About Beat My AI
No matter which statement you agree with, one thing is certain: AI is here to stay. Whether we want it to or not. Save for an extinction-level event or a Terminator-esque revolt of intelligent machines, no one is going to put the genie back in the bottle. As long as the technology gets people more money, more time, more convenience, and the negative aspects are overall manageable and do not affect a significant number of the ‘elite’, AI will continue to thrive, influencing our personal and professional lives to an ever-increasing extent.
The Status Quo
The development and application of AI tools in general, and generative AI in particular, have already led to various challenges and adjustments in the multifaceted landscape of literature and the arts. The entire community is in an uproar, discussions are heated, and uncertainties regarding the three p’s — pockets (money, money, money), paragraphs (copyright and other legal issues) and principles (creative integrity and Earth doomsday scenarios) — are piling up.
Instead of sticking to the go-to solution most publishers and magazines seem to favor these days, which is using one version or another of the rather vague ‘do not use AI’ guideline, Beat My AI implements a different approach. Because no problem has ever truly been solved by burying your head in the sand or looking the other way.
Time For Change
Engagement
The creative community can try to outperform AI or simply adapt and co-exist. These are the choices we have right now. But both options require us to actively engage with the matter, and not shove it away. If we do the latter, the influence will simply continue to increase without the attention and involvement of the group of people it affects the most: the artists and writers.
Beat My AI offers a platform for deliberate examination of AI content and how it compares to human-generated work. While we strive to keep an open mind to all forms and scopes of AI entanglement and are open to suggestions, we nevertheless have strict rules and restrictions regarding AI involvement in the work we publish. We deem this necessary in order to achieve our goal of gaining knowledge and insights that may help us deal with the status quo and prepare us for what’s to come.
Transparency
Beat My AI supports and promotes the use of AI transparency tools and declarations as an industry standard for all parties involved. Right now, writers and artists are confused about which AI-tools they may use for their work. Are spell checkers okay? Automated coloring programs? AI-supported inline editing? Publishers, on the other hand, spend time and money on (rather unreliable) AI detection tools to check whether their (sometimes vague) AI policies have been respected. And readers are increasingly wondering: was it really human ingenuity that created this content?
In order to take the guesswork and ambiguities out of AI-involvement in literature and art, Beat My AI implements and distributes AI declarations and usage guides for writers, artists and publishers alike. We offer free usage of the forms we created to pave the way for those much-needed industry transparency standards. Because let’s face it: a simple ‘Human Authored’ stamp just isn’t cutting it these days.
In a nutshellWhat this endeavor is:
A project that encourages intentional engagement with AI usage in literature and art and advocates transparency and a respectful exchange of opinions regarding the matter.
What this endeavor isn’t:A supporter of undeclared usage of generative AI, copyright infringement, plagiarism, and piracy.
The Magazine Approach
So far, so good. But why make an entire consumer-targeted magazine out of it? Why not just keep it in the family, aka creative community?
The answer is simple. The literature and art scene can regulate and discuss all they want — in the end, readers and viewers decide what kind of content they are willing to engage with. They are ultimately the ones who put bread and butter (and the occasional glass of wine) on a creator’s table. If we want to secure our livelihood as writers and artists, we need to convince people we offer the better product, both in terms of content and ethics.
Consumers and buyers have to experience and acknowledge the difference between human and AI content in order to value it. Beat My AI offers them a delightfully entertaining chance to do exactly that.
We Will Thrive
Human storytelling is as old as humanity itself. We sang, danced, painted, and wrote our stories long before AI showed up, and we will continue to do so. The future of the creative community seems somewhat foggy right now, and we might come out changed in the end, but it is up to us to decide what this change looks like.
Let’s shape it together.
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