Question Rules regarding the use of AI/artificial intelligence to write on BMR?

[River-Keeps-The-Stories]

Does Blue Moon have any rules or expectations around the use of AI writing vs. real human writing?

I read the rules and FAQ and didn't see this addressed.

It's important to me to know what kind of text I'm consuming. Then I can make an informed decision on how and if to engage with it.

Are there any guidelines here in terms of using or not using AI to generate discussion or request posts, roleplay content, PMs, etc? Or any conventions on labeling such LLM-generated text if used?

Thank you!

 

[Siph]

There are no rules explicitly banning or restricting LLM/AI usage, and as far as I'm aware there are no plans to add an LLM-specific policy because of how hard it'd be to enforce for the small amount of moderation staff we have. I've seen some request threads specifically mention they don't use LLMs and don't want to play with anyone who does, and very few threads that specifically say they do, but there's no official labeling guidelines and most RTs don't label anything at all.

However, at least from what I've seen in the discussion forums, the vast majority of users participating in discussion threads are vocally against LLM-usage for writing--though opinions on image generation tend to vary more.

 

[Staine]

I don't believe there are any rules specifically forbidding the use of AI on the site in any capacity, you just have to use your own judgement. It would be very difficult to police in most cases, there can be a lot of false positives or false negatives if you rely on eyeballing it or even using a site that claims to detect it as people tend to have vastly different writing styles. Be upfront about it, say that you don't want anything AI in your RP's and hopefully people will respect that.

 

[River-Keeps-The-Stories]

Thanks, I appreciate the information. I agree it would be very hard to enforce.

 

[Ryees]

BMR staff has been working on the official policy around AI writing for some time now. We're still fine-tuning exactly what that is going to say, and how it is going to say it, but here is the bullet point version:

There is no possible way for us to effectively police the use of AI writing across the site, but we believe that writing forums are, at their roots, a place writers come to write with other writers. If you are going to use AI to write your posts, we think you should feel an obligation to disclose this in your Request Thread and messages to prospective partners. Don't try to sell something you didn't write as something you did. Some people will be aggressively anti-AI, some will not care whatsoever, and there will be middling opinions; but you should allow the people you're writing with to make those decisions for themselves.

 

[River-Keeps-The-Stories]

Very well said! This is exactly the sort of policy I hoped for. I don't care if people want to agree on using AI, I just want the freedom to know and decide.

 

[Chrystal Dark]

I'm not sure if expressing an opinion in this thread is appropriate, if not please feel free to remove or move this post.

The idea of using an AI to write a story, to me, defeats the object of writing a story. This is a place where I want to express my own creativity, not have some computer program express it's "alleged creativity".

Equally, if I want to write with an AI as my writing partner, there are plenty of apps I can download that will do that

However, I will say that for me, this applies to writing. When it comes to art work, face-claims etc, I used to spend literally hours hunting google looking for the picture that best matched my vision of a character. AI has shortened that to minutes, because I can tell it what the character looks like and get an instant rendering.

In particular, fantasy and sci-fi characters. One alien species I created, an amphibious race called the "Bruth^ie" were based off a single art image that I found randomly on the internet. For ages that was the only image I had for the species despite re-using them. But with AI, I can create as many different pictures as I want...

nsfw

All created from AI.

Edit to add: That said, if someone asks me not to use AI gen pictures, I will respect that!

 

[River-Keeps-The-Stories]

That's highly relatable. I feel much the same way about writing. And I can see your point about image generation. If it's a tool that helps you visualize something, it's giving you access to a benefit you didn't otherwise have. I don't enjoy it myself but as we say, YKINMK and that's okay. =)

 

[echo]

I've seen a lot of threads talking about AI writing. A lot of people have entered in their thoughts/opinions/etc. on them as well. Most will have their views posted on the subject in their request threads, whether or not they will write with others who use it. Spell check and all that; most use it, so as long as you are open about it. Like, I use Grammarly due to my overuse of commas and its built-in synonym feature, but I don't pay for the premium version. The free one has what I like, and I use it as an aid, not a means to write the materials when I used to write.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy and find many like-minded writers here!

 

[OutlawPrince]

Using AI is fine to proof read, maybe refine your work and to create images, but actually using it to do the writing is a huge red flag to me. Though these days it is difficult to spot.

 

[Phantasia]

If you purposely take some time to write with an AI partner, it makes it so easy to spot when you see it again. They have all the same patterns when they craft a response- there is a formula that tells them how the beat should go in a reply. I may even have a partner that is using AI in our chats now, all of their answers utilize the formula.

 

[Chrystal Dark]

Then again, I've known real people who would fail the Turing test... as their answers are indistinguishable from that of a machine!

 

[RachelS]

If I don't know my partner is using AI to write, I don't care. As mentioned, using AI for images is OK for me, I do it sometimes myself, especially for fantasy/sci-fi it's almost necessary if I can't find images of an artist. I also use AI to polish my writing, because I'm not a native English speaker.But I'm here because I want to create my own stories, so using AI for writing doesn't make sense to me. Maybe if AI trained itself on my writing, it could imitate my style, but what's the point anyway. If I stop creating, there's no point in me being here.

 

[Ryees]

To avoid this simply becoming another AI discussion thread, I'm going to lock it. The question was, "does BMR have an official stance on the use of AI," and that has now been answered.