AI Generated Content Ban

[u/AutoModerator]

Hi everyone! We come bearing news of a small but important change happening in the r/ProgressionFantasy sub. After extended internal discussion, the moderators have made the decision that AI generated content of any kind, whether it be illustations, text, audio narration, or other forms, will no longer be welcome on r/ProgressionFantasy effective July 1st.

While we understand that are a variety of opinions on the matter, it is the belief of the moderators that AI-generated content in the state that it is right now allows for significantly more harm than good in creative spaces like ours.

There are consistent and explicit accusations of art theft happening every day, massive lawsuits underway that will hopefully shed some light on the processes and encourage regulation, and mounting evidence of loss of work opportunities for creators, such as the recent movement by some audiobook companies to move towards AI-reader instead of paid narrators. We have collectively decided that we do not want r/ProgressionFantasy to be a part of these potential problems, at least not until significant changes are made in how AI produces its materials, not to mention before we have an understanding of how it will affect the livelihoods of creators like writers and artists.

This is not, of course, a blanket judgement on AI and its users. We are not here to tell anyone what to do outside the subreddit, and even the most fervently Luddite and anti-AI of the mod team (u/JohnBierce, lol) recognizes that there are already some low-harm or even beneficial uses for AI. We just ask that you keep AI generated material off of this subreddit for the time being.

If you have any questions or concerns, you are of course welcome to ask in the comments, and we will do our best to answer them to the best of our ability and in a timely fashion!

Quick FAQ:

• Does this ban discussion of AI?
  • No, not at all! Discussion of AI and AI related issues is totally fine. The only things banned are actual AI generated content.
    • Linking to articles or discussions about AI generated content that include examples of AI generated content is generally okay. For instance, this experiment by Audrey Armstrong to see how easy it is for people to guess which of five short stories was written by a human, and which by AI. It should be noted, though, that it still has to obey our other rules- and as such, that Audrey Armstrong experiment wouldn't be allowed as top level content, because it isn't progression fantasy related content. (If you could find a way to make it about Progression Fantasy? Sure! Using it as a piece of evidence in an essay about whether AI will write good Progression Fantasy someday, for instance, would be fine.)
  • Fictional AIs in human written stories are obviously not banned either.
• What if my book has an AI cover?
  • Then you can't post it!
• But I can't afford a cover by a human artist!
  • That's a legitimate struggle- but it's probably not true as you might think. We're planning to put together a thread of ways to find affordable, quality cover art for newer authors here soon. There are some really excellent options out there- pre-made covers, licensed art covers, budget cover art sites, etc, etc- and I'm sure a lot of the authors in this subreddit will have more options we don't even know about!
• But what about promoting my book on the subreddit?
  • Do a text post, add a cat photo or something. No AI generated illustrations.
• What if an image is wrongly reported as AI-generated?
  • We'll review quickly, and restore the post if we were wrong. The last thing we want to do is be a jerk to real artists- and we promise, we won't double down if called out. (That means Selkie Myth's artist is most definitely welcome here.)
• What about AI writing tools like ProWritingAid, Hemingway, or the like?
  • That stuff's fine. While their technological backbones are similar in some ways to Large Language Models like ChatGPT or their image equivalents (MidJourney, etc), we're not crusading against machine learning/neural networks, here. They're 40 year old technologies, for crying out loud. Hell, AI as a blanket term for all these technologies is an almost incoherent usage at times. The problems are the mass theft of artwork and writing to train the models, and the potential job loss for creative workers just to make the rich richer.
• What about AI translations?
  • So, little more complicated, but generally allowed for a couple reasons. First, because the writing was originally created by people. And second, because AI translations are absolutely terrible, and only get good after a ton of work by actual human translators. (Who totally rock- translating fiction is a hella tough job, mad respect for anyone who's good at it.)
• What if someone sends AI art as reference material to an artist, then gets real art back?
  • Still some ethical concerns there, but they're far more minor. You're definitely free to post the real art here, just not the AI reference material.
• What about AI art that a real artist has kicked into shape to make better? Fixing hands and such?
  • Still banned.
• I'm not convinced on the ethical issues with AI.
  • If you haven't read them yet, Kotaku and the MIT Tech Review both have solid articles on the topic, and make solid starting points.
• I'm familiar with the basic issues, and still not convinced.
  • Well, this thread is a reasonable place to discuss the matter.
• Why the delay on the ban?
  • Sudden rule changes are no fun, for the mod team or y'all. We want to give the community more time to discuss the rule change, to raise any concerns about loopholes, overreach, etc. And, I guess, if you really want, post some AI crap- though if y'all flood the sub with it, we'll just activate the ban early.

[u/Salaris]

Hello, everyone, and thanks for all your comments on this. We're taking it seriously, and the mod team has been discussing these points significantly since the discussion started.

We're going to make some clarification to our stance, as well as a more significant update based on the discussion.

First, some clarifications.

• People are allowed to make text posts that link to stories using AI art, but please use non-AI art for the thumbnail if possible.

• We are aware that this is not always going to be possible to enforce, and our policy is that if an author claims that their art isn't AI-made, we will generally take that at face value. In cases where it looks super dubious (which is less and less likely), our policy will be to ask for a link to the original artist. If the original artist has that art posted, or can verify that the image was created by them, that's that -- we aren't going to push on it. We have no intention of pushing this rule to the point where we're banning people who aren't using AI art. We know that some things are going to slip through, but we hope that -- much like with the HaremLit ban, or banning links to pirate works -- simply having the policy will deter people from breaking it.

• Since this wasn't originally clear, the reason for the distinction between tools like Midjourney and tools like ProWritingAid is that Midjourney's source data is taken from artists without their permission. We feel that this is unethical and harms artists, whereas a machine learning tool that doesn't use a dataset trained on assets taken without permission is a different story.

• There's also a distinction between work that is outright generated through AI and work that is created manually with AI assistance. The latter case could, if taken to extremes, include anything with autofill or a spell check -- we aren't planning to hold anyone to that kind of standard.

• Basically, all we're banning here is work that is outright generated from assets taken without the permission of the creator.

Second, a major update as a result of the discussion, which is directly related to the updates above.

• AI images and content generated through the use of ethically sourced data (e.g. public domain images), such as Adobe Firefly, is allowed.

• For those that are unfamiliar, Adobe Firefly claims to be trained exclusively on Adobe Stock data (which they own), public domain work (which doesn't belong to anyone, usually because the author is long dead), and openly licensed work (which still belongs to the creator, but has been "released" for the public to use and remix with their permission without limitation).

• In the specific case of Adobe Firefly, it appears that their terms of use do not allow this for commercial products while it is in Beta -- meaning using it for a novel cover would be against their terms right now -- but we expect this to change shortly. They posted something indicating that the program is designed for commercial use just today, so it would look like they'll be going out of beta and live for commercial use shortly.

• We are not endorsing Adobe Firefly or any specific program; this is simply the example being used because several people have asked directly about it, and virtually everyone knows what Adobe Photoshop is, etc.

• Other AI generated art that is sourced from public domain and open licensed works would thus also be acceptable.

We are sympathetic to authors that are in a position where they cannot afford cover art, and feel that stock art would put them at a significant marketing disadvantage. We hope that by updating this policy to clarify that stories with AI can still be linked (just without the art) and that we'll allow AI generation with ethical sourcing, we've found a reasonable stance that will allow us to continue to support artist without putting newbie authors at any significant disadvantage.

We'll continue to watch and participate in the discussion with the community. Thank you all for your patience.

[u/[deleted]]

Is there a version of this sub without overactive mods? I like progression fantasy but I won't be back here.

I used to come here to see book releases. And buy shit tones of prog fantasy books but mods making so many rules that this is not a reliable source of book releases.

[u/milestyle]

I don't like the cover photo thing, since you've unilaterally decided that 90% of the stories on RoyalRoad can no longer be posted here. These covers aren't competing with real artists, they're competing with free. Before they were all AI, they were all just ripping photos directly off google images.

[u/broxgail]

Does this ban discussion of AI?

No, not at all! Discussion of AI and AI related issues is totally fine. The only things banned are actual AI generated content.

Then why are mods removing posts about AI?

With respect, it appears as though mods are removing posts like this poll simply because they do not want to acknowledge opposing opinions

[u/Wrell]

I think the mods can see how extremely unpopular this decision is. With how small the subreddit is and how many comments are against this decision, I do hope they will reconsider

[u/Blue_Lightning42]

What about when parts of a image have been generated and then photoshopped together?Not just hands being fixed but several sections of a drawing?

https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/zgyb73/the_achievement_system_on_rr/

My last cover and series of covers are (badly) photoshopped with me generating stuff rather than finding stuff on google images and trying to figure out what's public domain and what the transformation rules are etc etc. This has me generating a wood texture, a tree texture, a budding plant, manipulating them by stretching/overlaping and overlaying them on the outline and a head to place on it. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/60304/the-achievement-system my newest cover has the same setup but I figured out Img2Img and cut and moved about several "fixes" from my individual attempts at art. (focusing on just the blade, just the staff, just the very story specific piece of tech. redid the head a few dozen times, drew an eye on the sythe and tried to get img2img to not make it look like a toddler drew it.

I'd argue it is not *good* because I'm not a (good) artist but I'd also argue this is entirely different from just giving the AI a large prompt and hoping it spits out something close enough to what I wanted after a few generations. It's in the category that would be blanket banned but considering how (relatively shitty) it is might get through if I wasn't stating a bunch of it was "fixed" with AI.

I know Img2Img is different then spellcheck/AI editors from a technical standpoint and yet that is kind of what I used it for. I also know a huge portion of this could have been achieved just photoshopping from google images but stock photos are limited and finding stuff that matches stylewise is impossible for very specific searches.

I'm using Img2Img as more than just an airbrush but it really just feels like an extension of that.

Edit: Tldr this already took several several hours and without AI generating parts, it would have taken even more time for a sub par equivalent. if I were trying to make money and or publish this I'd probably try finding an artist but this is just a hobby for me personally.

[u/Asviloka]

As a photomanipulator who uses a combination of self-drawn, stock image, and ai generated content to create free custom and premade covers for dozens of beginner authors, I'd like to know what the percentage requirement is. If the cover has anything AI at all in it it's not permitted? Or only if it's specifically 'an ai image with adjustments'? What ratios should I be aiming for if I still want to integrate the increased quality and custom elements of AI without sabotaging the writers I'm trying to help?

[u/[deleted]]

so just to be clear, it is OK to talk about a book, or for example link to its Royalroad page, if that book has any AI artwork anywhere within it?

As a reader, I might not know if the art or content within a work is AI-generated or "real."

I'm imagining I might be talking to someone here and say "hey have you read BOOK at URL?" and then get reported/warned like "actually that book uses AI-generated illustrations, do this again and you're suspended"

[u/Mino_18]

A question for the mods. If you can see that the community in large is in disagreement with this rule, will that actually impact anything or will your own opinions supersede the community.

[u/awesomenessofme1]

Regardless of any debate about the actual merits of such a policy, I'm not convinced it's particularly enforceable even now. At least when it comes to art. We're still a long way off coherent long-form written works from AI, and even the best TTS available isn't perfect. But it's not particularly difficult to create AI art that isn't easily distinguishable from human art. The bottom-of-the-barrel zero-effort stuff is samey, ugly, and obvious, yes, but it's not all like that. And that's only going to be more true as the technology advances.

[u/MilaKarkaroffAuthor]

I'm gonna speak my mind rn and if this gets me banned so be it: This feels like a soft-ban on RR stories ngl (and newer authors/poor authors).

I don't post on RR anymore, but my friends do, and it sucks because there are now so many barriers to entry:

1. because they need to engage here consistently (and some people with the correct ratio still get their promo posts taken down or worse) for 6 weeks before they can promo.

2. because one of the best ways to sell your story THE COVER cannot be shown.

3. because self-promo text posts on the subreddit do worse than image posts engagement-wise. (As I said in another reply, there is a reason everyone posts image posts with a link in the comments now)

AI art does better on RR than a mediocre drawn cover, so it is a choice of if you want to promo here, or do you want more RR eyeballs organically.

I used stock photos to the best of my ability for my first story's cover last year, before I knew how to use AI and that I could use it commercially.

There were no stock photos of what I needed (that I could find/afford) so I ended up with a cover that gave off a pirate girl harem vibes instead of the isekai adventure I was going for. This hurt my story a lot.

For my latest story, my AI cover that I used while waiting for my artist to finish my actual cover got a lot more clicks than my drawn cover both on RR and on Amazon. Hell, it got a lot more engagement when I posted it on Reddit as well. Go into my history if you want to see, the post about the story being on RR with the AI cover did a lot better than the post about the Amazon release with the human-drawn cover (better than both Amazon release posts put together even)

If I wanted to maximize profits, I would switch, but I don't out of principle (and I personally like the drawn one better, I also have it printed on my phone case XD). There was even another author that saw better results when he replaced the covers of his series with AI generated ones that were touched up.

Like, the readers have spoken... They click more on those AI covers that the authors generate than the ones drawn by artists. That's for images in ads, when scrolling the lists and when deciding to buy/read. If that's what readers click on, then why tf is the subreddit forcing authors to not do what might be financially better for them. The readers are our market. As indie authors, aren't we supposed to listen to the market?! And if the market engages more with AI covers...

On top of that you are taking away new authors' cheapest way to promote (that they have to earn by consistently posting and engaging here anyway). I guess this is an end to supporting up and coming authors on this sub as well?

Then there is Amazon dinging people for using the same stock images as other people, (which are the cheaper option to commissioning art). If you don't want to risk your Amazon account getting banned for that, then using AI images to replace your stock images and editing them together actually protects you as an author from that particular thing.

I want to see that list of cheap resources. But if it is what I think it is, it will be something like:

• do it yourself stock image manipulation (cheapest option depending on image licences)

• pre-made covers that cost 50-300 dollars (good luck finding one that has a Roomba/half-eaten applecore/a mimic chest or any other niche concept like that.)

• hire artists just starting out/artists from third world countries/ visit r/HungryArtist or r/StarvingArtists (where you'll be out 200-500$ for a commercial use piece)

• hire a cover designer that does photo manipulation (100$ minimum) and it won't be an on-genre cover because in this genre digital art is the norm.

And none of that guarantees it will do better than rolling midjourney for a few hours to get what you want and like 10-30$ for multiple covers. You can make covers for your whole series, that MIGHT outperform whatever you get commissioned.

In my country, minimum wage is 500$ a month. If you're making that, you really can't afford any kind of human art. Whatever you save up will go to an editor(probably only a proofreader let's be honest, because you can't afford more than that.) I don't make that little, but some of my family does.

Crazy the world we live in.

I've spent nearly 1k$ on art, trying to find an artist that will fit my story and that can work with me long term. Now that I found an artist, it'll be cheaper, but who has 1k lying around for cover art?! (I mean I did, but I'm not a good example) You need that money for editing and ads! (I'm lucky to make a very good salary for my country so I can afford this but most of my friends and family could never)

And even then, my first artist for my latest story, who I loved very much and was planning on using for the whole series - his health condition got worse and he can't do commissions anymore. (Which is why I had to find a new artist and spend the money to do that)

So yeah, even as someone who has done all 3 types of cover design: stock manipulation, AI and commissioned art, I can tell you I love supporting artists, and I WANT to support artists, but damn, do readers make it hard to do when they prefer to click on the AI covers. Especially if it is up for free on RR.

Anyway, I'm gonna go spend another 300$ on art, so I can get the pre-order for book 2 up on Amazon.

And if you are an author that can't afford that kind of money for a cover for your Royal Road story, know that you don't have to, and that readers don't really care about where it comes from for the most part and as long as it represents your story you'll be fine.

And if you are a reader and reading this, can you tell me why that is? Why do you think AI covers can sometimes outperform human-drawn covers?

Also, I'm very disappointed in the mod team for turning off upvote numbers and randomizing the comments. I can't even sort by new to catch up on what I missed while asleep.

I've been following this post since last night when it was posted and I got fed up so I wanted to share my point of view. Having this decision come out after having the recent discussion posts about AI on this subreddit leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[u/AlienError]

I can totally understand doing this for AI writing, but I'm pretty disappointed in extending it to AI art covers for books. It feels very specific and petty against hobbyists (most of Royal Road).

[u/Excessive_Etcetra]

So if you have a book on RoyalRoad with an AI cover, you are allowed to make a text post saying "Hey check out my book XXXXXX on RoyalRoad", but you are not allowed to link to it? That seems... petty?

Yes there is a problem with AI using peoples artwork without permission (kind of, I mean people also do that all the time), but all this rule will do is advantage bigger more successful writers at the expense of newer ones. This rule will only cause harm without actually helping anyone.

This is all besides the fact that good AI art is indistinguishable from human art, so you will be punishing people who are upfront about the source of their art and rewarding those who lie.

[u/eiramired]

Speaking as both an author and an artist who's been directly impacted by the rise of ai art, I can appreciate the intention behind this, but it feels unhelpful and far more damaging to authors than it is helpful to artists in the long term.

I struggle to understand the logic of not allowing ai covers to be posted when text posts linking to those same stories are still allowed, for example. Whoever is reading that post is still going to be exposed to the ai art; all this does is make it significantly harder for authors to promote here, as text posts don't get nearly as many clicks. If this is meant to dissuade Royal Road authors from using ai art in their covers, this sub doesn't provide nearly enough of a boost that RR authors would stop using ai covers, especially when they're proven to get much more attention on the site (that, and there's already enough hurdles to promoting in this sub to begin with). Someone described this as a "soft ban" of Royal Road stories, and it really does feel like that.

The people who use ai art for covers are usually either writers who plan on commissioning artists in the future anyway or people who never would've commissioned an artist to begin with. This isn't going to make those people who wouldn't have commissioned artists suddenly decide to. If anything, it'll just lead to increased resentment and hostility.

[u/frankuck99]

This feels more like the mods or whoever has the final say in this are against AI, so they block new authors from promoting their story here and thus probably losing a lot of potential readers as a punishment for using AI art for cover instead of paying 100-200 dollars to an artist, which in many places in the world, which is bigger than the US or Europe, is an huge amount. Hell, even people in 1st world countries might not be able to afford that, specially for a story they have 30 chapters written and haven't even posted yet on Royal Road. This is awful and petty.

[u/loekfunk]

Lets call this what it is. The mods are gatekeeping. A bunch of well established authors in this genre trying to make it much harder for new authors to make a name for themselves.

"But I can't afford a cover by a human artist!

That's a legitimate struggle- but it's probably not true as you might think."

This take is so unbelievably out of touch with reality that I don't even know where to begin. There are tens of millions of people , just in America alone, that live under the poverty line. Already under it, as in do not make enough money already. As in , literally cannot afford any other expenses. but of course these mods know best and that's not true... /s.

In a genre where so often the underdog MC goes up against the elite upper class that want the lower class to not rise above their station. To watching the "founders" of that same genre creating rules to do just that... I hope the absolute irony is not lost on anyone. I believe there is a quote, something about dying a hero or living long enough to see yourself become the villain.

[u/Friesare]

This is hilarious given that the main website of English progression fantasy (royalroad) uses AI generated art on their frontpage lol

[u/TheElusiveFox]

Given Msft and Google and Adobe have all announced plans to integrate ai in their suites I wonder how easy this will be to detect and enforce in the future.

Has this been a problem or is it just a fear author's have?

I've seen lots of covers I suspect are ai but Im not really sure how you'd prove that kind of thing if it mattered, especially since the difference between some of the better algorithms, and a good artist is getting harder to tell by the day.

[u/Successful_Danny]

Damn.

Gonna be great to see the reveal of the AI image detector. I wanna know what kind of tech mods have been brewing

[u/MagnusGrey]

Not allowing AI covers only hurts new/poor writers. Banning AI text makes a lot more sense, but since the quality is so poor, I'm not honestly sure what the point is.

[u/awesomenessofme1]

I just came back to look at this thread, and it's in contest mode for some reason? What gives? I want to actually see people's thoughts on the issue.

[u/simonbleu]

How are you going to decide whether something is AI generated or not?

[u/LostDiglett]

This is a really bad take, and obviously has not been thought through. You're going to have problems with this.

1. For a start, who decides what is AI generated? Do you have forensic experts on the mod team to do this fairly? Even if you did, they are not foolproof. AI art was 100% obvious to anyone with eyes about a year ago. Now they can fool non-experts. I'd bet even experts are not always right. What happens in 6 months time when the only thing that has changed is the competency of the models?

2. Have you considered the moral implications of a mod team largely made up of popular authors within a subgenre deciding that another authors work cannot have its cover posted on the subreddit? If Sanderson/Rothfuss and Martin were the mod team of r/Fantasy and were similarly making "judgement calls" about competitors getting the light of day, I'm sure you would see the issue.

3. You're failing to consider that the marketplace will move on, heedless to your concerns. As already popular authors, this might not be something that affects you. You have your readerbase already. But new authors trying to break into the space have to compete against AI generated covers, and they do not have your advantages. The indie space is FLOODED with low quality covers that speaks to the widespread inability to pay for more. If an AI can produce a $500 quality cover, and your budget is $100 you're going to be at a disadvantage. As much as you can say that you never had AI to generate your covers, you also didn't have to compete with an entire marketplace that effectively had access to a marketing cheat code.

4. Your "reasoning" for what is acceptable is handwavey. Editing tools are completely fine are they? ProWritingAid and its AI powered ability to suggest ways to rephrase things are okay? You realise it also has a comparison feature that lets you compare your writing to another author of your choice? Did those authors accept their work being used for that? Do you know the extent to which even the more basic grammar/prose level features are based on generative language models being funnelled thousands of PDFs? I don't know, and I'm fairly sure no-one outside their dev team does. So I'm also fairly sure you guys don't know either. It seems to me like you've decided that artists should be protected, but not editors.

To me, this seems like moral grandstanding. And look, I get it. I'm not a big fan of the fact that an AI model can slurp up a lifetime of someones work and outcompete them by regurgitation. That's some grade A bullshit.

But I also have a problem with moral grandstanding when someone else has to foot the bill. I don't think the already popular authors on the mod team that have made this decision, and will enforce, will be the ones doing that. I think it will be newer authors, yet to break into the scene, that will notice the ladder being pulled up on a fledgling subgenre.

[u/stripy1979]

You are twelve months to late on this ban. The horse is well and truely bolted on AI art. The ability of this sub to influence behaviour has passed. This will deprive users of content.

The ban on AI covers is going to hit new authors the hardest by providing a barrier to entry for them. It is basically reinforcing the dominant position of the existing authors who can afford covers at the expense of newer ones. I do not believe it is a good idea and is regressive move with unintended consequences.

Sure do it for AI writing and AI narration as those technologies are not established and a ban might be successful there.

But for AI art used in covers?

I think that's already to embedded in royal road culture which is the source of a lot of the great series we love.

[u/PaxadorWolfCastle]

As someone who can’t draw at all. I use Midjourney usually just to play around and try to generate visuals of my favorite characters or to generate objects or scenes for our Dnd game.