erios909
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Reponse to the Ai-Generation Allegations for Demoness
🕑 Added 2024-06-02 07:05:50 +0000 UTCTLDR; Demoness Book 3 is not 'AI-Generated' it was 'AI-Assisted' by using the AI as an editor and proofreader. It was not generated by some quick button press, but worked on me for many hours everyday until it was completed.
There was a huge blow up on reddit targeting me and the series. A conversation I had on discord was screenshotted and posted to the r/ProgFant, showing part of a chat I had with another author on how to use AI to help write. Some of the snippets were clipped, and then painted in a specific light to claim that the entire book was generated by AI.
The thread blew up, people think I'm a grifter trying to con people, and generally the outpouring of people hating on me for something I didn't do, jumping to conclusions, etc... has been greatly damaging I guess.
I don't know.
There is a lot of false information stirring and people just claiming things that aren't true, using snippets to try and paint a specific narrative. I feel like addressing them is needed.
One of the screenshots they are quoting frequently and focusing on was '20k words a day' like it was done in minutes, generating everything using AI and then somehow edited by me to be coherent, then used as some quick money grab.
That is plainly false.
That output referenced in the screenshot was the result of two days of effort working at my laptop 16+ hours. Or really, working at it all day long until I was too tired and passed out. Then woke up and started working on it some more.
I am often a torch writer--I burn hard for a while becoming obsessed with working on something until its done or I burn out. At the beginning of those types of phases I often become ecstatic and incredibly excited and focused on whatever it is.
When talking to the other author about it, I was elated because I was starting the new book and pumped about it.
The new workflow using the new writing software was extremely helpful in keeping the flow and me working on the story. The average amount of words I wrote over the course of the book dropped because the pace wasn't sustainable in the long term. (I always burn out, I was just able to accomplish more before that happened.)
Over the course of a month I wrote about ~5800 words a day, working 6-8 hours a day on that on average. That's just an estimate, because I am generally at my PC all the time... working or not.
I started working on Demoness 3 on March 21st (writing it that is, i had plans, ideas, a rough outline and such for where I wanted things to go already,) and finished on April 20th, Demoness 3 was ~175k words. The early days it was much more per day, being focused. It slowly moved to a lower amount because while I was still there at my pc, I would get distracted more, less focused, browsing youtube brainlessly, watching anime, playing games, etc. Just general... time wasting, like after your brain has turned off for the day.
So all that time at the pc wasn't spent working on it anymore, and there was less output. It was still easier than usual though. The fact that I would keep working on it in different bursts throughout the day was a lot different.
The 'story beats' are the rough draft and produced solely by me.
The AI is not turning 150 or even 300 words into 2000 or anything like that. The AI edited content is usually close to the length of what I wrote. The process isn't to make it 'write' things for me. It's to refine what I already wrote. If it wrote more than what I did, then it likely went on a tangent, trying to end the scene or bring a conclusion, which sections get deleted because i already know what's supposed to happen next and I generally write the entire draft for a chapter before even touching the AI at all.
Its much easier to write like this because they allow you to turn off you editing brain, not having to worry about grammar or paragraph spacing, and writing in a stream of consciousness way while picturing the scene. More efficiency was gained when not switching between writing the draft and editing constantly.
Writing the draft one day, and then doing the editing the next day prevented me from grinding gears. It was so effective that some days I started the next stage early. This dropped off during the later half of writing the book, because I was starting to burn out. (I always burn out.)
There were other things done as well, such as having the codex glossary helping keep track of characters and places, as well as actually creating act and chapter outlines, something I never really cared about doing before other than maybe a single guide sentence. The added organization instead of just 'pantsing' everything like usual was really helpful it not getting stuck like I usually do.
The story was not tagged on RR at first because using AI to assist like this is new. The story predates the tags coming into existence. I changed the tag myself when it was mentioned to me after the conversation that was screenshotted and keeps being referred to. (The RR site owner was in the channel where the conversation took place. I was never trying to 'hide' or 'deceive' people.)
I realize that some have already made up their minds about what and who I am, but I hope this clarifies things for others, or gives them insight if they see the negative reviews or reddit drama or anti-ai outrage.
I'm afraid the negative sentiment and outrage probably killed the launch, since it was targeted on launch day. Right now the negative reviews are making the rounds, people jumped to conclusions based on snippets of a larger conversation and never really sought clarification before going out on the offensive.
I am honestly a bit lost now. I am not sure I can keep writing anything. It doesn't feel like it. I have a backlog of Lastia chapters I can still post. But I haven't been able to write anything, just sitting here with a tightness in my chest trying to... well I guess I wrote this response. So saying I haven't been able to write anything is wrong.
Sorry how long winded this became... hopefully things will get better and we can continue on the journeys we started together again.
Comments
Alexander
What new writing software are you using?
Bored Goddess
I don't think a lot of people are aware of what AI can and can't do. Using AI as an editor makes sense, and leaves you more time to focus on the story. If you read all of the books back to back it is clear the consistency is there, which means you are the proper author. AI isn't a magic bullet, its not even close to being capable of writing a book like yours on its own and would take so many stressful hours of effort to force it that by that point its easier to write the damn book yourself. Thank you for your awesome work, I am in love with your stories, they make my day.
Alasdair Macmillan
If it helps any, I never thought AI was involved in the text of the story, and this is the first I've heard about that Reddit thread. I find that good stories have multiple things going on at once (at different speeds - I think you called them story beats), and I'm pretty sure the current crop of AI isn't able to cope with that now due to being relatively stateless. TL;DR: Human thinks you write like a human.
