Genre Grapevine for February 28, 2023
This column is also available free to the public. If you like my writings on genre issues, consider backing my Patreon.
AI Chatbot Submissions Overwhelm SF/F Magazines
Earlier this month I wrote about what AI generated art and writing might mean for artists and authors. One of my predictions was that markets would be flooded with AI books and other works. But even I'm amazed at how quickly these AI works have flooded the submission systems at science fiction and fantasy magazines.
On February 15, Neil Clarke shared a graph showing an exponential jump in submission bans for Clarkesworld, with nearly 350 bans in the first half of this month alone. The graph accompanied his essay "A Concerning Trend" on how AI chatbot stories were responsible for the vast majority of these bans.
"I'm not going to detail how I know these stories are 'AI' spam or outline any of the data I have collected from these submissions. There are some very obvious patterns and I have no intention of helping those people become less likely to be caught. Furthermore, some of the patterns I've observed could be abused and paint legitimate authors with the same brush. Regional trends, for example. What I can say is that the number of spam submissions resulting in bans has hit 38% this month. While rejecting and banning these submissions has been simple, it's growing at a rate that will necessitate changes. To make matters worse, the technology is only going to get better, so detection will become more challenging. (I have no doubt that several rejected stories have already evaded detection or were cases where we simply erred on the side of caution.)"
Five days after publishing that essay, Clarkesworld closed to all submissions.
Because news stories about AI chatbots are currently a hot trend, a number of media outlets covered this including the NYTimes, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Wired, NPR, PC, and The Verge. And it's not just Clarkesworld suffering from a submission pile-on, with The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction, and others SF/F magazines experiencing the same problem.
For example, Asimov's editor Sheila Williams said in the last month she has "received more than 20 short stories all titled 'The Last Hope,' each coming from different author names and email addresses. Williams believes they were all generated using artificial intelligence tools, along with hundreds of other similar submissions that have been overwhelming small publishers in recent months."
And as F&SF editor Sheree Renée Thomas said in the NYTimes, "I knew it was coming on down the pike, just not at the rate it hit us."
It appears most of these submissions are coming from people outside of both the overall writing community and the SF/F genre, with Neil Clarke saying "It's about the possibility of making a quick buck. That's all they care about."
Of course, the problem with a flood of AI submissions is that they can easily overwhelm slush readers and editors. As Apex's Lesley Conner said, "Editors and slush readers are massively over worked and underpaid as it is. Most slush readers are volunteers. They do it because they love the publication. Now we have this extra layer of work and worry with every single submission."
And as Meg Elison pointed out in a must-read thread, "Here's a handy way to parse the ongoing argument about AI submissions to SFF magazines: The people who edit and run these magazines are the experts in spotting plagiarism, recognizing meaningful content, and putting together a product that people want to read. The people arguing that AI will fundamentally change SFF for the better, if we can just open our minds and accept the coming revolution, do not read, write, edit, or publish SFF."
Unfortunately, the story about AI submissions in Verge also tried to create a false equivalence between people submitting stories created by AI chatbots with submissions by people from "countries where the cost of living is lower and an $80 publication fee goes much farther than it does in the US."
Vajra Chandrasekera tore apart this argument in a must-read thread. Chandrasekera also pointed out that many of the "potential solutions" people are pitching to solve the AI chatbot problem, such as restricting submissions to certain geographical regions, going back to postal submissions or requiring submission fees, would hurt many authors around the world.
As Chandrasekera said, "We already have enough problems with publishers that do not welcome non-Americans."
Or as Cora Buhlert said in response to Chandrasekera's thread: "International writers are not to blame for the problem of AI-generated spam stories overwhelming genre magazines. Arseholes are to blame."
Other AI news
On February 27, I discovered 289 books on Amazon listing ChatGPT as either an author or co-author. While some focused on how to use ChatGPT, such as The Beginner's Handbook: How to Use ChatGPT, others were fiction books such as The Star Weaver's Lesson: Magical Bedtime Story and Stella Lux's Starlight Adventures: The Kindness of Monsters and The Magic of Unicorns. And the award for least original title of all these books goes to This Book Is Made by AI.
Yaroslav Barsukov asked ChatGPT what the AI thought about SF/F magazines getting spammed with its creations. "As an AI language model, I do not have emotions and cannot apologize or feel remorse for something I have not done."
Elizabeth May wrote a fun thread critiquing one of these ChatGPT works, which she describes as "finance bros using AI to write books for children."
Doris V. Sutherland also offered a must-read critique, this time of a book of AI generated horror stories.
Great thread from Hana Lee about the intrusion of AI into the arts. "lately it feels like techbros are trying to 'win' at the arts using AI, the same way AlphaGo 'won' and proved that AI can play certain games better than humans. but art isn't a competition and it doesn't have a finite ruleset you can master. so how do you 'win' using AI?"
I fear the future will feature multitudes of asshats attacking authors by saying their works were written by AI. Unfortunately, Chuck Tingle is already experiencing this reality. As Tingle said, "imagine conquering your chronic pain by expressing your autistic self through writing 400 short stories that you pour your whole soul into fighting nearly a decade to normalize your unique voice and suddenly buds think its fun to say they were written by ai and have no art value."
Cory Doctorow shared an interesting observation from Doug Rushkoff, who "says that the ethic of today's 'entrepreneur' is to #GoMeta - don't provide a product or a service, simply find a way to be a predatory squatter on a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who use those things."
If a portrait app like Lensa AI "can leverage the open source Stable Diffusion to instantly create artistic avatars that look like a professional artist's work, how does that impact those same working artists?" Worse, Lensa also can be used to create nonconsensual nudes of people that could be either realistic images or in the style of an artist the system trained on.
The U.S. Copyright Office confirmed that images in a graphic novel created using the AI Midjourney platform should not be granted copyright protection. While copyright can be granted for the author's text and the novel's overall arrangement, the office said copyright could not be granted for the AI-created images because the author "was not the 'master mind' behind the images themselves."
The Audiobook creation service Findaway Voices is a popular alternative to Audible. However, as pointed out by Victoria Strauss, there are concerns over the Findaway Digital Distribution Agreement, which grants Apple "a license to use the rights holder's audiobook files for 'machine learning', aka AI training."
As Adam Callaway said, "People are trying to use ai to bypass the 'suck' phase of art, and it just doesn't work like that. Art is hard. Art remains hard. The struggle to learn and to create art becomes part of the art, and why creating art is satisfying. You don't get any of that from ai."
Of course there’s always a guy mansplaining how SF/F magazines being flooded with AI submissions is actually the best thing to ever happen to those magazines.
Perhaps this Tom Gauld cartoon best sums up the relationship between the techies who created AIs and us poor, struggling writers.
Ekpeki Detained in LA, Returns to Nigeria
U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki on February 23 after he arrived in Los Angeles from Nigeria. Ekpeki had a valid visa and was on his way to the high-profile NAACP Image Awards ceremony where the Africa Risen anthology he co-edited was being honored.
Woody Dismukes first raised concerns over Ekpeki being detained and word spread quickly across the genre. Ekpeki was back in Nigeria on February 27, where he said he was "detained for 3 days, & missed the NAACP Image awards. Been seeing the speculations. I'll just say it's way worse than anyone is says or thinks. But I'll talk to a lawyer first, then more, soon."
Ekpeki has been harassed by the same trolls and haters who continually stalk and swat Patrick S. Tomlinson and this group used Ekpeki's detainment to step up their attacks on both authors. It's also possible these trolls are the ones who caused this trouble in the first place, with Yaroslav Barsukov pointing out a tweet by someone who claimed to have reported Ekpeki to immigration the week before.
There was also talk in the genre that immigration had detained Ekpeki because he overstayed his visa or didn't spend enough time back in Nigeria, statements that Ekpeki disagrees with.
U.S. immigration policy has long been known to be broken, with arbitrary and racist enforcement, hidden rules, and unlawful detainment being ongoing features of the system.
As Ekpeki said, "I remember when I had the Amazon issue. People kept insisting I must have done something wrong somehow. Experts. Right up till Amazon emailed to say I didn't and it was all their fault. A giant smoking admission in black & white. Little people rooting for giant exploitative institutions and blaming themselves and other victims is one of the great ironies. They want it to make sense, to have agency even at the cost of excusing the real culprit. So sad. But leave me out of it."
Chendu Worldcon Update
In January the Chengdu Worldcon announced that the event was being rescheduled to October 18-22 and would be held at a different venue with different hotels than originally planned. A 144-hour transit visa exemption for foreign travelers coming to Chengdu was also announced. And the Chengdu Worldcon later added that Hugo Award nominations would open soon, with Hugo voting expected to run from May through August.
The Worldcon's English language website is currently online and accepting credit card payments for memberships.
While these updates from Worldcon are welcome, the change in both venue and date fed into an anti-Chengdu narrative among some fans in the USA, a narrative that has existed since before fans in China won the right to host this year's Worldcon.
I'm well aware of the current tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments, and I also understand the reasons many SF/F fans have said they can't consider going to this year's Worldcon. But I also spoke with many of the SF/F fans from Chengdu who went to last year's Worldcon in Chicago. We all love science fiction and fantasy and it remains my hope that, despite the disagreements I have with many of the actions of the Chinese government, that this Worldcon can help bridge and bring together our shared international fandoms.
Hugo Award Fan Writer finalist Chris M. Barkley recently wrote an excellent essay about all of this in File770. As Barkley noted, both sides have made mistakes and both sides need to do better.
"Everyone involved is under a lot of pressure right now, both personally, socially and lately, as I mentioned earlier, geopolitically, as well. We all need to step back and reassess what has happened and what we're going to do in the weeks and months leading up to the 81st World Science Fiction Convention. If the Chengdu Worldcon fails, it is a collective and total failure for fandom all over the world. I am urging all parties involved to get together and figure this out before it's too late. Openly. Honestly. Transparently."
I agree with Barkley. We all need to do better.
Awards
Ryka Aoki and Rivers Solomon won the 2021 Otherwise Award. The award's honor list was also released.
"Hoodie" by Tonya Liburd won the Apex Magazine Reader's Choice Award.
"Rabbit Test" by Samantha Mills won the Uncanny Magazine 2022 Favorite Fiction Reader Poll.
Final ballot for the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards.
Finalists for the 2022 Ray Bradbury Prize.
Finalists for the 2022 Zsoldos Péter Award.
Finalist for the 2022 Agatha Awards.
Finalist for the Analog Analytical Laboratory.
Finalists for the Asimov's Annual Readers' Award Poll.
The first selections for the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire 2023.
Finalists for the 2023 Tähtivaeltaja Award.
Finalist for the 2023 Compton Crook Award.
The Locus 2022 Recommended Reading List.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association's Rhysling Award Long Lists.
Mishell Baker received the 2023 Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award.
Martina Fačková received the 2022 Jack Gaughan Award for Best Emerging Artist.
The 2023 Philip K. Dick Award judges have been announced. The award is for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original format in the USA during 2023.
The 2023 World Fantasy Award judges have been named. The award is for eligible works published in 2022 and the judges will accept and consider submissions through June 1, 2023.
Other News and Information
After a strike lasting three months, HarperCollins union members ratified a new labor agreement in a vote of 194-10. The contract will improve compensation and benefits, including raising the minimum salaries for employees.
Tor Publishing Group is launching Bramble, a new imprint dedicated to a "wide array of romantic stories for the modern reader" and will publish works ranging from SF/F to contemporary and family saga. Monique Patterson will be VP and editorial director.
There was a major outcry after new editions of Roald Dahl's works in the United Kingdom replaced "some of the author's original text, removing potentially offensive words." However, the changes, which were evidently approved by the Roald Dahl Story Company that manages the late author's copyrights, did not apply to editions published in the USA and Europe.
A forensic study determined poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned days after the 1973 Chile military coup.
The SFWA Safety Committee offers advice on ways authors can secure their promotional websites.
A report by Becky Tuch went viral, detailing alleged scams by literary and indie publications such as Showcase Magazine, Ephemera, C & R Press, Steel Toe Books, Fjords Review, PANK Magazine, and American Poetry Journal.
To avoid being charged with a possible felony under a new state law, teachers in Florida are removing or hiding books in their classrooms.
J.K. Rowling is in the middle of a media blitz to rehabilitate her self-destructed public image, with articles and podcasts and games popping up as if from the pimple jinx Harry Potter used to cast on bullies. Instead of linking to all this, I instead suggest people read Priya Sridhar's excellent essay "My Goodbye Letter To J.K. Rowling: What To Do When Your Magical World Has Cast You and Your Friends Out With Hate."
In yet another example of someone in the genre revealing how ugly they are inside, author and editor Thomas F. Monteleone posted a comment on Facebook about how too many people of diverse backgrounds were receiving Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Horror Writers Association. Monteleone then doubled-down on the hate in additional comments and a follow-up podcast (if you want to see these comments, Dark Dispatch shared some of them). In response his publishers dropped him and the HWA banned Monteleone from attending StokerCon and future events. The HWA also revoked his membership and as such the benefits of his own Lifetime Achievement Award. File770 has a good overview of reactions against Monteleone's statements while Usman T. Malik wrote a great thread on why all this matters. It's also worth noting these comments appear to be nothing new for Monteleone, with people pointing to a column he wrote in the summer 1994 issue of Cemetery Dance where he claimed Samuel R. Delany only had a career in SF/F because he was Black.
I received issue 296 of Interzone, which is the first total new issue under editor Gareth Jelley and MYY Press. The magazine features a beautiful print design that reminds me of a manga tankōbon paperback at 5 x 7.25 inches (127 x 184 mm) with 256 pages of fiction, essays and reviews. Here are some pictures.
Unfortunately, TTA Press, the former publisher of Interzone, has announced that the upcoming issue of horror magazine Black Static will be the last. Their website offers a sneak peak at the last issue.
A number of online genre magazines are currently on what appears to be permanent hiatus, including The Arcanist (see this column for details), Daily Science Fiction (while DSF's hiatus was announced last year, their last story by Kyle Robert Annasenz was published on January 9), and Future Science Fiction. For more on why Future Science Fiction went on hiatus, see this interview Andrew Liptak did with Alex Shvartsman.
Effective March 20, "only Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to use text messages as their two-factor authentication method." If you currently have text message two-factor set up on your Twitter account, you must disable it before then or be locked out. While other two-factor methods such as Google Authenticator can still be used, this change was heavily criticized and appears to be yet another example of Musk shooting the bird in his desperation for more revenue to keep the platform running.
Elon Musk also wasn't happy with his own engagement on Twitter, so he rigged the platform to force us to read his tweets.
In more "news," Danny Nicholson said that soon "Only Twitter Blue users to be allowed to use vowels, capital letters."
With Twitter continuing its freefall, many people looking for alternatives liked what they saw with Sproutible. However, as Courtney Milan pointed out in a viral thread, Spoutible's adult content policy bans a ton of stuff including almost anything related to sex or politics. Many people in the romance community raised concerns in public about this, pointing out that many romance discussions might violate the platform's policies. However, things went into overdrive when Spoitible CEO Christopher Bouzy responded to these comments with a statement that implied only "small number of users" were expressing concerns. As Ursula Vernon said, "Tsk, tsk. Somebody shoulda told Spoutible that if you come for Romancelandia, you best not miss. And by that I mean 'you best scour life from the surface of the planet and hope an algae under the ice caps doesn't read romance, because whoa damn.'"
According to PW, last year Barnes & Noble book sales rose over the preceding year, "led by solid fiction sales and another good year for manga." Books also accounted for a larger share of sales last year compared to 2021.
According to information from the China Science Fiction Research Center, the SF industry in China had a total revenue of 82.96 billion yuan or $12 billion, a 50.5% year-on-year increase.
After spending 25 years as an unaging kid who had to catch them all, Ash Ketchum is leaving Pokémon. Two new protagonists will be announced this year. "But first, there will be an 11-episode short series to send off Ash and Pikachu."
As Sam Asher said, "I just took a picture of my boots. This picture of my boots is better than Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey. The acting, composition, lighting, scoring, directing, and sound design in this picture of my boots are better than Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey."
The publishing industry can't truly be in trouble because we're currently on volume 8 of the Coloring Cat Farts series. I saw this coloring book in the grocery store and was curious about what the previous volumes might have covered, so Hector Gonzalez filled in the blanks: "The first one is about the acceptance of farts as a normal thing. 2 is about companionship in farts. 3 about the bonding through farting. 4 deals with the checkered past of the cat and those looking for it. 5 introduces a long lost sibling. 6 is a heist movie. 7 the farts POV."
Gaurav Munjal, the founder of the tech company Unacademy Group, said "Imagine if every Book is converted into an Animated Book and made 10x more engaging. AI will do this. Huge opportunity here to disrupt Kindle and Audible." Lincoln Michel responded with the perfect quip: "Tech bros have invented the concept of 'movies.'"
Historian Phillips P. O'Brien, who wrote a biography of Admiral William Leahy, discovered a review of his book on Amazon with the headline "Too Focused on Leahy." As O'Brien said, "I salute you, Amazon Customer."
Great cartoon by Tom Gauld regarding how various people respond to "the controversial book."
Opportunities
In a total self-promotion, I'm hosting an Apex Books Reach Your Apex online workshop on March 18 called "9 Super-Charged Writing Tips in 90 Minutes." I'll offer a number of unique tips to jumpstart your writing and take it to the next level. I rarely host workshops so check it out. In addition, Apex Books will provide at least two free seats for their writing workshops for those in financial hardship. If you want to take my workshop but can't afford the fee, email Jason Sizemore – yes, different Jason, we continually joke about how often we get mixed up by people in the genre – at jason@apexbookcompany.com.
Tasavvur, a magazine dedicated to speculative fiction by South Asian authors, is open to submissions until March 15. Details>>
Hexagon SF Magazine will open for submissions from March 1-7. Details>>
The Washington (DC) Science Fiction Association is accepting submissions for the 2023 WSFA Small Press Award until March 31. Details>>
Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror edited by Sofia Ajram seeks horror submissions. Deadline May 31. Details>>
Orion's Belt opens to submissions of speculative stories and poems under 1200 words on March 1. Details>>