AI generated stories

I just wanted to address this because it's something we're seeing more and more of, and given the state of the world, I suspect it's only going in one direction.

coughs skynet coughs

This is a writing site, but more than that, it's a community of writers and readers who encourage, feed back to, assist and champion other amateur writers who take time and effort to learn the rules of grammar, hone their craft, edit and edit and edit and then put out something for others to hopefully enjoy.

Plugging something into an AI generator and presenting a story about five seconds later, in my opinion, is just as bad as plagiarism, which is already the top cardinal sin on a writing site.

Thing is though, unlike checking for plagiarism, we're never going to be able to tell your story is AI generated unless you mention it. And I've no doubt that some people just won't care in the slightest that it's not their own work. We can't police it, unfortunately.

So all I can ask is that you please don't. Don't cheat, don't take the easy way, don't pass skynet's generic wank fodder off as your own. Have a go yourself.

Thank you.

Ps. If we do find out your story is AI generated, your story will be returned and you may face an account ban

I thought a lot of them filtered to avoid producing adult content.

But, yeah, using an AI kind of misses the point of a site like this. This is for exercising YOUR creativity, not OpenAI's or whoever.

Question, though. Are you good with using AI art for covers? I have started doing it more and more since I can get something close to what I want without prowling through pages of search results. My last two stories on SS both have AI covers, for instance. I still mostly have photos under CC licenses on here or even from the image bank included in the new cover editor. But I do have at least one AI-generated cover on Lush that I can think of.

Quote by Seeker4
Are you good with using AI art for covers?

I hope so or the cover for The Moment It Ends would need to be removed. The lass I used as part of the cover compositon was AI generated.

I don't have an issue with people using AI generated photos to accompany a story. Although, if lushamateurphotography.com ever becomes a thing, then it'll be a different story, lol.

I would expect that AI generated covers would be fine - pretty certain most stock image websites like shutterstock are using AI art nowadays. I think a problem would arise if those generated images are then used on a monetised story placed on Amazon etc if the original artist came forward. However, its worth bearing in mind that stories with someone's likeness on the cover, potentially taken from a photograph, could be problematic. A stance on that in the cover image rules might be useful. I've seen images my friend has generated of himself and I worry it could be done nerfariously, but I hope commonsense prevails and no one would dare risk the potential of being sued 😑

I would expect AI imagery would be less of a copyright minefield than using stock imagery, whose origins are questionable. At least the AI image doesn't exist anywhere else - in theory - although from what I've seen so far, the images that are used to train the engines are from copyrighted sources, I.e. scraping existing images from search engines.

I generated one and it even had a smudged graphic in the corner where the name of the porn company who published the original image would have been. So either the engine nicked the image and messed with it, or it has "learned" (and I use that phrase lightly) that most images have to have some form of emblem in the corner based on all the pics it has been fed.

Quote by Jen
if lushamateurphotography.com ever becomes a thing

So is there a signup sheet?

Quote by Jen

I don't have an issue with people using AI generated photos to accompany a story. Although, if lushamateurphotography.com ever becomes a thing, then it'll be a different story, lol.

I do, and let me tell you why. These ‘AI’ programs are not true artificial intelligence that thinks for itself. It is a computer that is fed the work of real life artists and creators and relies on that to generate anything else.

So what’s happening is if I were a successful enough artist you could tell the program to generate a picture in the style of Rowan Thorn. My art is being ripped off and I would be losing out on commissions and my work is devalued. The creators who’s work is fed into the machines are never contacted or asked permission. It is theft from one company for their own personal profits.

Quote by RowanThorn

I do, and let me tell you why. These ‘AI’ programs are not true artificial intelligence that thinks for itself. It is a computer that is fed the work of real life artists and creators and relies on that to generate anything else.

So what’s happening is if I were a successful enough artist you could tell the program to generate a picture in the style of Rowan Thorn. My art is being ripped off and I would be losing out on commissions and my work is devalued. The creators who’s work is fed into the machines are never contacted or asked permission. It is theft from one company for their own personal profits.

My point was that this is a story site, not a photography site. I'm quite sure most of the cover pics used here are copyrighted, but most folk still use them. They're not the focus, the story is.

I created a micro with chatgpt - acknowledged in the cover art - secrets - and it was a bit crap and took several prompts to get it to write something I thought was half way acceptable. I find anything it produces is dull and lifeless and lacks.. for want of a better word.. soul.

I've no doubt people are churning them out with AI and asking for likes and coins and making money from them.. and that seems to be what the membership of Lush wants... the competition winners and editors picks don't get the eyeballs and the votes here.. the masses on lush don't want good literature.. they want wank material.

Quote by Jen
Thing is though, unlike checking for plagiarism, we're never going to be able to tell your story is AI generated unless you mention it.

FYI there is software for checking for AI but it is designed to catching academic cheating so is likely (a) not cheap and (b) geared more to academic writing than fiction. Still, might worth your tech support investigating to see if there are options like that. A lot of magazines and webzines now have similar AI bans in effect so maybe there is something geared to checking fiction. Maybe even open source if you're lucky.

If you don't think it worth pursuing, that's cool. Just pointing out that the investigation might be worth it depending on how big the problem is seen to be.

Quote by Jen

My point was that this is a story site, not a photography site. I'm quite sure most of the cover pics used here are copyrighted, but most folk still use them. They're not the focus, the story is.

I know it’s hard to check and I certainly don’t expect the Lush staff to police images, but I personally feel the same attitude to AI writing should be attributed to all forms of art. Creators need to draw a hard line against this sort of practice whether it specifically affects them or not.

Do we fight corporate art theft one genre at a time or as a unified front?

Quote by RowanThorn

I know it’s hard to check and I certainly don’t expect the Lush staff to police images, but I personally feel the same attitude to AI writing should be attributed to all forms of art. Creators need to draw a hard line against this sort of practice whether it specifically affects them or not.

Do we fight corporate art theft one genre at a time or as a unified front?

Except corporate theft is not the reason she gave for not allowing AI authored stories, at least as I read it. It is about maintaining standards and avoiding having the site overrun with high volume, low effort "writers" who just pump out story after story using ChatGPT.

Sorry I even brought up the issue. I have a hard time finding good images for my non-erotic fiction given my propensity for fantasy and horror. I make no money on writing save the odd comp win on SS so commissioning art or paying for something like Shutterstock is out of the question. I have minimal visual art skills and tools myself so rolling my own ain't happening. I saw AI art as a way to remedy the lack of good CC-licensed art that fit my writing.

I agree with Seeker that the point of the ban is to protect the quality of the writing, which is the point of the site.

Anyway, seems to me the AI images I’ve seen on here aren’t ripping off anyone’s art. They’re just machine-generated, airbrushed-looking images of fake humans with oddly glistening skin (which I’m sure will become indistinguishable from the real thing within a year or two). Seems more ethical to me than using images of actual humans.

And although I’ve tried to be careful about copyright issues by pulling from sites that authorize this use, the images in my covers, so far, are of real people. If anything, maybe I should switch to genAI images to avoid exploitation.

Quote by deviantsusie

I created a micro with chatgpt - acknowledged in the cover art - secrets - and it was a bit crap and took several prompts to get it to write something I thought was half way acceptable. I find anything it produces is dull and lifeless and lacks.. for want of a better word.. soul.

I've no doubt people are churning them out with AI and asking for likes and coins and making money from them.. and that seems to be what the membership of Lush wants... the competition winners and editors picks don't get the eyeballs and the votes here.. the masses on lush don't want good literature.. they want wank material.

Sorry, Susie. I need to remove that story. It might have been missed at the time if someone didn't see that on the cover.

Quote by Jen

Sorry, Susie. I need to remove that story. It might have been missed at the time if someone didn't see that on the cover.

That’s fine. It was only submitted as a joke and I expected it to be removed before now. As I said, chatgpt produces lifeless soulless stories and I’m happy to see it deleted

Yes, please keep the AI out as much as possible. I enjoy the creativity and different styles of the writers here, and they put a lot of effort into entertaining us. If you are a fledging writer, do the work and let your style show through.

Quote by Seeker4

FYI there is software for checking for AI but it is designed to catching academic cheating so is likely (a) not cheap and (b) geared more to academic writing than fiction. Still, might worth your tech support investigating to see if there are options like that. A lot of magazines and webzines now have similar AI bans in effect so maybe there is something geared to checking fiction. Maybe even open source if you're lucky.

If you don't think it worth pursuing, that's cool. Just pointing out that the investigation might be worth it depending on how big the problem is seen to be.

Software for catching AI in academic work is very hit and miss. Turnitin for example which is used to catch plagiarism has developed anAI catcher but a lot of universities aren’t using it as it gives very poor returns and isn’t trustworthy yet.

Quote by joe71

I agree with Seeker that the point of the ban is to protect the quality of the writing, which is the point of the site.

Anyway, seems to me the AI images I’ve seen on here aren’t ripping off anyone’s art. They’re just machine-generated, airbrushed-looking images of fake humans with oddly glistening skin (which I’m sure will become indistinguishable from the real thing within a year or two). Seems more ethical to me than using images of actual humans.

And although I’ve tried to be careful about copyright issues by pulling from sites that authorize this use, the images in my covers, so far, are of real people. If anything, maybe I should switch to genAI images to avoid exploitation.

Just to qualify how it works, AI generation is pattern recognition from thousands upon thousands of stolen art works that were fed into the machine. They are farmed by bots.

From there companies have low wage jobs in places like Northern Africa or India where people spend all day looking at every image so they can flag if they are sending things like kiddy porn into the system. This is the only check as to what’s going in. The people makes about 50 cents to 1..50/hr for some really gross work.

And that’s the data AI generates from. It’s not ripping off one artist, it’s literally using the collective uncredited or paid work of hundreds of thousands of people. This is theft on such a huge scale it’s hard to comprehend. Companies like google are pulling out all the stops to tie up court cases and keep verdicts from being handed down because it’s really cut and dry that it’s theft.

It's gonna be sorta ironic to go to a site for a story about two human beings fucking and find that a computer wrote it.

Quote by joe71

I agree with Seeker that the point of the ban is to protect the quality of the writing, which is the point of the site.

I dunno if the majority of users care about the quality of the writing....

If you look at the 100 most popular stories ever in the whole history of Lush Stories, there are 5 editors Picks and 3 recommended reads.

The average readership of the last 10 competition winners - as in number of views is 6.1K - nowhere near Famous story status.

The last Competition winner to reach Famous story status was in 2018.

So while the competitions are all about getting high quality writing, it seems the masses prefer something a little less highbrow

Quote by deviantsusie
The last Competition winner to reach Famous story status was in 2018.

That Verbal dude sure knew his way around a tentacle.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/monster-sex/beneath

Quote by deviantsusie
So while the competitions are all about getting high quality writing, it seems the masses prefer something a little less highbrow

This. Sometimes it's nice to dive straight into the action. Who wants plot and character motivation when there are so many step dads fucking their teenage daughters for no reason out there? 🤣

Even the bots don't read my work any more, which is kind of ironic given the goal of AI is to vacuum up as much content as possible and spit it back out for someone else's benefit.

I’m just here to write and saw this post while reading the competition post. I don’t know anything about AI and want to keep it that way. Mom always told me to do as much for myself as I can or else I’d lose the ability.

And I think our stories and this site resembles the movie scene. The competitions here are like the award shows. Marvel and Fast and Furious movies rule the box office but won’t take home the Oscar. They know that and made their choice. Writers here can choose to write a hot sexy story to get a boatload of likes and “Wow, that was hot!” comments, or a story that dives deeper than a cock in a pussy, and will do better in competitions. Sometimes the two will overlap like “The Black Panther” movie, but more often not. For my purposes here, I choose to write for a handful of readers who’ll write me a paragraph in comments. The nice thing is there’s a place for all here, from what I’ve seen.

Quote by PurdyPeaches

And I think our stories and this site resembles the movie scene. The competitions here are like the award shows. Marvel and Fast and Furious movies rule the box office but won’t take home the Oscar.

Bars.

And before anyone begins to froth at the mouth, I'm not shitting on either type of story, because as Purdy said, there's a place for everyone and to be honest, both story types need to exist for the sake of variety. I'm a guy that can enjoy both story types immensely just like the above described movie types depending on my mood.

That being said, screw AI writing. Whole point of creativity is using your human brain and putting forth something for people to consume and enjoy. Using AI to write a story feels cheap and unaccomplished.

Quote by RowanThorn

Just to qualify how it works, AI generation is pattern recognition from thousands upon thousands of stolen art works that were fed into the machine. They are farmed by bots.

From there companies have low wage jobs in places like Northern Africa or India where people spend all day looking at every image so they can flag if they are sending things like kiddy porn into the system. This is the only check as to what’s going in. The people makes about 50 cents to 1..50/hr for some really gross work.

And that’s the data AI generates from. It’s not ripping off one artist, it’s literally using the collective uncredited or paid work of hundreds of thousands of people. This is theft on such a huge scale it’s hard to comprehend. Companies like google are pulling out all the stops to tie up court cases and keep verdicts from being handed down because it’s really cut and dry that it’s theft.

I'm not talking about genAI-created art like all the fake Monets, just nude images of people that are starting to show up all over.

If by "stolen art" you mean images of faces and bodies scraped from the Internet, but then aggregated and synthesized into something else and not including any PII from the originals, I'm not seeing the legal or moral copyright issue.

Quote by deviantsusie

I dunno if the majority of users care about the quality of the writing....

I don't mean "quality" as in everything should be Competition-quality literature. Hell, I've only had a couple of my fifty-plus stories ever get any accolades, so I'm obviously swimming in that muck myself. What I mean by "quality" is merely a minimum standard that the writing be human-created, which is far more critical to the success of the site than whether the cover images are.

As anyone on here who has used the Internet in the last two years may have noticed, it is increasingly hard to search for a real piece of information, and not be led through a slew of garbage AI-generated sites enshrouding the tiny piece of information you seek in hundreds or thousands of pointless boilerplate words. We don't what has happened to the Web in general happen to this site. And if genAI stories were allowed, it emphatically would.

Although it’s easy and convenient, I would avoid using AI generated art and altered photos. The AI training programs have stolen content from artists. There have been a number of lawsuits. People's livelihoods are being erased.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/is-ai-art-stealing-from-artists

Quote by Ensorceled

That Verbal dude sure knew his way around a tentacle.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/monster-sex/beneath

He so did, I totally loved this story. Wonder what happened to him?

Great Clapton fan I think; maybe he's at home listening to Layla.

Quote by CuriousAnnie
maybe he's at home listening to Layla.

🤣I hear he listens to her a lot.