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And while we're talking about ai theft: turn. off. grammarly. Disable it. Delete it. Get that shit off of your computer ASAP.
I never realized how much of my shit is scanned by grammarly until today. It scans my emails, my text posts on this bewitched platform, my wips on google docs, my youtube comments--literally everything ive ever typed on my laptop is scanned by grammarly. And I've been allowing this to happen for years.
Turn. Off. Grammarly.
How are you live what's happening with ao3 and the AI? Does it discourage you in any way from publishing your stories?
Great question. I haven't archive locked my stories and don't plan to. That's a personal decision I've made for myself and my own content, and that doesn't mean I don't wholeheartedly support my fellow authors who do so. But I'm of the (again personal) opinion that my works already have been scraped, and will continue to be scraped in some capacity. As have all of my texposts on here.
I appreciate the work the OTW is doing to take down data on other sites where it has been scraped. I think that's absolutely the right course of action. But personally, I am under no illusions that by archive-locking my fics, I am 100% preventing the scraping/sharing/AI use of my content. And at this point, even when we first learned of that big "scrape" a while back, it was too late.
My goal is to make my content as widely available for readers as possible, which comes with drawbacks. Archive-locking fics came with a significant reduction in hits/comments/kudos for some authors, and I decided that was a risk I personally did not want to take. Especially when, again, I was of the belief that many of my fics had already been scraped/were vulnerable to being scraped before we learned about these mass-scraping incidents.
Additionally, I'm quite certain people have been feeding my fics into AI processors, ChatGPT, etc, for a while now. It's not something I have control over, and people will continue to do it even when they know it's wrong. Even with ao3 accounts.
I don't own my fanfiction content, I can't make money off of it, and I don't want to. This would be a very different conversation if I did. Truthfully, my only hope is that by continuing to write a/b/o, and large amounts of it, I can "spike" whatever dataset is using my fics. That thought brings me joy, even if it's a little silly and far-fetched with these better algorithms.
EMERGENCY AUTHOR UPDATE
I feel like this needs to be warned about. Everything on Ao3 that isn't set to private, HAS been data scraped and fed to 3 data sites that provide data for AI training, including writing and artwork.
Yes, this includes my entire Ennead series and everything else I've ever written and posted. As well as anything you all have written but not made private.
Ao3's legal team is fighting it and one site has made the data unavailable, but the other two aren't based in the USA so the fight is harder.
This is frustrating and upsetting news, especially for those of us who now need to pick between our Guest readers who have supported us for a long time and protecting the hard work that we've put our hearts and souls into and I just ask that we support each other and our choices during this time.
The link here has more details but from now on, until I can be sure there's a way to protect my work, which I've spent decades writing and planning, my stories will be posted for members of the site only.
Ao3 Data Scrapping and Mining
I found this article about this and how they are doing it. Incredible. They are purposely stealing our fiction data, and so open about it. And teaching others how to do it.
It seems shocking to me. Is this happening now
I had the dual purpose of getting started with web scraping/text mining and actually fetching some insights from fanfics I read and love…
from the article-
" I found Archive of Our Own (AO3) being a good playground since it doesn’t have confusing UI or overwhelming Javascript to complicate things; plus, all the HTML classes and IDs are very sensible and organized, which I felt grateful for later on."
"The code is very specific to AO3’s web structure. But I’d imagine it being useful to someone looking for a quick review of web scraping from scratch or someone interested in conducting similar fandom research. In any case, who can resist the temptation of such a vibrant, diverse, ever-growing repertoire of user-generated textual information."
Massive PSA to ALL artists who may be on Twitter, please protect yourself. I just wiped all my art off that shit site, so unfortunately a lot of NSFW art that could be viewed on there will not be available. Some is available on Slasher app, and a bit on Pixiv. I will try to post old lewd art on pixiv and any relevant lewds on Slasher app. I'm really thinking of looking into just getting my own website to display all works uncensored depending on the cost.
To give more context on what the XAi program will be doing here is a link to an article with interview answers from the Mustyness himself:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced plans for a new artificial intelligence company on Friday, called xAI. The AI startup is Musk’s sixth company,
A quote from said article:
'He also claimed that xAI’s use of Twitter data would not be much different from what many are already using the platform for, adding that it would primarily be used for “text training” and “image and video training.”
“I guess we will use the public tweets — obviously not anything private* — for training as well, just like basically everyone else has,” Musk said.'
He will be using data from private accounts, what Elon means is likely data of birthdates and addresses.
I added ALT descriptions now to the image, I didn't have time before (I'm working on an overly detailed art piece right now), I hope that helps all with screen readers!
Everyone talks about how AI is ruining art and media and Swiss cheesing our brains (which is true) but I don't think we've delved deep enough into the actual data it's scraping on you, specifically.
We know the companies that make AI aren't in it to help you do homework and impress your boss. To start, they really want to know how to better sell you their sweatshop slop, which means they need to know as much as possible about You.
Let's begin with chatGPT. It's Google's software, so it already has your name, address, birthday, location, and search history. It knows where you go and what you buy. If you've ever been on the news (even "Theater troupe makes it to Regionals" or "LGBT Alliance Fundraiser a Huge Success!") it's there. Your emails. Your video calls. Your fucking calendar. It's all right there.
Now let's say you go on chatGPT - which already has reams of proof to back up who's asking - and posit some questions. "How do I know if I'm trans" "How to change your name" "How can I apply for disability benefits" "What does my autism diagnoses mean" "Best charity to donate to Palestine" etc etc. You want data? Baby, that's the good shit. But how to utilize it for financial gain?
What happens when the fascist government says: "We need a list of all trans / disabled / autistic / pro-palestine people. We think they'll really like Florida." Guess who received up to $200 million dollars each to contract with the US Department of Defense? Why, Google, Anthropic, and xAI of course!
You can't say you were hacked or that it was a one-time mistake. They know full well you bought that Bad Dragon dong, shipped to your home address and never returned. They know you searched for therapists who specialize in autism. They know you regularly donate to a starving Palestinian family. If you think these corporations are going to sit on that tasty, tasty data when there's a dollar to be made, you aren't seeing the big picture.
And that fucking terrifies me.
Just switched to Ecosia the browser! It dedicates money to planting trees and restoration projects as well as being a more sustainable option :)
I've been trying to be more conscious of what programs I'm using and made it my default after googles constant shovelling of ai pissed me off lol. Alongside that, recently I switched to storing my writing and documents on the website Ellipsus due to their anti-ai policies as I didnt want google docs scraping my work or restricting it based on censorship <3
I also use 4thewords with writing as its super motivating and I love developing a whole character going on missions to fight monsters based off if my word count
All in all I was worried about Ecosia being too different but honestly its super smooth, took me two seconds and a button to switch over and didnt even have to transfer any tabs over.
Google does not have to be the only option!! There are people working to make a difference with technology and I'm content with using two writing programs which support artists and authors and a browser that will plant trees based off of my activity and time spent using it :))
If anyone has even more reccomendations, I'm aleays happy to hear about more great projects and websites like this
