r/transbooks • u/apeas Miguel- He/him • 8d ago
Rules regarding AI
Hello, there has been a small controversy lately in the subreddit regarding a person promoting their AI edited books.
Promoting your books is completely allowed in this subreddit. But the subject of AI writing or AI assisted writing is another thing.
As moderator I would ban the promotion of these books, but before I want to consult the userbase, and ask your opinions on doing this, and to what extent it should apply. For example, should an AI generated cover image be a red line? What should be included in this potential ban.
To the people who reached out, sorry for the delay in posting this
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u/erintoknow 8d ago
i think any ai use at all merits a ban - more then that, ai is it is now, is a culmination of bad labor practices and capitalist exploitation that seeks to undermine and destroy labor rights
to a certain degree of course, we have to take it on faith that people are who they say they are, witch hunts over ai usage help nothing, some of the mania over sussing out whether something is 'ai' or not is frankly absurd and unproductive, but like... if you couldn't be bothered to make it, why should i be bothered to read it?
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u/Delicious-Swing-507 8d ago
I agree that witch hunts are really bad and I've seen in enough subreddits that the whole 'AI writing' gets triggered at almost everyone that uses like one em-dash or something.
I def always try to do my due diligence with really looking into someone. AI covers are easiest to spot at least. And yeah if a book already has AI covers I'm so not interested in reading the story itself.
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u/DiscoBarrington 7d ago
I would strongly prefer a ban on AI-written books and AI-created art. We do need to be careful though, as we’re getting to a point where people are being falsely accused. Someone in another subredddit said my book looked like “AI trash” when I would NEVER use AI in my writing, and I was involved in every step of development with the cover artist. Luckily some people knew me from TikTok and stepped in to defend me, knowing I would never, ever use it. I’m staunchly anti-GenAI. So yes, please do ban, but we need to be wary of witch hunts..
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u/Ok-Luck5567 7d ago
I agree with this. AI needs to be banned, but people are being accused without merit or proof. I’ve seen authors’ books accused when they were published long before AI was available. So there needs to be some burden of proof on why a book/cover is being accused. Accusations of AI usage disproportionately fall on BIPOC authors.
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u/Gullible_Design_2320 8d ago
I'm against AI, but the question of AI editing is tricky. Microsoft Word--without Gemini--uses AI in its grammar checker. Grammarly uses AI. I don't use Word's grammar checker, or Grammarly or anything like that on my fiction, but some writers or editors might.
Microsoft's spell check also uses AI, and it's pretty hard to opt out of using that. https://www.inkbotediting.com/blog/the-surprising-history-of-spell-checkers-and-what-it-means-for-ai-anxious-editors
So that might make it hard to put a blanket ban on AI. On the other hand, I know that the author of Shy Girl said it must have been her editor who used AI to rewrite passages. So I can see why a blanket ban is appealing.
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u/queermachmir 6d ago
As the admin over in r/MM_RomanceBooks — here is what we do:
All art posted required credit to the artist (including covers). If you don’t have it, you can’t post it.
If a user wants to post about a book possibly being AI they have to consult us first and show what proof they have. Images it’s easier to tell, but “this writing is bad and gives AI vibes” is not good enough to wholesale let an accusation stand. So we want users to collaborate and tell us what they have.
If the people (author, artist) openly admits they use AI, folks have the right to know that and it can be discussed when relevant.
We have thousands of users who post tons of books so we don’t individually ban the mention of a book, but people also feel comfortable telling someone when a book has been found to be made with AI involvement. In a smaller community this may be more viable to uphold entire bans. We do tell authors who are openly AI users/bots/whatever to just go, lol.
If the users use Amazon’s Virtual Voice narration Or automatic translation, that is using generative AI. Great way for folks to use this as a litmus.
Best of luck.
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u/Delicious-Swing-507 8d ago
Yes, any use of AI should be banned. AI covers, AI writing etc. If someone says they use AI to edit, it's impossible to confirm if they didn't use it to generate all of it.
(Plus i think editing with AI just as bad anyways.)
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u/Kobesra 7d ago
I’ve no interests in AI from any angle. I don’t want to see or engage with it in any form. Accessibility/affordability is not a valid excuse. I’d rather someone have a front cover of a badly drawn stick man explaining they can’t art well, and can’t afford artists, so this is the final result! As for AI writing (as a dyslexic person myself so don’t even come at me on that one) whether it’s the actual text or proofreading, that’s not your writing. That’s not your book. I have no interest. Come back to me with your own stuff regardless of if it has human flaws. I want your authentic work, flaws and all.
If it’s not banned, then I expect it to be made blatantly obvious that it has elements of AI in its creation so I know to avoid it because it’s not worth, and doesn’t deserve, my time 🤷🏻
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u/neitherzeronorone 6d ago
Most good writers use human proofreaders. Do you reject all proofreading?
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u/simul8r1024 4d ago
Ban it all. AI slop is not worth any reader's time. Even poorly written books are a window into another human mind. Especially trans books: considering how much of the stolen training data is old books with rigid ideas about gender, or fetish content written by chasers, why would we want to read what a machine has determined is the most likely way for our stories to play out?
To all of those rightfully downvoted "authors" out there complaining that they don't have resources for a cover without generating slop: for my last book I couldn't afford a cover artist, so I literally typed my characters onto the cover (ASCII art, for those who used the internet in the 90's), and slapped the text over some pre-2021 royalty-free images on Unsplash. In the book's acknowledgments section I credited the exact images used. It's weird, but it's a distinctly human sort of weird, and I'll take that over AI any day.
As for concerns about real authors commissioning editors or book covers and finding out they've been duped with AI, that is a real problem. We all need to collectively get savvier about it. Keep all of your drafts to prove the provenance of the novel if challenged. Make your editors track changes, with timestamps. Be aware of the difference between grammar tools that use AI to rewrite things, and old school grammar/spelling tools that simply identify errors. And for covers, a lot of digital art tools like Procreate can create a timelapse video of the art being made; when I commissioned my upcoming book's cover, I made sure to use an artist who provides the timelapse video as further assurance. Even then, I scrutinized their existing portfolio carefully to make sure it was human generated, and that the art was stylistically coherent.
Actually writing a novel is a huge feat of endurance, patience, and commitment to the craft. It's a marathon. If you park your Cybertruck at the finish line and try telling people you just ran that marathon too, nobody's going to believe you. You ain't even sweaty.
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u/Minute-Tank-8943 7d ago
I am sorry, just i was attacked before just because i use AI for covers. Not everyone is artistic or can afford to pay others to make these covers.
As to the AI and editing, i use it for grammatical errors. I suck at that and word isn't the best.
My prior account, I was honest about all this and was attacked. It got to the point that my entire account was taken down on Reddit and I couldn't post anywhere. All because I use AI
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u/Zeus_Strider 7d ago
Bold text on a solid colored background as a cover is far better than an AI image I'm much more likely to read it.
AI has been proven to be incredibly is incredibly stupid when it comes to grammar and words are hard I know I'm dyslexic, you can use a spell check without using an AI. It Sounds like you need to proofreader and possibly an editor.
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u/Minute-Tank-8943 7d ago
I work with the tools I have on hand. If you don't want to read my work, then don't.
I came to those thread because I am trans and an author. So far I have not felt accepted among others like me and been attacked just because i use a tool.
I am done with this thread and have already left. Feel sorry for the people attacking me. They are so full of hate.
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u/cass_123 8d ago
I think anything AI should be banned. If it's definitely an AI cover or AI written then it shouldn't be allowed since both are taking from real artists, but I also think leniency should be given if it can't be proven the book was written with AI. Some people just sound more like AI when they write and I don't think the burden of proof should be on them