Clarkesworld Magazine temporarily closed story submissions due to a massive increase in AI-generated stories created with ChatGPT and submitted by people seeking quick financial gain, overwhelming the publication's ability to process legitimate submissions.
In February 2023, Clarkesworld Magazine, a renowned science fiction publication that pays 12 cents per word, experienced a dramatic surge in AI-generated story submissions created using ChatGPT and other large language models. Editor Neil Clarke reported that banned submissions rose from around 25 per month in October 2022 to over 500 in February 2023, with the increase coinciding with ChatGPT's release on November 30, 2022. The submissions were primarily driven by people from outside the science fiction community following 'side hustle' experts promoting easy money schemes using ChatGPT for writing. By February 2023, AI spam submissions requiring bans reached 38% of total submissions. The magazine's submission guidelines explicitly state they do not consider AI-written or AI-assisted stories, but submitters ignored these rules. Clarke noted that AI detection tools are unreliable with high false positive rates, making automated filtering impractical. The overwhelming volume forced the magazine to temporarily close submissions entirely on February 20, 2023, after receiving over 50 submissions in one morning. The incident affected the magazine's operations, increased response times, and potentially impacted legitimate authors seeking publication opportunities.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to gain a personal advantage over others such as through cheating, fraud, scams, blackmail or targeted manipulation of beliefs or behavior. Examples include AI-facilitated plagiarism for research or education, impersonating a trusted or fake individual for illegitimate financial benefit, or creating humiliating or sexual imagery.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed