--- title: "Editors of Sci-Fi Magazine Disgusted as They Realized Submissions Were Filling With AI Slop" description: "Online fantasy and science fiction magazine Clarkesworld is drowning in an onslaught of AI-generated slop." date: "2024-09-29" modified: "2024-09-29" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/editors-sci-fi-magazine-disgusted-ai-slop" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai slop" - "chatgpt" - "large language models" - "the digest" --- # Editors of Sci-Fi Magazine Disgusted as They Realized Submissions Were Filling With AI Slop ![Online fantasy and science fiction magazine Clarkesworld is drowning in an onslaught of AI-generated slop.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Tidal Wave Online fantasy and science fiction magazine *Clarkesworld* is drowning in an onslaught of AI-generated slop. And given the proliferation of cheap AI language models, the situation is certain to get worse. As [*New York Magazine* reports](), the outlet's creator Neil Clarke suspected "there was something off" about submissions his magazine was getting by late 2022, around the time OpenAI launched its uber-popular ChatGPT. Things got so bad by February 2023 that Clarke decided to [shut down submissions entirely](). "We had reached the point where we were on track to receive as many generated submissions as legitimate ones," he told *NYMag.* Beyond *Clarkesworld*, the internet has been hit with a tidal wave of AI slop, a word that has come to denote the kind of low-effort spam being spat out by large language models, from [made-up authors publishing articles]() on previously reputable websites to [fake product reviews]() and [AI-generated academic papers](). Amazon is also getting flooded with [AI-generated books](), spawning an entire marketplace of pointless and incoherent stories. And that has hit the small players, like *Clarkesworld*, particularly hard, growing into an existential threat with the potential of overpowering the economy of human creativity and original ideas online. ## Fiction's Not Dead Fortunately, with the help of volunteers, Clarke was able to build a "very rude rudimentary spam filter" in the months following the shutdown, he told *NYMag*. As to why exactly anybody would want to lazily submit the output of an LLM to a sci-fi magazine remains a bit of a mystery. That is, beyond trying to score the 12 cents a word chosen submissions receive from *Clarkesworld*. Clarke also [referenced the influencer economy]()'s role in AI hype, suggesting that it's "people waving a bunch of money on YouTube or TikTok videos and saying, 'Oh, you can make money with ChatGPT by doing this.'" Some scammers are even AI-generating entire websites that are search engine-optimized to lure people into viewing a whole host of ads. Others are looking to sell copies of barely intelligible books on Amazon. For now, Clarke's spam filter is "holding things at bay," as he told *NYMag*. But "it’s clear that business as usual won’t be sustainable," as he wrote in a [February 2023 blog post titled "A Concerning Trend]()." "If the field can’t find a way to address this situation, things will begin to break," he added at the time. "No, it’s not the death of short fiction (please just stop that nonsense), but it is going to complicate things." **More on AI slop:** *[NaNoWriMo Slammed for Saying That Opposition to AI-Generated Books Is Ableist]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()