Story authors

Yeah, it would have to be voluntary, since there's no way of really telling whether a story has been written using AI, or to what extent.

Regarding the rules, there's no real way of policing it, so we'd be relying on the honesty of the author. Also, how much AI warrents a disclosure, any AI use at all?

I believe it's voluntary for Amazon, too, but I think the thought is that it's step one in a series of moves to better police bot-written books from getting into the marketplace. I don't know if they know what step 2 is. It might be using AI to flag AI. Just a thought.

But step 1 is to ask authors to voluntarily disclose if they use AI to generatively(?) produce written content or images. "Post-production" AI tools, like Grammerly do not need to be disclosed, but if a passage was written by ChatGPT using prompts, that would have to be disclosed. It's on the honor system right now and there are no repercussions, that I know of, for being honest about using AI.

I imagine that Amazon is thinking that, at some point, they could be pulled into many thousands of legal battles over facilitating the sale of AI generated content that scraped copyright protected IP, and they're getting ready proactively to ban it.

I know that, given the option, I would disclose that the cheap illustrations I posted on this site are AI generated. My writing is not. But I also realize not everyone would do that, and it wouldn't mean a whole lot, really.

This is amazon's AI policy:
___________________
Artificial intelligence (AI) content (text, images, or translations)
We require you to inform us of AI-generated content (text, images, or translations) when you publish a new book or make edits to and republish an existing book through KDP. AI-generated images include cover and interior images and artwork. You are not required to disclose AI-assisted content. We distinguish between AI-generated and AI-assisted content as follows:

AI-generated: We define AI-generated content as text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool. If you used an AI-based tool to create the actual content (whether text, images, or translations), it is considered "AI-generated," even if you applied substantial edits afterwards.
AI-assisted: If you created the content yourself, and used AI-based tools to edit, refine, error-check, or otherwise improve that content (whether text or images), then it is considered "AI-assisted" and not “AI-generated.” Similarly, if you used an AI-based tool to brainstorm and generate ideas, but ultimately created the text or images yourself, this is also considered "AI-assisted" and not “AI-generated.” It is not necessary to inform us of the use of such tools or processes.

You are responsible for verifying that all AI-generated and/or AI-assisted content adheres to all content guidelines, including by complying with all applicable intellectual property rights.
______________________

So I take it back, it's not really voluntary to disclose it, it's just easy to lie and (right now) maybe difficult for Amazon to tell if you lied. The creator assumes the liability that their products don't steal from existing IP when they sign the contract, which means they could be banned if it was discovered that they lied on the disclosure, and theoretically Amazon would be held harmless if there was a copyright battle.

Here's some information you might find helpful.
capitalizemytitle.com/how-writers-can-prevent-ai-from-stealing-their-content/

There's nothing you can really do to staunch the general tide of generative AI, but it would be foolish to do nothing at all. Think of it like this. If you do nothing, then people looking to make a quick buck will become content farms. They will flood the premium section with low-quality stories at a rate no human author can hope to compete with.

The human authors will feel slighted and stop posting on FF or at least post less. And seeing there's a growing number of people that despise AI-written stories, they won't feel incentivized to join the site - let alone pay for it. You'll start to see a decrease in revenue in time.

You have two ways of handling this - ban AI-written stories or require authors to indicate the story is AI-written. That way those who do not want to read anything written with AI can filter it out. Most sites that allow AI stories

It's not a perfect fix, but it's better than doing nothing.

And once again, this isn't to slight OP in any way. He is clearly not trying to be malicious.

I got a chuckle about the link to a site called Capitalize My Title on a website that doesn't let you capitalize the titles of your stories, but that's an awesome link, thank you.

The AI generated tick box sounds like the way to go for now. My take on AI in general is that, human created is better. I predict that in the near future, the Internet is going to be absolutely awash with AI generated content, and the vast majority of it will be sub-standard, mass produced, drivel. The more AI there is, the more human generaled content will seem rare and valuable, and this is what people will want. For instance, there are now quite a few AI generaled images in the pics section, they are quite clever and of some interest for a while, but of far more interest are images of real people.

Of far more interest also are images by real human artists. Again, I like to appreciate the human effort behind the art — as well as perhaps learn something about the artist.

I think you definitely should have people self-identify AI-generated art and stories. By the way, I may use AI images to adorn future stories, but I will always identify it as such.

I guess I disagree a bit. The internet is already saturated with static AI images, and I don't see that changing without legislation to protect IP. If you look at Deviantart, it's flooded with AI (here's their policy, fyi. Mandatory to disclose if any AI tools are used, and they have bots that scan metadata to independently flag suspected AI. www.deviantart.com/team/journal/New-Label-Requirement-for-AI-Artwork-966421077). Midjourney has gotten really good. Even free tools are good. A lot of people have trouble telling the difference between good photorealistic AI and the real thing. Even on this site, people get fooled. *Especially* on a site like this where a lot of people want extraordinary body proportions, there will be a demand for AI images. Hopefully the era of the tech bros and computer touchers who call themselves artists because they can generate a cool pic of a sexy astronaut (seriously, why is it always astronauts?) is over, but who knows.

For written word, AI is getting worse. There have been bot-written stories posted on this website going back a year. If you read stories regularly, you may have read some and had no idea. They are getting better and faster to make. Our friend, the OP (who seems like a very nice fellow), generated conservatively 30,000 words of content that for the most part makes sense in maybe 2 weeks. And that's from a non-native english speaker. There are bot-written stories on here that are more convincing. They fool people. By this time next year, AI fiction is going to be absolutely everywhere.

AI video, too. That's the next one we'll see over the next year. It will be interesting to see what onlyfans does. I don't know if they have an AI policy or not. But they have a ton of money behind them, and if they want AI video on their site, they could really put pressure on legislators to slow down and let AI do its thing. Or vice-versa. We know where SAG AFTRA stands.

And I guess I disagree that people will choose the human-made stuff over the AI-generated stuff. Some will! But people like consumer art (and smut) that's familiar, that is like a product they already love, with a small enough twist to make it different, but samey enough that it doesn't challenge. Look at the most popular TV shows and books and movies and music. Imagine Dragons is a huge band! Imagine Dragons! They make music for 7-year old boys! They're huge! AI-Imagine Dragons would be huge, too. I mean, some of the most popular human-written stories on here are some of the dumbest, too. But that's what people like! By and large, the lowest common denominator is pretty low. Go into any professional/semi-professional writing space and all the advice is to find a very popular, marketable entity and copy the formula with enough of a twist that it passes the sniff test, and then market yourself to fans of that original property. And repeat.

But AI checkboxes would be a good step and would keep this site in line with a lot of other content hosting sites out there. Definitely a good step.

That's a good take. I think AI is a new shiny tool, like painting must have been when it was first conceived hundreds of thousands of years ago. A new way to take what is in your mind and show it to others. And like all new technologies, there will be a big boom and then probably a big crash to a plateau of real value.

I value human created art most, but there's a fallacy there. AI creating its own content without human input is marginal, but people using AI to create content IS art, imho. Had this discussion a couple days ago with someone, and I'm just going to regurgitate it here. All art is derivative, all art is original, all art is human expression. Just because someone is using a tool that is trained on already existing art doesn't make it ANY less art. We are all trained on existing art, we are all trained on what we see, we all choose tools to ease our time creating. Anyone that does digital art, or traditional, will tell you that other than basic theory, the first step is to understand your media. You can't create your best, realize your vision, if you don't understand / can't properly use your tools. AI is just a better tool. Who knows, perhaps those hundreds of thousands of years ago, the people that were drawing in sand railed against those new paints, said they were cheating, cheap, defaced the value of sand drawings, their impermanence, their volume for interpretation, that paint would detract from human imagination and deform art itself.

Unpopular take, but the plagiarism aspect isn't even what turns me off about AI writing; it's the sanitization. Human authors plagiarize off each other all the time; it's Marvel and DC's favorite thing to do. But Human authors have their own quirks; I like to think people are like, "There goes stevita again thinking 'semidarkness' is a word, and whoopdidoo, one of her characters ate out someone'a bellybutton" whether that's a good or a bad thing. AI just doesn't know how to do the kinky dirty fun stuff, you know? And reading a million self-affirmation journeys written by a robot gets hella boring.

That said, I use AI foe my covers, but the covers aren't what you're supposed to pay attention to, and I'd commission art if I could afford it.

Don't you hand draw the models for your covers and use AI to finish them? That's more than most people do, and why they come out so unique looking, I think. It's more than I do. For the most part I'm fixing up afterwards with photoshop at best.