Considering that ChatGPT and Bard is a language model that relies heavily on what's available out there online -- and Midjourney does the same for images -- I imagine... AI can only go as far as how 'depraved' the most erotic of fanfic can go? Perhaps AI is ridding us of the shame of having to write it ourselves and doing the heavy lifting for us?
But, yeah, some tend to misrepresent fandoms as just being about fantasies of being in the same bed as whoever.
As far as depravity goes, male pregnancy dates back to Star Trek fandom...! There's been time to evolve.
It's definitely doing the heavy lifting! Writing fic is so hard, and even harder if you don't get feedback which has been declining like mad, interspersed with insults as if commenting on stories is the same as writing Amazon reviews. I'm already seeing "ChatGPT" fics posted on archives. We'll see if there's a resistance at some point.
As you say, there’s been definitely a increase on the use of AI for making fan fiction, but I think the quality of them are bad. If people want complex characters and stories, they are going to continue writing fanfics. I personally used Character AI for some time out of curiosity and I think one of the biggest problems is that the characters can’t be complex enough to make a good story because the bots have short memory and of course don’t have a selective recall. So I hope people are going to return to writing their own. (I even start to write two fics after using that thing haha)
My fear with AI written fan fiction is that it will inundate archives--if individuals want to use it for their own satisfaction, fine I suppose, but I don't see posting it as a positive, I'm not sure how archives can stop it though. I've also seen "this is totally AI" used as insults in comments, so it's just another tack to harass writers. And finally, there has been a marked shift from participatory fandom to a consumer approach which I think this might exacerbate, because why engage with imperfect text if you can just prompt exactly what you want? My hope remains that a core of fandom will be able to continue and thrive, but it's going to be difficult as readers are more and more removed from the communal aspects of it all. But that was happening long before AI was normalized, so it can't really be blamed for it.
I really loved how you connected sexual identity, especially the asexual community, with fandoms and the context of online lives. As part of the asexual community I have seen many people discussing how fandom, reading and writing fanfics, have been useful to explore some parts of their identity. As you mentioned, there is an indirect experience and a removal of the self from the stories, but in this cases there is not a destruction of the self or vicarious living, but a different way of constructing your self where the experience with fiction and fandom is combined with the lived experience of people on the asexual spectrum.
Thank you! I've always been curious about the ways that online existence shapes our experiences and identity formation--perhaps because I was hyper-online from a very young age! Understanding the way the online infrastructure influences how we feel/think is a fascinating topic.
I keep thinking, maybe fantasizing, that a clear limit of generative AI, especially in a commercialized context, is that we've spent the last twenty year with people getting ever easier access to creation tools and the ability to make "careers" via digital creations. Yet, when looking at the platforms (YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Facebook, etc.) the shelf life of said creations remains ephemeral and when the main mode of revenue generation in culture right now leans towards extracting excessive fandom, there just appears to me a mismatch. (Also when most of these platforms are money losers on top of that...who is going to pay for the endless unprofitable AI works.) That factored onto a broader economic environment where even the places that host this content feel increased pressure to turn a profit, how much is there to be made with a billion people all watching their own 1 of 1 content that as you point out cannot sustain the levels of fandom that previous existed.
Considering that ChatGPT and Bard is a language model that relies heavily on what's available out there online -- and Midjourney does the same for images -- I imagine... AI can only go as far as how 'depraved' the most erotic of fanfic can go? Perhaps AI is ridding us of the shame of having to write it ourselves and doing the heavy lifting for us?
But, yeah, some tend to misrepresent fandoms as just being about fantasies of being in the same bed as whoever.
As far as depravity goes, male pregnancy dates back to Star Trek fandom...! There's been time to evolve.
It's definitely doing the heavy lifting! Writing fic is so hard, and even harder if you don't get feedback which has been declining like mad, interspersed with insults as if commenting on stories is the same as writing Amazon reviews. I'm already seeing "ChatGPT" fics posted on archives. We'll see if there's a resistance at some point.
As you say, there’s been definitely a increase on the use of AI for making fan fiction, but I think the quality of them are bad. If people want complex characters and stories, they are going to continue writing fanfics. I personally used Character AI for some time out of curiosity and I think one of the biggest problems is that the characters can’t be complex enough to make a good story because the bots have short memory and of course don’t have a selective recall. So I hope people are going to return to writing their own. (I even start to write two fics after using that thing haha)
My fear with AI written fan fiction is that it will inundate archives--if individuals want to use it for their own satisfaction, fine I suppose, but I don't see posting it as a positive, I'm not sure how archives can stop it though. I've also seen "this is totally AI" used as insults in comments, so it's just another tack to harass writers. And finally, there has been a marked shift from participatory fandom to a consumer approach which I think this might exacerbate, because why engage with imperfect text if you can just prompt exactly what you want? My hope remains that a core of fandom will be able to continue and thrive, but it's going to be difficult as readers are more and more removed from the communal aspects of it all. But that was happening long before AI was normalized, so it can't really be blamed for it.
I really loved how you connected sexual identity, especially the asexual community, with fandoms and the context of online lives. As part of the asexual community I have seen many people discussing how fandom, reading and writing fanfics, have been useful to explore some parts of their identity. As you mentioned, there is an indirect experience and a removal of the self from the stories, but in this cases there is not a destruction of the self or vicarious living, but a different way of constructing your self where the experience with fiction and fandom is combined with the lived experience of people on the asexual spectrum.
Thank you! I've always been curious about the ways that online existence shapes our experiences and identity formation--perhaps because I was hyper-online from a very young age! Understanding the way the online infrastructure influences how we feel/think is a fascinating topic.
I keep thinking, maybe fantasizing, that a clear limit of generative AI, especially in a commercialized context, is that we've spent the last twenty year with people getting ever easier access to creation tools and the ability to make "careers" via digital creations. Yet, when looking at the platforms (YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Facebook, etc.) the shelf life of said creations remains ephemeral and when the main mode of revenue generation in culture right now leans towards extracting excessive fandom, there just appears to me a mismatch. (Also when most of these platforms are money losers on top of that...who is going to pay for the endless unprofitable AI works.) That factored onto a broader economic environment where even the places that host this content feel increased pressure to turn a profit, how much is there to be made with a billion people all watching their own 1 of 1 content that as you point out cannot sustain the levels of fandom that previous existed.