The topic of artificial intelligence is currently more relevant than ever. While some are raving about the exciting possibilities, people in creative professions are worried about their jobs. Clarkesworld, an important magazine for many authors, is now taking consequences from a flood of story submissions that were created using AI.
Note: The cover image is a symbolic image.
What kind of magazine is this? Clarkesworld is a magazine for science fiction and fantasy short stories and novellas that has been published monthly since October 2006. Both the magazine itself and individual authors who have been published in it have been nominated for numerous awards.
The editor-in-chief, Neil Clarke, received the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Editor in 2022.
Hopeful authors can submit their works to Clarkesworld. The lucky ones whose stories are published receive a payout of about 11 cents per word, which is a pretty good rate in the field.
However, the magazine has now imposed a submission stop – the reason for this is submissions created using artificial intelligence.
If used correctly, artificial intelligence also offers numerous exciting possibilities. It could help us dive deeper into games than ever before.
Magazine reports increase in spam submissions
What submissions are we talking about? On February 15, Neil Clarke published a post about a disturbing trend he had noticed. The problem will not simply disappear, he wrote.
Clarke has observed an increase in spam submissions to Clarkesworld since the beginning of the pandemic. Until recently, these mainly involved plagiarisms where the name of an author was replaced with one’s own, and the text was ultimately altered using a program.
However, these cases have been relatively easy to recognize and occurred so infrequently that they were more of a minor annoyance, according to the editor.
Sometimes the number of plagiarisms increased for a month or two, but overall the growth was very slow, and the number of cases remained small. Anyone caught plagiarizing was banned from future submissions. Some even had the audacity to complain: ‘But I really need the money.’
Neil Clarke via neil-clarke.com
What has changed? Towards the end of 2022, there was another surge in plagiarisms, shortly thereafter, public interest in AI-driven chatbots arose. This suddenly gave many people the opportunity to try their hand as supposed authors.
The situation quickly spiraled out of control: by February 15, he had banned more than twice as many submitters as in all of January. The rate of submissions leading to a ban at that time was already 38% for the current month.
In addition, Clarke shared graphics on Twitter that illustrate the drastic increase in dishonest submissions. The editor did not want to reveal how exactly he recognizes these submissions to avoid contributing to improving the programs. However, there are ‘obvious patterns’ (via neil-clarke.com).
Updated version of the graph. pic.twitter.com/dDeWDhHZiM
— clarkesworld (@clarkesworld) February 21, 2023
So-called financial experts promise easy money
Where does the sudden increase come from? As Clarke explained in a later post, the AI submissions do not come from people in the SFF community. Instead, they are driven by so-called financial gurus who promote AI texts as a way to earn money quickly and easily.
These people deserve the criticism directed at the developers of AI software, the editor-in-chief said (via Twitter).
No more ‘business as usual’
What is the current development? On February 20, the editorial team finally took consequences from the flood of spam. It was announced via Twitter that submissions are currently closed, and the reason is probably not hard to guess.
In a thread, Clarke elaborates on the problem: While they have some ideas to minimize the issue, there is currently no solution. Programs for detecting AI texts are too unreliable, and those for confirming identities are too expensive.
Clarkesworld does not want to go the route of a fee for submitting stories: that would sacrifice too many honest authors. They also do not want to limit themselves to authors who have already been published in the magazine, as this would constitute a ban for all new authors (via Twitter).
This aligns with the development that Clarke had already foreseen in his post from February 15. There, he had written that he feared the problem would lead to additional barriers for new and international authors.
However, it is clear that there can be no “business as usual” anymore, this is simply no longer sustainable.
Closure not forever
What happens next? On Twitter, some authors react dismayed to the news. Clarkesworld would respond to submissions the fastest and most efficiently, and is also the best-paying publication – the current situation is a crisis (via Twitter).
Also, aspiring authors who had hoped for a publication in the magazine are disappointed. However, Clarke assures that the magazine will not be discontinued; submitting stories will be enabled again. However, they do not want to commit to a specific date yet (via Twitter).
The situation surrounding Clarkesworld shows how sustainably artificial intelligence has already changed work in creative fields. Alongside texts, impressive images can also be created with the right tools:
Oops, Destiny 2 awards best fan art – But it’s not by a fan, but by the AI
