this winter hasn’t been so rough

i personally think the witch hunt is crazy and terrible. i want to float the idea that perhaps, maybe, there exists a small portion of writers who write fanfic because they love to write and want to get better at writing. each fic is an act of learning, exploration and seeing what works for their own expression. yes it might be about community but more likely it just so happens that they like fic, love these characters, and enjoy playing with them. so they're writing for themselves really. what is so evil or morally corrupt about trying new tools? do we need to put them in jail?

there is such an obvious difference between posting fully Al-generated slop with very little author engagement, versus using Al to maybe fix a couple of sentences (or more) when the fic is still so clearly well thought out and reflects the creativity and heart of the author. what if someone uses Al to do some research about popular nightclubs in magnitogorsk so their fic can feel more authentic? is that so evil compared to searching on google? twenty years ago, when google was the "new big evil" compared to searching through books on a foreign city and translating russian material, did we make the same argument? what about grammar tools and spelling autocorrection? are we making the same argument that kids who use calculators when they're little will never be able to learn math? sigh. the inability to differentiate between thoughtful and well-intentioned usage and mindless, effortless usage astounds me. 100k fics with 20 instances, 50k fics with 4 instances. what are we doing here, "calling the authors out"? i can't even begin to understand this level of animosity. i myself do not write, so maybe i have no right to say any of this because "i don't understand the process of a real writer" and perhaps that is true. i am friends with people who do write, and have betaed for them, and have experimented with using Al with them. i cannot speak for everyone, and of course i've read Al-slop fics that i do not enjoy, but the people i know use Al in good faith. i truly do not think they are in the wrong.

thanks for voicing another perspective - i do think that this is not a black-and-white issue and that these are conversations that are worth having as fandom communities. part of what I have found so frustrating about generative AI is that it seems to have all happened so fast. tech companies have been successful in creating this artificial sense of urgency that has pushed all kinds of different institutions and environments (schools, workplaces, etc.) to feel like they must IMMEDIATELY integrate AI into every single workflow and get everybody using it all the time. and as a result it can feel like aghhh there's been no TIME for us to really sit with what it means to use these tools and to really think about how we use these tools or whether using them is in service of our larger goals. none of us asked for this to happen but we're all now unwilling subjects in a massive sociocultural experiment that will likely change so much about our world.

so i think a lot of the rage people express around AI use is not (just) being mad at people for using AI tools... i think the rage and the desire to bring down the hammer stems from this deeper feeling of jesus fucking CHRIST, we didn't ask for this, we don't want to be part of this massive change, we are TIRED of living through these once-in-a-lifetime crises that threaten our jobs/well-being, we just want things to stay the way they were. like FUCK these tech companies but also FUCK there is a lot of rage and grief in seeing the professions or communities or ways of making art that we value being involuntarily transformed or thrown into upheaval by what feels like these totally alien external forces whose values are often diametrically opposed to the values those professions, communities, and artistic practices have cultivated for decades. navigating change is hard and ugly and it's even uglier and harder to navigate when it hits our communities, jobs, etc like a meteor leaving us with no time to prepare or reflect or discuss as a collective how we want to respond.

and i think that's where the witchhunt mindset comes from. i think people see the cultural shifts that are happening in fandom (...which were honestly in the works long before generative AI came onto the scene) and they feel this desperate clawing sense of NO. NOT HERE. YOU CAN'T HAVE THIS THING I LOVE, and that manifests as a desire to drive out anyone who does not share their fannish values ie their personal sense of what fandom community and creative activity should look like. i am deeply, powerfully sympathetic to this argument because i actually do think that AI fucking sucks, I hate it, I wish it were not in my fandom spaces, I too wish that we could establish a clear moral brightline that says NO. NOT HERE. but i am also a pragmatist and i understand that in some ways it's too late! the dream of an AI-free AO3 or whatever is dead. people are going to use it. and we can organize online witchhunts and develop ever more sophisticated tools for hunting down AI use in fandom etc etc. but i think we also have to think about like... does bringing that energy into fandom spaces also risk destroying the things we hold dear about these communities? if what we want to build are communities of friends who love the same cultural texts and who thrive on discussing those texts and making art about them together... doesn't creating a culture of fear, suspicion, paranoia, policing each other, etc risk destroying those communities just as much as AI use does?

idk. i am torn here i am still working through my own feelings about this. but i think where i land at the moment is something like: if we want to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others, we need to identify the behaviors we value most and think about how we can positively reinforce those behaviors, create environments and ways of engaging with each other that nurture those behaviors, and address the structural or interpersonal obstacles that might prevent those behaviors from flourishing. i think THAT should be our focus (and i have more thoughts about what that might look like). but also within that i think there is still room for us to be clear about "hey, doing X isn't cool in this community!", not in a witchhunt way but in a "hey, you're new here, let's talk about the norms we've developed over the years." (i think, as i have said in the tags on various posts), a big part of the issue is that many people don't KNOW the norms or understand why we hold those values because they came into fandom via very different routes than longtime fans! and that is another problem that we need to think about too, like how and where do new generations of fans learn the norms and traditions of the communities they are joining, and also how do we account for the fact that cultural/community traditions are living things that change over time and the norms of 15 years ago may not apply today or may need to be reconsidered.)

OKAY but I realize I am not directly answering your question. i think there is no one right answer here. you are probably not going to like my answer, which is that you don't need AI to fix your grammar or catch your typos or tell you how to express something more clearly. that's what betas are for! (and maybe thinking about how we build/rebuild robust cultures of betaing is one of those obstacles we have to think about.) when i finish a fic, i don't run it through grammarly. i send it to the friends who have been cheerleading me through the whole process and say something like AAAAA I CANNOT LOOK AT THIS FOR A SECOND LONGER CAN YOU HELP MEEEEEE DOES IT SUCK IS IT AWFUL HELP MEEEEEE SHOULD I DELETE IT ALL, and those friends, as an act of love and friendship, read my draft, suggest changes where they see issues, respond to comments i've left in the margins like HOW DO I SAY THIS DOES THIS SUCK, and reassure me that publishing this will not destroy my reputation and force me to fake my death and abscond to a sheep farm on a remote scottish island where i will be forced to live out my days without access to writing implements. and then, hopefully, at some point in the future, i will get to pay this loving attention/care back to them or pay it forward to other writes. to me that whole experience is SUCH a core part of fannish culture and fannish friendships that the "why not use AI for that" argument literally doesn't make sense to me. why on earth would I need to introduce AI into one of my all-time favorite human-to-human experiences?