I was just reading about the second serious scandal concerning AI generated fiction being published by experts in the world of publishing.\u00a0 In the last scandal Hatchette bought a self-published book because the author managed to attract a very large number of readers on her own.\u00a0 After they republished the book, it was discovered that there was a lot of very obvious AI generated content in it.<\/p>\n
In the present scandal a prestigious contest that accepts fiction from amateurs living in the countries of the British Commonwealth had three of the five winners flagged by readers as being AI generated by a capable software used for this function.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a sample of the text:<\/p>\n
\u201cWilfred\u2019s rum-shop leaned into the road like a rotten tooth. Inside, boards blackened by smoke and sweat, the air sweet with cane and forgetting. Coins meant for rice or kerosene slid across the counter and came back white rum hot as apology.<\/strong> One drink opened the chest, two turned fear into courage\u2019s cheap cousin, three steadied the hand enough to write the future in invisible ink.\u201d<\/p>\n Okay, what the hell does \u201cwhite rum hot as apology\u201d mean?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u00a0 It\u2019s AI slop that it thinks sounds \u201cpoetic.\u201d<\/p>\n Now five \u201cExperts\u201d picked this gibberish and declared it worthy of a prestigious award.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, the only thing I notice that both scandals include are woke publishing \u201cexperts\u201d selecting the work of minority writers without bothering to see if it\u2019s any good or even written by human beings.<\/p>\n The most hilarious aspect of the latest scandal is that the contest judges refuse to admit that they\u2019ve been made to look like fools and the stories are still up on their site as the winners.<\/p>\n I watched a YouTube video by a young woman who considers herself a seasoned editor and although she agrees that the text is extremely unlikely not to be AI slop she does add the obligatory warning that we should remember that minority writers must not be singled out as more highly suspect just because they always seem to be the ones whose work slips through the editors who are afraid of being called racists if they look too closely at their work and find it\u2019s not very good.<\/p>\n