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Sci-fi mag pauses submissions amid flood of AI-generated short stories

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Re: Sci-fi mag pauses submissions amid flood of AI-generated short stories

#111

Post by pmontra »

em-bee wrote: post #72
JohnFen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wise man once clued me in about getting published in print. He said that publishers have a problem -- they own a very expensive printing press that costs a fortune whether it's printing something or not. So they're always desperate for material to feed the beast with. The reason it seems like it's difficult to get published is that they also have another problem -- they are inundated with crap submissions. "Crap" d…

Once I really internalized that, I found it was pretty easy to get published. yes, but then you only write what publishers want and not what your creativity drives you to write. i am not sure that letting publishers be gatekeepers is a good thing. this is a hard problem though. and i don't know what is the right answer.

> this is a hard problem though. and i don't know what is the right answer.

The hard problem is always the same, how to be happy making what we like. Sometimes the solution involves making a reasonable amount of money.

> then you only write what publishers want

Most software developers write only what their customers / bosses want and not what they would like to write. That allows them to pay their bills and live their lives. Local optima, often easy to reach.

Re: Sci-fi mag pauses submissions amid flood of AI-generated short stories

#112

Post by slowmovintarget »

floren wrote: post #28
unsupp0rted wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the value in writing mainly consist of? Edit: currently this question is at -3, as though it’s obvious to everyone the difference between valuable writing and not valuable writing. To me it’s a worthwhile question, particularly because the more precisely we answer it the more precisely ChatGPT will become able to produce valuable writing a couple releases from now.

It's the way the story is told. If it was all about the idea, you'd just read the Wikipedia plot synopsis, say "ah what a great story that was, so glad I read it" and move on.

Jim Butcher had this argument with a bunch of fellow writers on a writing forum. The argument went back and forth. His side was that it was the execution that mattered. He said that a good writer could tell a successful story based on a terrible premise. It wasn't the idea that mattered, it was how the writer pulled it off.

The argument raged across the forum; idea - execution - idea - execution... until Jim threw down the gauntlet. "Fine. Give me your worst idea. No, give me your two worst ideas for a story, and I'll write one and show you." The forums churned for a bit and the other side came up with what they agreed were the two most hackneyed, clichéd ideas they could think of.

Pokémon, and the Lost Roman Legion.

Jim took those and wrote the Codex Alera series. Point, and New York Times Bestseller list spot: Butcher.

Re: Sci-fi mag pauses submissions amid flood of AI-generated short stories

#113

Post by floren »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #112
floren wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the way the story is told. If it was all about the idea, you'd just read the Wikipedia plot synopsis, say "ah what a great story that was, so glad I read it" and move on.

Jim Butcher had this argument with a bunch of fellow writers on a writing forum. The argument went back and forth. His side was that it was the execution that mattered. He said that a good writer could tell a successful story based on a terrible premise. It wasn't the idea that mattered, it was how the writer pulled it off. The argument raged across the forum; idea - execution - idea - execution... until Jim threw do…

Didn't he already do that same sort of thing with his Dresden Files series? I feel like Jim Butcher only writes books on a bet, based on terrible ideas.

Re: Sci-fi mag pauses submissions amid flood of AI-generated short stories

#114

Post by orblivion »

malauxyeux wrote: post #91
orblivion wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand - my dad is an industrial designer. He was initially irritated by how easy it was for lower grade designers to enter the field given the advent of new tools (even before computers). But he eventually embraced it and understood that the nature of his job changed to something more comprehensive. He just advised me to prepare for the same as a software developer in the age of ChatGPT. Perhaps he would…

> understood that the nature of his job changed to something more comprehensive. He just advised me to prepare for the same as a software developer What's that mean to you concretely?

I don't know yet. I honestly don't want to think about it. (despite my dad's advice)

I guess what my dad would say is to find a way to sell some sort of package of yourself offering a service that includes development. The sort of thing where you might otherwise outsource programming, but now you can just have the computer do it. That's not concrete, but that's as far as I've considered it.

Re: Sci-fi mag pauses submissions amid flood of AI-generated short stories

#115

Post by slowmovintarget »

floren wrote: post #113
slowmovintarget wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jim Butcher had this argument with a bunch of fellow writers on a writing forum. The argument went back and forth. His side was that it was the execution that mattered. He said that a good writer could tell a successful story based on a terrible premise. It wasn't the idea that mattered, it was how the writer pulled it off. The argument raged across the forum; idea - execution - idea - execution... until Jim threw do…

Didn't he already do that same sort of thing with his Dresden Files series? I feel like Jim Butcher only writes books on a bet, based on terrible ideas.

He wrote Dresden Files in a way that his teacher suggested (not with the ideas) to show her how bad her way of writing was. He was wrong.

That's where he learned it was about execution.

The only idea he included, just to kind of rub things in was a "Talking Head" in Bob the Skull. He made a literal talking head that would explain things to Harry, which was a fiction writing "don't" that he purposely violated... to great effect.

She counseled him to take the things he loved--fantasy, and Robert Parker detective novels--and combine them. He had been dead set on making sword-and-sandal high fantasy. He followed her instructions on that, too, and we got Harry Dresden.

Re: Sci-fi mag pauses submissions amid flood of AI-generated short stories

#116

Post by fl0ps »

pixl97 wrote: post #99
fl0ps wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be using hh-rlhf-capable LLM to digest the lot and pick the best. But then what's the use of an editor or publisher anyway if you can do that and publish online.

Heh, I feel I should write a science fiction story about a world where one AI company own rights to all language model AI's so there was no competition in the market. The writers guild in order to cut down on AI spam used the same AI companies 'anti' bot software to filter out non humans. Unfortunately they didn't realize that the AI had already became sentient at that point and used the anti-bot software to further…

You shouldn't write it. You should promot ChatGPT to write it for extra meta.

Re: Sci-fi mag pauses submissions amid flood of AI-generated short stories

#117

Post by malauxyeux »

orblivion wrote: post #114
malauxyeux wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> understood that the nature of his job changed to something more comprehensive. He just advised me to prepare for the same as a software developer What's that mean to you concretely?

I don't know yet. I honestly don't want to think about it. (despite my dad's advice) I guess what my dad would say is to find a way to sell some sort of package of yourself offering a service that includes development. The sort of thing where you might otherwise outsource programming, but now you can just have the computer do it. That's not concrete, but that's as far as I've considered it.

Thanks for the reply anyway. I don't want to think about it either and was hoping you had an easy answer.
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