Clarkesworld, a science fiction magazine, has banned new story submissions after receiving hundreds of low-quality AI-generated pieces
Science fiction magazine Clarkesworld has halted story submissions after receiving a growing deluge of AI-generated pieces. The magazine’s founding editor, Neil Clarke, says the problem has been created by people promoting surprisingly capable AI language models such as ChatGPT as a way to earn money from fiction publishing – despite the poor quality of the AI stories.
“The machine-written submissions we’ve received are far from publishable quality,” he says. “I’m sure there are some that are less detectable, but the majority we’ve received have been easy for me to identify.”
Clarke says that he has talked to other magazine editors who currently have the same problem, although he says they have been reluctant to speak to the press – as he was, until the problem grew to unsustainable levels.
The magazine normally has an open submission policy to encourage new writers, but took the decision to close submissions on 20 February after receiving 50 AI-generated story submissions that day. At that point, Clarkesworld had received 700 legitimate submissions since the start of the month and 500 machine-generated ones, with the rate of increase meaning that AI-generated stories would soon take over.
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