Dissecting Literotica’s AI Policy

[AwkwardMD]

The trouble is that the typical AI style is the typical AI style, because a large volume of prose on the internet has this style. So there are a large number of human writers who write in that style. If they hand in stories, they will be flagged as AI.

If this was true then there would be many more rejections than we're seeing. ChatGPT 5 was trained using approximately 3/4 of the posted content on the internet (citation, Mozilla quoting OpenAI's publicly stated info). Everyone would be getting rejected left and right, and yet Lit's AI detector continues to allow hundreds of submissions through per day.

Style is not a barrier. Write your story and explore your voice. Lit will not punish you for that.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I am not saying AI doesn't have its place, but it isn't the creative process of actual writing. But those who use it, should label it as such.

i wish there was more subtlety here. i do not want to see ai-generated porn on literotica... if i want AI-generated porn i'll generate it myself.

i do think that ai can be helpful to a writer. my employer is eager, i think, to supplement or replace human editors with ai and so they want us to experiment. we have learned that ai is not a good editor. it can steamroll right over a writer's voice.

for editing, i have plugged in paragraphs and asked it to make them more concise. but the important part is re-editing it afterwards, because ai always has to make changes, even if they aren't for the better. it cannot say "The way you have it is good enough." unfortunately it is likely that any ai verbiage, even if vetted by a human,and even using words the human would have come up with, might trigger the ai detector, and once in lit ai hell its difficult to get out. ai can, i will begrudgingly admit, make some smart editing choices, but until the detectors get more subtle we cannot take advantage of that. a human can figure this out but i guess there are toomany submissions for people to review each one.

i have also used it for brainstorming. i've asked it for ideas, suggestions, scenarios. its answers aren't necessarily good but just like brainstorming with another person, something it says may trigger a better idea for me. i use it for research. ethical issues aside (displaying other people's content without permission or compensation) it can get better answers faster than regular search. and it's helpful for working out things i can't try myself, at least not at the moment, like is it possible for a man in this position to penetrate the asshole of a woman in this position?

so... it's an imperfect situation, but if i must make a choice i would rather read imperfect prose from imperfect people.

grok did do a nice job with that suggested lakeside fuck tory. i had it generate pictures of the two characters. ashley is a knockout and sam is handsome but it won't show me his cock.

 

[MillieDynamite]

The AI doesn't plagiarize it, studies style and content for guidance, then FUBARs the whole thing.

If this was true then there would be many more rejections than we're seeing. ChatGPT 5 was trained using approximately 3/4 of the posted content on the internet (citation, Mozilla quoting OpenAI's publicly stated info). Everyone would be getting rejected left and right, and yet Lit's AI detector continues to allow hundreds of submissions through per day.

Style is not a barrier. Write your story and explore your voice. Lit will not punish you for that.

 

[ronde]

We are at the point where people have no fucking clue what AI is. Let alone GenAI. Let alone LLMs. I blame the broligarchs who are desperate for us to believe their crazy company valuations are justified.

Using spellcheck won’t get your story flagged as AI. Using grammar check won’t either. Getting - say - CoPilot (OpenAI under the covers) to highlight clunky passages, but then fixing them yourself, won’t get your story flagged for AI. Using the text that CoPilot gives you as an alternative might well get you flagged.

Speech to text, or text to speech (I use the latter) won’t get your story flagged for AI.

Using a tool to translate your foreign language story into English may well get you flagged.

I'm late to this party, but you hit the nail squarely on the head with the words, "fixing them yourself". Technology can often cause us to become lazy and accepting of things as normal that may not be correct. It's the old joke of, "It's on the Internet so it must be right". It's a lot easier to have a spelling and grammar checker suggest a change and then automatically click "change". It must be right, right. Perhaps, but those changes often change the tone of the story as well.

The intelligent course of action is to use whatever assistant you want, but never ever believe that it's the last word. If it doesn't sound right to you, it probably isn't what you meant to write.

I used to mutually edit stories with a female author who's native language was Italian. I wrote a few stories about Italy and included dialogue in Italian in those stories with one of the characters doing the translation back to English. When I used translate.google to translate my English into Italian, it consistently translated the gender pronouns incorrectly and usually the syntax was slightly messed up. There are several Italian words that mean different things based upon context and google usually got those wrong as well. Maybe there are better language translators out there, but I learned not to trust translate.google.

 

[Sablesin]

https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-ai

And it’s kinda precious that Laurel and Manu have outsourced any discussion about the topic to us

And incredibly hypocritical that they are obviously using software to monitor and detect

 

[Sablesin]

I think that there is some lazy thinking about the use of AI on this site. There is a huge difference between users wholesale getting AI to write their stories for them (which I don't condone), compared to someone spending time and effort to train a GPT to be an equivalent 'editor'. Where is the difference between an AI editor suggesting ways in which to phrase or pace narrative vs a human peer or volunteer editor doing exactly the same? Humans have been using other humans as editors for centuries. It's how our writing has evolved. Surely, the better thing to do is to give someone the option to flag that they have used AI for editing purposes and then let users decide whether or not that want to consume works that have? Alternatively, we could always go back to using a typewriter or perhaps a pen, and then post them in!

 

[EmilyMiller]

And incredibly hypocritical that they are obviously using software to monitor and detect

You are - probably understandably - being emotional about this. You are conflating different types of software as per:

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/story-sent-back.1647481/#post-102240413

 

[EmilyMiller]

I think that there is some lazy thinking about the use of AI on this site. There is a huge difference between users wholesale getting AI to write their stories for them (which I don't condone), compared to someone spending time and effort to train a GPT to be an equivalent 'editor'. Where is the difference between an AI editor suggesting ways in which to phrase or pace narrative vs a human peer or volunteer editor doing exactly the same? Humans have been using other humans as editors for centuries. It's how our writing has evolved. Surely, the better thing to do is to give someone the option to flag that they have used AI for editing purposes and then let users decide whether or not that want to consume works that have? Alternatively, we could always go back to using a typewriter or perhaps a pen, and then post them in!

It doesn’t matter what you think. The site has said no AI assistance at all. They are allowed to set rules. You don’t have to publish here.

 

[Andreas_Kreuz]

The site has said no AI assistance at all.

This was disected by the original post. And his findings do not clearly support this statement. First the guidelines explicitly mention AI based spelling and grammar checkers as being acceptable. Then it talks about AI generating blocks of text as being a copyright issue. (But not about this being against the rules) And then there is the AI rejection, which is unclear and sometimes also hits authors who write a rather style with many generic phrases and words.

Where is the difference between an AI editor suggesting ways in which to phrase or pace narrative vs a human peer or volunteer editor doing exactly the same?

After trying AI as editor, I learned there is a significant difference. A human editor gets a feeling for the intention of the text and prioritizes accordingly. A human will point you straight to the key issues, while the AI will be generic and frequently miss the point completely. AI also completely fails to recognize subtext, subtle hints, or double-entendre.

I do use an AI as editor, but I forbid it to suggest actual wordings or changes. I am using the AI as a critic. (List the 5 paragraphs, that might be too choppy, list the 3 scenes where a transition might be helpful for the reader, extract what I said about character X)

And even this must be filtered and questioned on a case by case basis.
A human editor would do a better job, but the AI gives me an answer within seconds and I can continue.

 

[caleb35]

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- the sooner the Butlerian Jihad arrives, the better.

 

[alohadave]

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- the sooner the Butlerian Jihad arrives, the better.

That just traded computer slaves for human slaves. People were not better off after thinking machines were prohibited. The Dune universe is a space-faring feudal society after all.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I think that there is some lazy thinking about the use of AI on this site. There is a huge difference between users wholesale getting AI to write their stories for them (which I don't condone), compared to someone spending time and effort to train a GPT to be an equivalent 'editor'. Where is the difference between an AI editor suggesting ways in which to phrase or pace narrative vs a human peer or volunteer editor doing exactly the same? Humans have been using other humans as editors for centuries. It's how our writing has evolved. Surely, the better thing to do is to give someone the option to flag that they have used AI for editing purposes and then let users decide whether or not that want to consume works that have? Alternatively, we could always go back to using a typewriter or perhaps a pen, and then post them in!

There indeed isn't much difference between using AI as an editor or a beta reader, and using a human for the same purpose, except perhaps in the quality of the result. Both are crutches that authors use for writing.

It's one of many inconsistencies in our views of writing in general. Some of them stem from long-standing and widely accepted practices, and some come from our biases. I'm a firm proponent of the "write, edit, and beta-read your story yourself" kind of approach. Let your work of art be judged only by your own skill. And if you let others influence changes in your work, then put them as (partial) co-authors.

 

[EmilyMiller]

There indeed isn't much difference between using AI as an editor or a beta reader, and using a human for the same purpose, except perhaps in the quality of the result. Both are crutches that authors use for writing.

Your like a dog with a bone on this. I can only assume an you had some scarring experience with an editor on childhood. I’m coming around to your POV in some areas, but baldly stating that a human editor is a crutch flies against the entire history of literature. Saying it’s the same as using AI is ludicrous.

On one side there is you. On the other side is the serried ranks of every single other author. I can’t get my head around why you hold this opinion to be true. I don’t know a single other person who agrees with it.

 

[caleb35]

That just traded computer slaves for human slaves. People were not better off after thinking machines were prohibited. The Dune universe is a space-faring feudal society after all.

There were human slaves before the Butlerian Jihad -- the humans who owned/operated the technology enslaved humans who didn't (ex. persecution of the Zensunni Wanderers prior to the Jihad). Hence one of the major reasons behind the Jihad in the first place.

But otherwise, yeah, you're right, the Dune universe at time of the first novel was a messed up place all around and thoroughly backwards in many regards

 

[caleb35]

There indeed isn't much difference between using AI as an editor or a beta reader, and using a human for the same purpose, except perhaps in the quality of the result. Both are crutches that authors use for writing.

I must voice my disagreement with this stance. One can use AI as an editor or beta reader (unfortunately) but it is far inferior to a human doing the same. AI is inferior to humans in practically every regard; don't let tech bro advertising convince you otherwise.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Your like a dog with a bone on this. I can only assume an you had some scarring experience with an editor on childhood. I’m coming around to your POV in some areas, but baldly stating that a human editor is a crutch flies against the entire history of literature. Saying it’s teh same as using AI is ludicrous.

On one side there is you. On the other side is the serried ranks of every single author. I can’t get my head around why you hold this opinion to be true. I don’t know a single other person who agrees with it.

No scarring, I'm afraid. My first ever creative writing attempt was the story I submitted here three and a half years ago.

I acknowledge that most people feel differently about this. I mostly see it from the standpoint of principle. Historically, I suspect that an editor has often been something that was imposed by the publishing house, a way to make sure the reputation of the house won't be tarnished, but also to ensure that the book sells better. Maybe many writers welcomed such influence, I've no idea, but I doubt all of them did.

I must voice my disagreement with this stance. One can use AI as an editor or beta reader (unfortunately) but it is far inferior to a human doing the same. AI is inferior to humans in practically every regard; don't let tech bro advertising convince you otherwise.

That largely depends on the human in question.

But yes, you're right in general. Still, my post wasn't about the quality or the source of such "help." It was more about receiving such help in the first place, and changing some non-trivial aspects of your work according to other people's suggestions. That makes them partial co-authors in my book.

 

[Andreas_Kreuz]

AI is inferior to humans in practically every regard

It has one significant strength and that is the breadth of its knowledge. I asked it to compare Hemingway with Proust and Thomas Mann, and of course AI knew everything that has been written about them.

In practical terms I asked AI to identify non-idiomatic wording in my text and it found several awkward sentences, and recognised what my first language is.

And these kind of errors cannot be found by self editing.

So what works for me is the pattern matching and knowledge retrieval aspect of AI. Whereas the generative aspect doesn't work at all for me.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I acknowledge that most people everyone feels differently about this.

Fixed it for you.

 

[LegendInMyOwnMind]

I use Grammarly Pro. It's quite good at catching spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, though not perfect. When extensive rewrites are suggested, they often deviate from my intended meaning at are ignored. It is particularly bad in dialogue, where what I've written is ungrammatical or idiosyncratic, and is perfect for that character.

In the rare instance when I agree with a rewrite suggestion, I rewrite in my own words. I have never been flagged for AI usage,

 

[crookedletter]

No scarring, I'm afraid. My first ever creative writing attempt was the story I submitted here three and a half years ago.

I acknowledge that most people feel differently about this. I mostly see it from the standpoint of principle. Historically, I suspect that an editor has often been something that was imposed by the publishing house, a way to make sure the reputation of the house won't be tarnished, but also to ensure that the book sells better. Maybe many writers welcomed such influence, I've no idea, but I doubt all of them did.


That largely depends on the human in question.

But yes, you're right in general. Still, my post wasn't about the quality or the source of such "help." It was more about receiving such help in the first place, and changing some non-trivial aspects of your work according to other people's suggestions. That makes them partial co-authors in my book.

If you don't use beta readers, good for you, I suppose. But using them is nothing more than recognizing your own human fallibility. It is nearly impossible to read your own work with an eye untainted by what you intended a story to be: you know what you're trying to do. It takes an impartial observer to help you see if you've achieved that effect for a reader.

Maybe your issue is with writers taking on and accepting whatever feedback they receive? I disagree with much -- if not most -- of the feedback I receive. And that I happily ignore, and will happily tell those who provided it that I'm ignoring it, if they ask. But a lot of it rings true, and gives me insight into the relative success of my work that I could never find on my own.

If that's a crutch, revision is a crutch. Proofreading is a crutch. As if every line of your prose needs to come from some pure and shadowy place in your soul, perfect on first attempt. What kind of weakling takes steps to try to make their work better?

We don't publish in a vacuum. Why on earth would we write in a vacuum?

 

[EmilyMiller]

I use Grammarly Pro. It's quite good at catching spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, though not perfect. When extensive rewrites are suggested, they often deviate from my intended meaning at are ignored. It is particularly bad in dialogue, where what I've written is ungrammatical or idiosyncratic, and is perfect for that character.

In the rare instance when I agree with a rewrite suggestion, I rewrite in my own words. I have never been flagged for AI usage,

This is precisely the way to use the tool. Many other authors who do the same (I’m thinking @ronde for example) have never had a problem.

 

[EmilyMiller]

If you don't use beta readers, good for you, I suppose. But using them is nothing more than recognizing your own human fallibility. It is nearly impossible to read your own work with an eye untainted by what you intended a story to be: you know what you're trying to do. It takes an impartial observer to help you see if you've achieved that effect for a reader.

Maybe your issue is with writers taking on and accepting whatever feedback they receive? I disagree with much -- if not most -- of the feedback I receive. And that I happily ignore, and will happily tell those who provided it that I'm ignoring it, if they ask. But a lot of it rings true, and gives me insight into the relative success of my work that I could never find on my own.

If that's a crutch, revision is a crutch. Proofreading is a crutch. As if every line of your prose needs to come from some pure and shadowy place in your soul, perfect on first attempt. What kind of weakling takes steps to try to make their work better?

We don't publish in a vacuum. Why on earth would we write in a vacuum?

This

I think @AwkwardlySet’s view is steeped in a misconception of the process.

And beta reading is driven by humility. We all have things to learn. We are better as a village.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I've read some books recently -- tradpubbed books -- that clearly never had an editor involved. Certainly not one who was able to control the author. And the thing they have in common is that they'd give a high school English teacher a stroke.

 

[EmilyMiller]

they'd give a high school English teacher a stroke.

That’s a talented book… oh, you meant.

 

[YmaOHyd]

That’s a talented book… oh, you meant.

Maybe first one, then the other!