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Staffing Confessions

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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 2:29:05 GMT
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Jun 27, 2024 14:31:39 GMT said:
At this point the hobby is so riddled with AI that it’s starting to give me a mental breakdown. I can’t even tell some of them apart anymore and it’s like you need a full time staff member just to police the AI stuff. I hate it so much and wish it would disappear already. But since it’s not I guess it’s time to actually find somebody to police it bc I don’t have the time for it plus everything else on my plate (rp and rl!!!)


It's sad. And this is affecting other creative communities too. Literary magazines like Clarkesworld shut down their submissions at one point due to the sheer number of AI-generated writing they were receiving. It's a mess, and it's such labor-intensive work to sort through it for actual work from creatives.
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 6:27:50 GMT
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Jun 29, 2024 1:14:53 GMT said:
you'd be surprised. I had a guy apply to a discord RP using an AI post as his writing sample (we only require a writing sample for canons, not an app). I don't think I would have given him a second chance, and I haven't offered to RP with him.


obviously people do it, otherwise it wouldn't be a complaint; but like... i just don't get how anyone could look @ what ai outputs and think "wow, this is good and compelling writing that others will want to engage with". also; why not just use ai to rp with yourself? it's a lot faster than waiting for response from others...
last edit on Jun 29, 2024 6:31:57 GMT by bc
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 7:02:01 GMT
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unrelated to the ai stuff, but i love when i have to make a reminder that there's no set portrayal of canon characters because of how many mediums the site takes inspo from. like no, i don't have to make a note on the canon list that there's a "derivation" from canon for a character so it's "easy to see at a glance". we have no set canon! read the damn app!
last edit on Jun 29, 2024 7:02:35 GMT by hanny



ashes to ashes, dust to dust
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 9:53:07 GMT
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Jun 29, 2024 6:27:50 GMT said:
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Jun 29, 2024 1:14:53 GMT said:
you'd be surprised. I had a guy apply to a discord RP using an AI post as his writing sample (we only require a writing sample for canons, not an app). I don't think I would have given him a second chance, and I haven't offered to RP with him.
obviously people do it, otherwise it wouldn't be a complaint; but like... i just don't get how anyone could look @ what ai outputs and think "wow, this is good and compelling writing that others will want to engage with". also; why not just use ai to rp with yourself? it's a lot faster than waiting for response from others...

I'll disclaim this with '*Savatage blares* that could never be me, yeah, yeah, yeah', and I wouldn't condone it from my member base, but I think I can at least understand the desire to use AI for certain parts of the play-by-post experience. If the main thing you want to do is the end goal of back-and-forth writing improv, stuff like apps (especially longer ones, with more require fields) can feel like a chore. I've bemoaned my fair share of app writing despite thinking of apps as a useful, if not sometimes necessary resource; I've written apps for friends, if that was what it took to get them to RP with me. Writing samples are a particularly contentious application section. Using an AI to write it for you completely defeats the purpose, but you already doesn't respect it, I'm like. "Yeah, I can imagine the guy who'd do that."

As for using it for posts... yeah, that I struggle to even imagine, sdfjdhskljfsdh. I guess all writing quality is really subjective, and even then, a monkey with a typewriter and infinite time will eventually recreate the Count of Monte Cristo. Maybe it's people with insecurities about their own writing who still want to experience the back-and-forth of RP, but I have a hard time imagining having a computer spit out posts for you would scratch the same itch. You're not even a participant of the thread at that point - just another onlooker. (I do think it could be fun to do a forum game 'crack' thread where both parties use AI to generate posts just to see how ridiculous it gets, sorta like that Hunger Games generator but tailored to the play-by-post format. In order to feel comfortable with that in this age of creative theft in AI learning, though, you'd have to find a way to make sure it's really only scraping the writing you yourself feed it (presumably, in this case, from your own posts with that character).)
last edit on Jun 29, 2024 9:54:18 GMT by pharaoh leap
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 10:15:53 GMT
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AI can greatly enhance role-playing in written form by:

* Maintaining consistency and continuity in character traits and dialogue
* Providing quick and accurate responses to player inputs
* Creating diverse and realistic characters with complex behaviors
* Allowing for non-linear storytelling and adaptive narratives
* Ensuring error-free dialogue
* Freeing up human writers to focus on high-level creative decisions
* Making the experience more accessible to a wider audience
* Reducing costs by eliminating the need for human writers, actors, or voice actors
* Providing valuable insights into player behavior and preferences

Overall, AI-powered role-playing can create a more immersive, engaging, and responsive experience that adapts to the player's actions and preferences.
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 11:28:56 GMT
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Jun 29, 2024 10:15:53 GMT said:
AI can greatly enhance role-playing in written form by:

* Maintaining consistency and continuity in character traits and dialogue
* Providing quick and accurate responses to player inputs
* Creating diverse and realistic characters with complex behaviors
* Allowing for non-linear storytelling and adaptive narratives
* Ensuring error-free dialogue
* Freeing up human writers to focus on high-level creative decisions
* Making the experience more accessible to a wider audience
* Reducing costs by eliminating the need for human writers, actors, or voice actors
* Providing valuable insights into player behavior and preferences

Overall, AI-powered role-playing can create a more immersive, engaging, and responsive experience that adapts to the player's actions and preferences.

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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 12:57:23 GMT
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Jun 29, 2024 11:28:56 GMT said:
Sharp Avatar
Jun 29, 2024 10:15:53 GMT said:
AI can greatly enhance role-playing in written form by:

* Maintaining consistency and continuity in character traits and dialogue
* Providing quick and accurate responses to player inputs
* Creating diverse and realistic characters with complex behaviors
* Allowing for non-linear storytelling and adaptive narratives
* Ensuring error-free dialogue
* Freeing up human writers to focus on high-level creative decisions
* Making the experience more accessible to a wider audience
* Reducing costs by eliminating the need for human writers, actors, or voice actors
* Providing valuable insights into player behavior and preferences

Overall, AI-powered role-playing can create a more immersive, engaging, and responsive experience that adapts to the player's actions and preferences.

yeah i'm pretty sure it's a joke as that's ai generated
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 15:02:37 GMT
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Ever since AI came out, I knew it'd be used in the rp community, it made me sad to know that the creative uniqueness of roleplayers would dwindle even further. The sad reality is we'll end up in a place in the near future where AI writing is acceptable and to speak against it is the new 'uncool'. So long as the younger generation of rpers are introduced to AI, it'll become the norm to them, and gradually they will replace us, until it becomes rather rare to find someone who doesn't use AI.

I think about deviantart, and how it used to be so common to see the artists original characters, soon that was replaced by paid content, people not drawing their own creations but being paid to draw others, finally now the place is littered with AI art.

We are all just people getting old, being replaced by the 'new'; new attitude, new opinions new tolerances. Eventually we all find ourselves in a position of our grandparents 'back in my day, we wrote posts, none of this AI robot junk, those were the good days'. People will use AI for people they don't want to write with, so they can get to posts they want to reply to, because they are lazy, tired, busy etc they'll do it because they can't think of anything to write, on and on.

All writing depression aside, how do you guys police ai writing? Is there a website you can go to in order to see if it's written by AI or not? I admit I have been overly paranoid with everyone I write with now wondering if I'm dealing with ai writing of some kind. So if there is a way to be sure I'd love that. 
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 17:54:43 GMT via mobile
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yknow, assuming companies don’t keep hemmoraghing money on AI lmao. ai’s supposed longevity is what the marketing team wants you to think. it is tech hype at its finest. the technology behind chatgpt is one of the oldest in the field; the only thing that makes it viable now versus back then is that we have far better computers and far more of them, but most things in efficiency are exponential in cost.

as for policing ai, the only guaranteed way to know someone used ai in writing is if they admit to it. there are no technologies that can 100% certify that someone used ai; maybe it can identify most ai writing, but that too is different from recognising whether or not ai was used at any point in the process.
last edit on Jun 29, 2024 18:06:03 GMT by bc
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 17:59:14 GMT via mobile
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Jun 29, 2024 9:53:07 GMT said:
snip.

(I do think it could be fun to do a forum game 'crack' thread where both parties use AI to generate posts just to see how ridiculous it gets, sorta like that Hunger Games generator but tailored to the play-by-post format. In order to feel comfortable with that in this age of creative theft in AI learning, though, you'd have to find a way to make sure it's really only scraping the writing you yourself feed it (presumably, in this case, from your own posts with that character).)


definitely viable! language learning is a really simple concept when you get down to it, and there’s guides and githubs for how to build your own models out there lmao. i think it would produce more interesting results too, if the goal is nonsense
you’d need a decent corpus of posts tho
last edit on Jun 29, 2024 18:00:07 GMT by bc
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 18:39:52 GMT via mobile
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hear me out:

as someone who uses free-to-use ai to roleplay with (to clarify: i write with the ai), a lot of them really aren't as bad as people claim it is when it comes to writing. a lot of these bots that i've used are near as good as actual people. the writing you get is rather simple. less creative and flowery than an actual person could get. i doubt ai will get to that point any time soon, if at all. regardless, some people (me) write in a similar way.

these are developed by roleplayers/independents (not large corps), providing for other roleplayers for free without subs (sometimes they do) or ads too! like... not even using something like chatgpt from the tap. granted, i would never use it to generate posts for someone as i find that disrespectful.

regardless, i think it is near impossible to discern who is using ai or not in terms of writing. like i said, there are bots that are real good. if you go through the typical flaws, such as slight repetition, some of those are prevalent in human error too. trying to fish out who is replying using ai or not will end up turning into a toxic practice real fast.

i'm always on the stance of like... just let people do what they want to do. if it makes them happy and doesn't harm in a way that is physicall/mentally damaging, then don't waste your energy. you can't control others' actions, just your own.

if you don't like ai, don't use it. sign petitions against it. write with people that have the same views as you do as they likely will not use ai to write their posts. try not to let fear consume you over what other people are doing that doesn't outright harm you. if ai dies out as a technology, it does and that's great! means it wasn't as innovative as we thought and as a people, we'll move onto the next idea. if it stays, then it'll get better and you might even get an ai that can identify potential ai responses / artworks if it doesn't already exist. it'll likely become a part of our daily lives like computers did and cellphones.

technological development in the world can be scary and it very well is (i am, personally, very concerned about cyber security and fear that). so, i get it.
last edit on Jun 29, 2024 18:44:14 GMT by porsef
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 21:11:15 GMT
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as someone who works in tech, generative ai is not the way. and it will probably go the way of NFTs. at most, generative AI is just machine learning repackaged and rebranded into something trendy. it's ethically wrong considering the dataset is scraped without consent, and it is just used as a poor replacement for actual creatives. and not only that, it's an environmental disaster.

but aside from all those thing, i question why people would even use AI in this hobby. it doesn't matter if your dataset is based on your own posts, or you're making those character AI bots. if you're not creative enough to write your own character, you should consider other hobbies that isn't collaborative writing lol.
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 22:05:01 GMT
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and not only that, it's an environmental disaster.


This doesn't get highlighted enough.


I've seen enough AI drivel being submitted as though it were genuine work that I'm disappointed in people.

And if you're in the roleplay business because you want to feed prompts to a language learning model and put that out to others, then I'll pass. I can feed prompts to learning models myself if I want that experience.


Some of the freelancers I worked with have not been given new work because a big publisher decided that, you know what? A learning model can do translation for us, it's just replacing x word with y word anyway! And editing the nonsense those learning models put out is such a laborious chore, freelancers have to be brought on to make sense of the translation anyway (but at a lowered rate, because it's just correcting an LLM's output, even though the workload increases).

These things are doing actual harm to people's livelihoods as well as to the planet.
last edit on Jun 29, 2024 22:05:52 GMT by traveller
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 29, 2024 22:44:14 GMT
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AI literally scrapes content without the consent of the original creator. it's stealing, plain and simple. "if you don't like AI, don't use it." is such a bad take because of that fact alone. if you cannot guarantee the AI you are using is only learning from your content, you are actively contributing to the problem of people's content getting taken with or without their consent. it's extremely irresponsible to imply it's no more than a preference. lmao
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Staffing Confessions written Jun 30, 2024 1:03:27 GMT
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Jun 29, 2024 18:39:52 GMT said:
hear me out:

as someone who uses free-to-use ai to roleplay with (to clarify: i write with the ai), a lot of them really aren't as bad as people claim it is when it comes to writing. a lot of these bots that i've used are near as good as actual people. the writing you get is rather simple. less creative and flowery than an actual person could get. i doubt ai will get to that point any time soon, if at all. regardless, some people (me) write in a similar way.

these are developed by roleplayers/independents (not large corps), providing for other roleplayers for free without subs (sometimes they do) or ads too! like... not even using something like chatgpt from the tap. granted, i would never use it to generate posts for someone as i find that disrespectful.


hi! i've also use free-to-use ai to rp w/ on my own time! that's what i'm drawing from actually when i say that ai writing is quite cliche. it's not just that the style is more simple / less flowery. its just- cliched and repetitive because the corpus is scraped off of places like ao3 and amazon books; unlike chatgpt, you can't just draw from the entire body of the internetβ€”which makes the corpus smaller and a more prevalent tendency to repeat specific phrases. of course, i used ai for more longform writing experiments, so in a smaller post setting, there might be less obvious repetition (not to mention token retention/memory limits), but since we both agree that using ai to reply to posts feels very disrespectful and not of the spirit of the hobby, that's totally different in my mind.

granted, i've read fanfiction with similar quality to ai lmao. i'm personally not in the business of trying to identify everybody who uses ai, b/c i agree about it getting toxic af fast. (looking @ u art twitter i mean x for accusing any good artist under the sun for using ai.) plus i'm just not about getting all paranoid and policing anyone in generalβ€”i wish i could feel truly offended about it but i don't have the bandwidth for that. but just for me personally, while i think the writing is serviceable enough (as long as you're devoted to correcting and guiding the ai by the hand), it... definitely stands out to me as being, while technically fine, in terms of engaging writing; meh? i'm at a disadvantage here because i've read so much fanfiction @ this point that i can spot the writing tropes/phrases - ai in particular feels like the most distilled and blatant presentation of them lmao sometimes.

not arguing that ai can't write serviceably (i do realise the way i originally worded it might have come across like that, but i did genuinely just mean i found the writing to be consistently stale bread and a caricature of tropey writing) tho again it really does require a human to lead it by the hand b/c it obviously has no clue what it's writing. just that even rewriting 90% of what ai produces, i like my writing w/o ai involvement a lot better; and i suppose i have the assumption that most people would recognise the same and be more disappointed by the ai writing, so the idea of using it is sort of ... not shameful to me? just that i know the end product will be worse off for it aaand... yeah :/


edit; and i'm not addressing the ethical & legal concerns, of which are plenty and i don't feel like i could fully address with all the specifics in a forum post lmao. i find the most egregious aspect of ai like chatgpt is the monetization and lack of recompense, much less the more broad lack of consent - the fact that these ais can sometimes spit out word for word or paraphrased of other people's content puts into question how transformative these ais are; but that goes into a legal discussion that i am not qualified for askjfld
last edit on Jun 30, 2024 3:55:33 GMT by bc
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