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Flood of AI-Generated Submissions ‘Final Straw’ for Small 22-Year-Old Publisher (www.404media.co)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A small publisher for speculative fiction and roleplaying games is shuttering after 22 years, and the “final straw,” its founder said, is an influx of AI-generated submissions.

In a notice posted to the site, founder Julie Ann Dawson wrote that effective March 6, she was winding down operations to focus on her health and “day job” that’s separate from the press. “All of these issues impacted my decision. However, I also have to confess to what may have been the final straws. AI...and authors behaving badly,” she wrote.

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[–] [email protected] 150 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Two to three times a month, I need to fight with Amazon over negative reviews that get spammed on multiple books because an author got upset about a story being rejected. Or I get some snark response back about how my reviewers need better training, or that I am not a "real" editor, or something outright vulgar. Or I get a prank call to my phone. These sort of people have always lurked around the industry, so I am not unaccustomed to dealing with them. But it seems like they have grown more emboldened, and there seems to be this weird social currency tied to the bad behavior now.

Dawson really nails down something that has been bothering me a long time. I think she's absolutely right that people with bad behavior are emboldened and that there is this weird social currency among the people exhibiting this behavior. It's been the downside of the internet, it seems like the biggest bullies and people with the worst behavioral problems have all found each other and decided to pump each other up about being total pieces of shit. It's maddening.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 months ago (3 children)

DJT syndrome, they were always there but he told them it was good to be that way. And that's exactly what they all wanted to hear.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (1 children)

He gave them permission to use the social fabric as TP and that's what they're doing.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Yikes but vivid word picture you painted there

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Combined with social media spaces that refused to shut that shit down immediately because it was too profitable to.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

Even worse, negativity increases engagement on social media. So instead of shutting it down, it's more profitable for them and the algorithms encourage it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

It's this. I know I've become angrier, bitter, and even more misanthropic because of the uptick of people that have been massive pieces of shit since he took office. I think I developed a "fuck you" attitude as a self defence mechanism and I've lost all my empathy.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I see this in my day job, too. When I'm in a charitable mood, I chalk it up to pandemic trauma. But more realistically, I think it is a real change in our society's ability and willingness to compromise and see the world through the eyes of others. People want what they want and they don't give a fuck who they have to roll over to get what they want. They treat getting what they want as a matter of principle.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

The only change I've seen in this regard is a dramatic reduction in people's willingness to tolerate these people. They've always been here and always been like this, but we as a society used to just let them have their way to make them go away.

So I see articles like this as being nothing but good news.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

It didn't start with Drumpf, but his indelible slime trail certainly coated the way for them to wiggle out further than their known fetid shit puddles of yesteryear.