Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I hear you, and I want to let you know that I won’t be extending the 10-day trial ad. I’ve also adjusted the look and placement of the ad based on the feedback I’ve received.
I click the opt out and the ads still appear on my chapters. I know this site has financial obligations to consider but chipping away at it's identity and integrity with more and more AI crap is just sad.
It looks like the opt-out wasn’t activated for your account—perhaps the save button wasn’t clicked? I’ve gone ahead and activated it for you now. Let me know if you run into any other issues.
I'm certain I unchecked both boxes and clicked the save button and they turned back on multiple times. It seems to have worked that time so thank you for that.
I'm glad I found this thread about the opt out options but I wonder how many writers are going to bother checking the forums. I fear that 'add an AI chapter' thing (gross!) may be a huge turn off for new creators. It sure was to me.
The community has decided on Discord to accept the advertiser’s offer and keep the ad running. Thank you all for weighing in and helping make this decision!
It would have been nice to know that a separate discussion in the Discord would determine the outcome of a decision that seems to have impact to those on the site and in the forum. I feel a little blind-sided that the winds in this thread shifted so suddenly from "I won't be extending" to "we're going to keep the ad running" with no hint that it was still an ongoing discussion. I'm going to repeat the plea that, to the maximum extent possible, all such similar features going forward have a clear method of opting out. I hope that at least this thread has demonstrated there are a number of authors on this site with that interest.
Artists in general have a vested interest in not having their work be used in AI. Writers are no exception, which means the lionshare of us writers will likely be on the same side here.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I get where you’re coming from. I wasn’t planning to extend the ad, but after talking it over on Discord, even the harshest critics there were in favor of keeping it, especially with the financial support it brings to CHYOA. I want to reassure you that we don’t share your work with anyone—advertisers, AI companies, or otherwise. Your content is yours, and that’s not going to change. I’ve also promised on Discord that I won’t be placing links in the content or decisions moving forward. Thanks again for being part of this discussion! It’s these conversations that help me figure out the best path forward.
As Gatsha said, it's not like anybody knew that such a conversation was happening except for the handful of discord regulars who happened to be online. My time is precious and I'd rather spend what I have of it writing. I can't be chasing down forums and discords to keep up with this stuff.
I agree with your point about vested artist interests and believe you and I are on the same side on it. I typed out a longer post about why I don't agree that writers are mostly on the same side on this (I've certainly seen some that would argue), but that's probably besides the point of this decision. Friedman's most recent post addresses what I figured, that the question was not solely "do you want this AI ad" but to weigh it against the benefits the revenue brings to the site. Which, yes, put that way, I get it. I don't mean to discount the effort and compromises that must go into keeping the lights on. I fear a day when chyoa is a site where you have to climb over the AI to get to the nugget of manual writing, for many reasons but none more obvious than that I like manual writing and plan to keep doing it in the future. I feel this ad brings us a step closer by seeming to encourage AI generation as a way to continue stories instead of opening the word processor and doing it oneself. Just wanted to make sure the concern was noted since, as I said, the call came to me as a surprise.
Eh, not exactly - when someone plugs your work into an AI engine, that work is gonna get used in training data. I know that image artists have started poisoning their work so that the training data gets corrupted. Would you be opposed to some of us publishing poisoned works? Say, stuff that relies on game mode to run and without game mode turned on will essentially put out gibberish. Stories that have if text are already partially poisoned on accident, but are we allowed to produce intentionally poisoned stories?
The ad is a simple link that redirects users to the advertiser’s site. We’re not sharing stories or chapters with anyone. I want to be clear that I’ve been approached by AI companies this year asking for access to the stories and chapters on the site, and I’ve declined every single request. Your work remains yours, and I’m committed to keeping it that way.
Yeah, that’s frustrating. Seeing an AI button hovering over your work like an open invitation is definitely demotivating. Hopefully, they add an opt-out option soon, feels like the bare minimum.
I’ve added an opt-out option here: https://forum.chyoa.com/threads/restrict-ai.6097/#post-127975. Also, the advertiser will not renew after January, so that ad will be removed on Saturday anyway.
