Vol. 17 / Issue 62 / Spring 2023
"Waters Under a Stormy Sky" by Fariel Shafee
Fariel Shafee was born in South Asia, but spent her life around the world, including in Europe, USA and East Asia. She is an internationally exhibited painter and digital artist. In her other life she has degrees in physics from the USA.
Dear Readers,
Not long ago, our technical guru Rob called an emergency Zoom meeting for all NewMyths editors and volunteers. He took us through an exploration of OpenAI.com and specifically its module ChatGPT.
First, Rob asked the assembled folks to come up with some science fiction stuff. We threw out whatever came to mind: aliens, apocalyptic future, cyborgs, one-legged, ray guns, a hamster, and a few other unlikely elements. He jotted down everything, no matter how outlandish.
“Let’s generate some story ideas,” Rob said. He quickly wrote a prompt, “Give us story ideas for a science fiction story involving aliens, apocalyptic future, ray guns, a hamster….” ( See here...)
Faster than you can read this, ChatGPT returned ten story ideas with the above elements. Now, as a writer myself, I do lot of brainstorming. When stuck in a particular plot, I like to follow the advice of brainstorming the first ten ideas that come to mind … and then throwing them away on the theory that those are the ten ideas almost anyone would come up with. I then come up with the next ten ideas. From that list I select the one to pursue.
I can tell you that ChatGPT’s ten story ideas were easily as good as anything I could come up with. ( See here...)
Cries of dismay came from NewMyths’ volunteers.
“Let’s ask ChatGPT to write a story for us,” Rob continued, sadistically. We selected our favorite prompt :
The one-legged boy and his pet cyborg hamster must navigate a post-apocalyptic world where technology has failed and the few remaining survivors are hostile towards cyborgs."
He copied and pasted this back into the prompt box, with the added instruction Write a short story about….
Within seconds the program returned a completed, 15-page short story about a one-legged boy and his hamster cyborg....
We began reading. We read three pages aloud. This story was as good as about 50% of the submissions we receive. Amid the groaning and gnashing of teeth, our editor Susan resigned on the spot. “I’m too old … this is too much … I can’t stand this …”
We had to talk her down off the ledge.
“How about we ask ChatGPT to write poems based on our prompt?” Rob said, with the sort of glee a Geeksquadster displays when he charges you $100 to restart your device.
Again, Rob cut and pasted the story idea, instructing ChatGPT to write poems.
Blip—three serviceable poems created. Now, these were a lot poorer than the short story, but then again, a lot of poetry submissions don’t much resemble poetry either.
By then we editors, faces slack, brains numb, had accepted that writing and publishing would never be the same.
“There will be no writers,” Rob assured us. “The future will belong to those who write the best prompts.”
Now wait a minute! I wanted to shout. As someone who has spent an hour a day, five days a week writing for the past several years, this hurt worse than that time my martial arts instructor jabbed me in the throat.
Rob hadn’t finished.
“Let’s see what kind of artwork AI can come up with.” Rob took us to Midjouney.com, and there pasted the exact same ChatGPT story idea as a prompt. Seconds later, four digital paintings appeared. One of them would have made an excellent book cover, a dynamic and exciting scene with all the story elements convincingly used.
Rob went on to show us an entire book of AI generated floral arrangement ‘photographs’ he had created in the style of certain well-known Vogue photographers.
Incredible.
As a history buff, I have often envied my great grandparents their experience of seeing people go from the horse-and-buggy era, through train and automobiles, into avionics and even, with my great-grandmother Nellie Gail Moulton, the lunar landing. The “big changes” my generation had witnessed such as Al Gore’s invention of the internet … er, whatever … never seemed all that grand to me. Just faster, more efficient ways of doing the same.
But this—even if it is more properly called ‘simulated intelligence’ than artificial intelligence—this is huge. Even though I have no plans to use AI for my own writing, I will be competing with people who do. My big fear is that so many stories will be pumped out that traditional authors like me will disappear in all the noise, unable to find an audience.
This technology will not go away. It cannot be ignored.
Rob is right: Writing and publishing will never be the same.
After Rob’s presentation, we sat stunned. For a moment. And then we began, in our puny, flawed and human way, to brainstorm. I started watching and reading the reaction of other magazine editors, most of whom are trying to figure out ways to screen AI generated stories from their slush pile. That was my gut reaction also. End it. Kill it.
The problem with that, as I see it, is that detection tools are flawed. One software maker admitted its tool only detected AI-written stories 60% of the time, and flagged human-made stories as AI 10% of the time. And Rob assures me there exist tools specifically designed to fool the detection software.
NewMyths’ response to this technological tsunami will evolve over time. We reserve the right to change our policy as we learn. For the near term, we plan to embrace it. That’s right, we will accept AI generated stories alongside the others. If they are properly flagged.
We hope that this 'open policy' will encourage honesty and leave it up to the readers if they wish to read AI content or not.
Please find our official submission guidelines below.
~Scott T. Barnes, editor and founder
Submission period: January 1-February 28 & June 1-July 31 only.
Maximum 10,000 words.
Both human-only and AI-generated work now welcome
NewMyths will accept AI-generated content if you label it as such. Please use the
honor system. If you used an AI tool to create a draft of your work, no matter how
many times you rewrote it, please label it as an AI-generated story. NewMyths
will attach the "AI-generated" label to the published story.
Other uses of AI, such as for generating ideas, need not be flagged.
Copyright and AI
This is still being worked out by the courts. NewMyths reserves the right to
remove any content from its archives if such content comes under a copyright
dispute.
AI Creators Contest—Fall 2023
NewMyths will run a Homo sapien-only versus AI-generated contest in our Fall 2023 issue.
Readers will vote on their favorite stories and poems. Top three vote-getters will
receive one, two, or three of our original ebook anthologies respectively, in
addition to standard pay rates.
After the contest ends, the AI-generated stories will be revealed. Look for details
in the Fall 2023 issue….
Spot the Bot Contest—Winter 2023-24
In our Winter, 2023-24 issue (release date Dec 15, 2023) readers who properly
identify all the stories or poems generated by AI will receive a free ebook copy of
our first three anthologies: Passages, Twilight Worlds, and Neosapiens.
Look for details in the Winter, 2023 issue….
Table of Contents
FICTION
You might remember some headlines back in 2016 about the first time a gravitational wave was detected. Astronomers told an indifferent world that these events were the result of black holes merging.
It’s bad news when Doctor Whiskers pays us a visit.
The Circle Gate was barely visible this morning. Soft chalk-white-blue sky clear through the transparent circumference.
The day it rained rainbow frogs, I knew I was going to die.
I tried to wash the bull's blood off the Pillar of Vengeance. This was sacrilege, but Zeus doesn't bother with a woman past her prime.
FLASH FICTION
POETRY
NONFICTION