Discussion AI Disclaimers

[Darth Virelia]

Grammar checks and the printing press is a far cry from a machine learning algorithm that takes its prose from countless sources.

It’s not genuine.

I’m here to write with people and their own creativity.
If I wanted to write with an AI chat bot I’d go do that myself.

There’s a difference between “I want to interact with a flesh and blood person” and “ye olde scribe who’s upset the printing press stole his job.”

Oh — according to people not too long ago — it indeed was.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronimo_Squarciafico

Give this guy a read.

Elizabeth Eisenstein — The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979)
Adrian Johns — The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998)

Read.

Johannes Trithemius — In Praise of Scribes (De Laude Scriptorum, 1492)

And here is your ye old monk — who said the same thing.

They all say the same thing — the printing press wasn't universally accepted. In fact, it went through the exact process we are having now with AI — with people bringing up long-dead talking points on the matter.

Purity-testing people just either makes them hide what they are doing, not admit to it — or become paranoid. Let's not do that if we want a functioning site in 5–10 years' time.

As Azurine Varek said — let's not start a fire we won't be able to stop.

No one is saying you have to like or interact with AI — just remind yourself that you're practically trying to wall the site off from the future of writing. That's an unrealistic — and frankly silly — goal. Pushing such an idea hurts the community in the long run.

 

[Scavera]

go google "Dead Internet Theory" and buckle in its gonna be an anxiety ridden night

I'm familiar with it, and big dog, trust me. It makes me anxious.

 

[Scavera]

Oh — according to people not too long ago — it indeed was.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronimo_Squarciafico

Give this guy a read.

Elizabeth Eisenstein — The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979)
Adrian Johns — The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998)

Read.

Johannes Trithemius — In Praise of Scribes (De Laude Scriptorum, 1492)

And here is your ye old monk — who said the same thing.

They all say the same thing — the printing press wasn't universally accepted. In fact, it went through the exact process we are having now with AI — with people bringing up long-dead talking points on the matter.

Purity-testing people just either makes them hide what they are doing, not admit to it — or become paranoid. Let's not do that if we want a functioning site in 5–10 years' time.

As Azurine Varek said — let's not start a fire we won't be able to stop.

No one is saying you have to like or interact with AI — just remind yourself that you're practically trying to wall the site off from the future of writing. That's an unrealistic — and frankly silly — goal. Pushing such an idea hurts the community in the long run.

I didn't say that the monk was wrong. What I was saying it was a false comparison.
Having a robot generate plotlines and narratives for you (and sometimes entire works) is not the same.
The printing press allowed for people to expand their minds by giving access to materials that allowed them to learn to create -- it didn't create FOR THEM.

I was just saying the comparison wasn't accurate.

But I can see this discussion isn't going anywhere, a lot of heated language is starting to get thrown around.

I've said my own piece, I agree with the idea of AI disclaimers as I won't write with people who use AI personally -- and I would like to know that before I get eight threads deep with someone. Because then it is a waste of our own time, and if they want to write that bad, they can go write with a ChatBot.

Y'all have a good,
Meta-Christ bless.

 

[Tefka]

I'm familiar with it, and big dog, trust me. It makes me anxious.

Well, I will offer you the opposite now then, some calming salve for the anxiety you are familiar with. I have been a roleplayer for twenty years, an RP Admin and Dev for 10+ years, and a linux system admin both professionally and hobbyist for 15+ years.

The advent of AI in the age of information is an overall boon to the roleplay community. A net positive. And a strong reason for why a format that people said would be dead 7 years ago will continue to thrive. THRIVE.

I was told our format would be dead a decade ago. I get asked, to this day, why we are so large and so popular for our respective format by other admins in other fields trying to grow their forums and websites. The Admin team rejected an offer for advertising from a prominent gaming company like, 3 weeks ago.

We have survived the threat of COVID (which I thought was going to be a boon) and I suspect we're on the cusp of another golden age thanks to the swirl of events happening around our hobby.

The art of humans telling stories to other humans will last as long as our species draws breath. Our format, regardless of the controversies found within (as there will always be), is not surviving. It's thriving, and growing.

 

[Darth Virelia]

“The argument is getting heated.”

I’ll finish it off so you can chillax.

The printing press didn't just expand access — it also enabled widespread reuse and replication of ideas without attribution.

Sound familiar?

Johannes Trithemius, our boi, argued that printed books would make people less intellectually rigorous and spiritually lazy — the exact same argument now used against AI.

Your view that "AI creates for you, while the printing press only enabled creation" is a false dichotomy. The printing press automated reproduction of thought — something previously done painstakingly by hand. That is automation of part of the creative process. AI just automates a different part.

Systems either change or die.

So we can either go with the flow of automation or slowly suffocate ourselves to death.

 

[Scavera]

Well, I will offer you the opposite now then, some calming salve for the anxiety you are familiar with. I have been a roleplayer for twenty years, an RP Admin and Dev for 10+ years, and a linux system admin both professionally and hobbyist for 15+ years.

The advent of AI in the age of information is an overall boon to the roleplay community. A net positive. And a strong reason for why a format that people said would be dead 7 years ago will continue to thrive. THRIVE.

I was told our format would be dead a decade ago. I get asked, to this day, why we are so large and so popular for our respective format by other admins in other fields trying to grow their forums and websites. The Admin team rejected an offer for advertising from a prominent gaming company like, 3 weeks ago.

We have survived the threat of COVID (which I thought was going to be a boon) and I suspect we're on the cusp of another golden age thanks to the swirl of events happening around our hobby.

The art of humans telling stories to other humans will last as long as our species draws breath. Our format, regardless of the controversies found within (as there will always be), is not surviving. It's thriving, and growing.

I actually like your positivity here. And I appreciate that you can look on a brighter side of things than I can.

We might disagree, but I do enjoy your ability to be a genuine person. It's nice to have someone being positive even if they're on the opposite side of the table.

I have hope for the site, AI or not.

 

[Sophia of House Marr]

—

Everyone, quick, make "—" meta and we'll be indistinguishable from the robots.

Likely because I learned the techniques from the books and stories I liked most. If I had someone accuse me of AI and yelled at or ostrasized for it, especially by the people I love writing with, because of the linguistic styles that I worked with and developed over years I would be devastated.

The advent of AI in the age of information is an overall boon to the roleplay community. A net positive. And a strong reason for why a format that people said would be dead 7 years ago will continue to thrive. THRIVE.

These statements ring huge truth bells for me.

But I can see this discussion isn't going anywhere, a lot of heated language is starting to get thrown around.

I have hope for the site, AI or not.

People will get defensive in a discussion where they're basically being branded AI Chatbots. It can be used in a variety of ways that don't include "writing whole posts for you" that can enhance writing in avenues that would otherwise be very difficult. Pretend I want to write a scientist, but I've got no idea where to start or what sort of "terminology" they might use. I can be as creative as I want to be, but if I don't have the knowledge, and if I'm not sure how to find it or interpret it - AI can help do that.

Your choices of who you write with, as I stated before, are always yours. No one will argue that. But placing your standards at the feet of everyone else and expecting them to adhere just isn't going to happen. It's a community, not a solo show.

The site also just broke a record today...Pretty sure SWRP is doing great, AI, or otherwise.

 

[Tefka]

I'm not being positive, I'm being sincere, and I believe its inevitable. Just look at how art, music, and writing (the liberal arts) are becoming available to the average consumer. Moral concerns aside (thats for the developers to address), it is a inevitable conclusion that storytelling is gaining tools only the very skilled had access to a decade ago - and for less money.

 

[Tefka]

Also, most of the code written for you guys' postbits, avatars, all the cool things we use on the website - written or aided by AI.

None of you are pure.

 

[Scavera]

Also, most of the code written for you guys' postbits, avatars, all the cool things we use on the website - written or aided by AI.

None of you are pure.

No ethical consumption.

 

[Darth Virelia]

Everyone, quick, make "—" meta and we'll be indistinguishable from the robots.

I WILL DIE ON THE EM DASH HILL!

with all respect however, it's just ingrained.​

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

Idk why everybody's mad at Al but if he wants to write a star war or two I say let him

 

[Mellifluous Magenta]

Idk why everybody's mad at Al but if he wants to write a star war or two I say let him

Yes! We have everything to gain by allowing the 2001 NBA MVP and 11x NBA All-Star to write on the board! He's the Answer to all our problems!

 

[Allyson Locke]

Free my beloved em dash!

 

[Azurine Varek]

I WILL DIE ON THE EM DASH HILL!

with all respect however, it's just ingrained.​

Free my beloved em dash!

Viva La em dash!

 

[Darth Avida]

Everyone, quick, make "—" meta and we'll be indistinguishable from the robots.

jokes on you I've been doing that since 2009

 

[Sophia of House Marr]

jokes on you I've been doing that since 2009

high fives all around

THE HIGHEST OF FIVES

 

[Darth Avida]

I saw some writing recently that was very clearly AI written, and this idea randomly popped into my head. As part of my studies we had to disclose where and when we used AI as part of technical texts and seminars, which got me thinking.

What are your thoughts about disclosing when AI was used in the creation of a post or piece of writing? There's been two discussions about AI on Chaos recently and a lot of folks have voiced being for, against, or indifferent to AI. Would it change your opinion of the content? Would it make no difference? Why?

I'm not asking for or encouraging policy to force people to do it to be clear (and I believe Tefka wouldn't support it, wisely). It's an idea I haven't seen floated around yet, so I wanted to get a feel for where the culture stands on it.

Something like a brief line or along the lines of this image (source: this redditor) at the top/bottom of a post:

Spoiler

If people want to disclose it, sure. I haven't and don't see myself using it as part of my actual writing and also don't care if other people do so I don't really care if this is something people want to ask people to disclose either (I have ethical reservations about corporations using it in such a way that it cuts people out of a paying job, but a dozen or whatever people on an RP site isn't going to put anyone out of a job considering this is a hobby website and nobody is harming anyone by using it as far as I'm aware).


My only reservations about this is a good handful of people don't have English as their first language and genuinely write their posts out and then use google translate prior to posting (I personally know two, neither of which are consistently on the forum anymore but considering I've known and interacted with them on the forum before I figure there might be more) which can sometimes look like it was written by a machine considering the odd way google translate and machine translating in general tends to literally translate words without regard for context sometimes (depends on the language).

The other is that AI-written stuff might seem obvious right now, because it tends to repeat itself and use a lot of dashes and ellipses or other "quirky" stuff, but the reason that those "quirks" exist in AI generated text is because.. well, people actually write like that. As mentioned a few times throughout the thread (and in the last 2 discussions about AI in RP) people have been using the "-" and em dash for well over a decade, a lot of people don't realize it but they tend to be circular in their writing whenever they want to buff up their word count or be verbose, and - being that this is a hobby - a lot of people aren't very good at writing realistic dialogue. We aren't professionals, really, and while there's nothing wrong with that I want to suggest to people who're expressing a lot of impassioned takes on generative AI to maybe take a step back and remember that it's actually not as easy to distinguish everything that's AI generated with the genuine article considering not everyone is as good as the idea we might have in our for what a "real writer" is, and AI is being improved every single year so (and this is me being cynical) it'll eventually be very hard to tell whether or not anything is actually real or not.


It's better to just not assume something is generative text/media without the other person stating as much than to risk alienating people (and possibly yourselves from people) by insinuating or stating that someone is using it when they might in fact not be.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

(tl;dr: if people want to share they use AI for writing that's okay and idc, but be careful about assuming people who aren't saying they do are in case their style of writing or something like google translate just appears to be so because you become at risk of appearing (or being) elitist in the case that you're wrong.)

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

If you need a disclaimer to tell you it is an AI written post, the argument is somewhat self-defeating. You literally need someone to self-report so you can be sure that it was AI.

"But I can tell...I know...I can see all the hallmarks of AI written posts..."

Then why the need for the disclaimer?

 

[Scavera]

If you need a disclaimer to tell you it is an AI written post, the argument is somewhat self-defeating. You literally need someone to self-report so you can be sure that it was AI.

"But I can tell...I know...I can see all the hallmarks of AI written posts..."

Then why the need for the disclaimer?

Personal preference.
I don't want to write with clankers.