writers, new writers, or people not writing in their native tongue just because they can give an odd vibe.

One of the ways we end up with even more Ai written slop vs human written stories is to go so far in hunting AI that we accidentally make things inhospitable for humans too.

 

[LurkingInTheDeceit]

Oh, forgot to reply to this. No, that isn't happening. Sorry.

 

[joesmith1999]

handing people tools to witch hunt bad writers

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Do we have enough members for witch hunting to be a considerable problem? Like, here on QQ? Assuming the number is only inflated a little bit (by members who aren't posting anymore), let's say 20k members, that only leaves us with ~120k. Is that enough for witch hunting to even occur?

Posting about it in the thread would seem off topic

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As far as I see it, asking if something is written with or by AI shouldn't be off-topic or rude, unless its been brought up in the thread a lot already. If you politely ask an author if they used AI and they get defensive and pissy, that's a pretty big hint that they most likely did. Keyword, of course, being POLITELY.

But I don't really think it's necessary anyways. Look at it this way: if you start seeing the patterns you don't like, would you want to keep reading if they genuinely weren't AI? Personally, as soon as I get even 20% convinced it's AI garbage, I bounce straight away. That shit is NOT worth my time.

 

[BronzePlaceWriter]

Do we have enough members for witch hunting to be a considerable problem? Like, here on QQ? Assuming the number is only inflated a little bit (by members who aren't posting anymore), let's say 20k members, that only leaves us with ~120k. Is that enough for witch hunting to even occur?

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...yes?

Is 120K people enough for witch hunting? It happens in groups of hundreds. It happens in groups of tens.

 

[LurkingInTheDeceit]

Posting about it in the thread would seem off topic,

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If you politely ask an author if they used AI and they get defensive and pissy, that's a pretty big hint that they most likely did. Keyword, of course, being POLITELY.

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I find all variations of 'if they're angry about being accused of [bad thing], they probably did it' deeply suspect. If you put a lot of care and effort into something, and someone responds to that with 'did a machine write this for you', or the more confident 'a machine wrote this for you', it's not unreasonable to be a bit offended and defensive.

You're allowed to be a little rude if you pair it with constructive criticism, though. By all means, if you notice some flaws or distasteful quirks in the writing, feel free to mention them in-thread, and you can even guess at it being caused by AI. Without the substantive criticism, though, calling something AI is just saying 'this is shit' and 'you didn't write this', and we'd prefer you didn't.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I find all variations of 'if they're angry about being accused of [bad thing], they probably did it' deeply suspect. If you put a lot of care and effort into something, and someone responds to that with 'did a machine write this for you', or the more confident 'a machine wrote this for you', it's not unreasonable to be a bit offended and defensive.

You're allowed to be a little rude if you pair it with constructive criticism, though. By all means, if you notice some flaws or distasteful quirks in the writing, feel free to mention them in-thread, and you can even guess at it being caused by AI. Without the substantive criticism, though, calling something AI is just saying 'this is shit' and 'you didn't write this', and we'd prefer you didn't.

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It doesn't help that "AI detectors" are total bullshit with no conclusive evidence to back them up. They're just pattern checkers that look for commonly used AI elements at the best of times, and LLMs are TRAINED on people's stories, so the shit they copy is patterns they learned from real people. Your average coin flip has a better chance of detecting AI than most of the detection tools people use, if they even bother.

Like if I hear one more person call something AI because someone used an em-dash I'm gonna scream. Speaking as a member of a thriving author community who have been espousing the use of em-dashes as a super punctuation for like ten years, it's just such a stupid thing to base an assumption on. To clarify, I HATE em-dashes, they try to do too much and they annoy me, but they're ABSOLUTELY a thing that many professional authors love to use, which is where the AI picked up the habit to begin with lol.

 

[The Vale]

It doesn't help that "AI detectors" are total bullshit with no conclusive evidence to back them up. They're just pattern checkers that look for commonly used AI elements at the best of times, and LLMs are TRAINED on people's stories, so the shit they copy is patterns they learned from real people. Your average coin flip has a better chance of detecting AI than most of the detection tools people use, if they even bother.

Like if I hear one more person call something AI because someone used an em-dash I'm gonna scream. Speaking as a member of a thriving author community who have been espousing the use of em-dashes as a super punctuation for like ten years, it's just such a stupid thing to base an assumption on. To clarify, I HATE em-dashes, they try to do too much and they annoy me, but they're ABSOLUTELY a thing that many professional authors love to use, which is where the AI picked up the habit to begin with lol.

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I think that more than anything illustrates why this was a bad suggestion on my part. I failed to account for people in general hyper-focusing on singular details/instances and immediately jumping to a conclusion based on that alone, And biases, obviously. No one gets good information from that kind of response.

Em-dashes are really a contentious thing? I mean, I've only really heard about em-dashes as a thing over the last few months. Never really remember noting seeing them in usage - personally I just use the good old single length dash for this kind of thing, or hyphenated words of course, and no use for a dash otherwise - and they look distinctly overlong and stand out in the examples I just looked up. Strange that I never noticed them if they are so commonplace. Or maybe not, hidden in plain sight and just part of the scenery and all.

 

[Iridesce]

Em-dashes are really a contentious thing? I mean, I've only really heard about em-dashes as a thing over the last few months.

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One of the writing forums I'm on has an entire article from like 10 years ago about the usefulness of em dashes.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I think that more than anything illustrates why this was a bad suggestion on my part. I failed to account for people in general hyper-focusing on singular details/instances and immediately jumping to a conclusion based on that alone, And biases, obviously. No one gets good information from that kind of response.

Em-dashes are really a contentious thing? I mean, I've only really heard about em-dashes as a thing over the last few months. Never really remember noting seeing them in usage - personally I just use the good old single length dash for this kind of thing, or hyphenated words of course, and no use for a dash otherwise - and they look distinctly overlong and stand out in the examples I just looked up. Strange that I never noticed them if they are so commonplace. Or maybe not, hidden in plain sight and just part of the scenery and all.

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Varies based on what genre you read too. Progression Fantasy is full of die hard em-dash supporters, and is coincidentally one of the most hard hit by LLMs. A LOT of PF novels got pirated and used to train AI.

 

[Blarghblah]

I've been seeing a lot of stories lately that match patterns of style, sentence structure and odd grammar that makes me think there's people being less than honest about how much of their writing they are actually writing vs letting the computer do it for them. And honestly a lot of those style quirks are annoying as hell. But I'm left wondering, is it just me? Posting about it in the thread would seem off topic, but having a number next to the number of likes would be able to let you say at a glance if the readers think it is generated.

Part of it is just my curiosity about getting an idea of what other people think, part of it is me wanting the option to try and avoid those really annoying, recurring elements that I think come from LLM generation. The data isn't there either way. But if we tracked "AI Gen" numbers like we track "Likes," at least on Creative Writing subforums, that could be helpful, and interesting to know.

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Is there anything like rules wise against silent ai gen use? If so then just use the report abuse button and put "Suspected Non-Disclaimed AI Generation Use". Or are you just trying to gather data on how much of the forums is Ai generated?

 

[Iridesce]

Aren't people pretty bad at detecting ai use vs poorly written if it's even slightly edited anyway? Like people see a single em dash and assume it must be ai.

 

[BronzePlaceWriter]

Aren't people pretty bad at detecting ai use vs poorly written if it's even slightly edited anyway? Like people see a single em dash and assume it must be ai.

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Yep.

Most people who tell you they can spot AI at a glance can't. The biggest sign you can have that someone isn't as good at spotting it as they think is when they tell you that they are absolutely, completely sure.

Not that you can't spot it - I do it sometimes when I am reading. But if someone thinks they can absolutely, always, one hundred percent of the time tell? It usually means that they're just assuming anyone doing something they don't like is Ai writing and drowning in a sea of false positives and confirmation bias.

 

[Spudr]

Em-dashes are really a contentious thing? I mean, I've only really heard about em-dashes as a thing over the last few months. Never really remember noting seeing them in usage - personally I just use the good old single length dash for this kind of thing, or hyphenated words of course, and no use for a dash otherwise - and they look distinctly overlong and stand out in the examples I just looked up. Strange that I never noticed them if they are so commonplace. Or maybe not, hidden in plain sight and just part of the scenery and all.

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They're used in professional writing all the time and thus AI uses them as well, but since they're not easily accessible on a keyboard most hobbyist writers don't bother. So a lot of people in places like QQ and SB are treating them as an indicator of AI usage.

 

[AztecCroc]

They're used in professional writing all the time and thus AI uses them as well, but since they're not easily accessible on a keyboard most hobbyist writers don't bother. So a lot of people in places like QQ and SB are treating them as an indicator of AI usage.

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As opposed to the correct instance of them just being a sign that the person just happens to use Google Dics for their writing. Just put three regular dashes in a row and Docs will combine them into an em-dash.

 

[NumberSix]

I am pretty sure that at one point writers that used quills derided writers who started using pens and pencils.
And those that started using typewriters got derided by the pen and pencil crowd.
Rince and repalst through computerized word processors, auto correct and stuff like grammarly all the way to to today and the rise of the AI slop and the anti-AI hatered.

I don't think there is a point to adding this button.
If it feels like it is AI and you hate AI that much you can just stop following the story.
TBH there are a few writers whose wirting got better with some AI, but they still do some glaringly obvious mistakes that are possible flags for AI usage.

Ultimately it should be up to the writer to decide what tools to use and how may of those tools to disclose.
If I learned a fever fic was written with AI assistance I certainly wouldn't care that much.

And as someone who generated lots of AI pr0n images I have to day that it makes me more observant over some details like hands that I didn't care that much about before.

If it is good, rdollow or, ead/fap to it, if it isn't don't.

 

[tacobowl8]

Is there anything like rules wise against silent ai gen use? If so then just use the report abuse button and put "Suspected Non-Disclaimed AI Generation Use". Or are you just trying to gather data on how much of the forums is Ai generated?

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Speaking as staff, it is not currently against the rules around silent AI-usage. People are free to inform whether they use it or not, but the staff will not be enforcing it one way or another.