so I'm too lazy to change the Ao3 default setting to allow guest comments for my most recent works (that, and I've only gotten a single guest comment that was actually positive; the others might have been people doing their best but definitely came off with a slightly mocking tone) to have experienced this myself. But.
There's a newest hatebot, one that's not backhandedly mentioning a particular AI 'product' as some kind of marketing stunt. Just being genuinely awful in the comments. I don't know about the *exact* timing of this, but I have a theory, because I can think of one person who recently gained a grudge against Ao3 and the writers and thinks they're beneath him and deserve to be torn down. (Note: This is just speculations,
do not harass this individual further. Especially as it's possible it's someone completely unrelated.)
I think it's the guy who most recently scraped Ao3. Or at least related to that scrape. He showed absolutely no remorse and thought he had the high ground. Again, this is what prompted my earlier post on
plagiarism and AI based on the hbomberguy video. For context, what you need to know is that hbomberguy's theory is that plagiarism isn't a compliment. It's contempt. "I'm better than you and I deserve your stuff. You don't." Them being able to make a bot to launder plagiarism accusations (because they have the plausible deniability of 'well it doesn't look
exactly like your stuff after it's remixed with millions of other people's stuff') makes them better than creative people, because they genuinely look down on creative people for some reason. That matches the tone of this guy's mocking posts--until the DMCAs started to work and he threw a hissy fit and claimed it was 'betraying core principles' to not want a shitty AI archive...of an archive. That already exists without his 'help'.
A second plagiarism AI thief then popped up to create a second quicker dataset seemingly with the sole purpose of a phishing scam to grab people's personal information. It could be somebody unrelated just taking advantage of the chaos; I don't remember if there was a proven link between this guy and the one before, but even if it's a totally unrelated rando it reads like retaliation. Like, 'how dare you be against AI, I'm gonna put you in your place' kind of attitude.
Original jerk thief also then uploaded the tool in a fit of pique. Which I'm sure he thought he was clever, but that was a definite misstep on his part, because it means Ao3 can actually pick his coding apart and actually find which vulnerability he used to access locked works and patch it. I'm sure he thought he was being clever, but it's like. Buddy. Pal. Friend. You are that creatively bankrupt to think you're the first one who's ever had this idea? I mean, I don't know why I'm asking; it's kind of obvious, but still. Newsflash, no one 'on your side' needs your tool and most of the large companies have done it already. I know you think you have the winning hand and that's why you're showing it, but...dude, all you're doing is the equivalent of showing your malware to the antivirus company. They would have had more work to identify it without your help.
I don't remember the exact timing, but I think the newest hatebot popped up after that. There's been a lot of comments of 'I can't understand why someone would do this'. And while I could be completely wrong...I don't think I am, based on the timing and the contempt. I think it's the original guy, someone connected, or just some random pro-AI loser who, again, is just lashing out in retaliation because creative types shouldn't be allowed to exist or thrive and need to be 'put in their place'. It's pretty clear the intent is malicious, they're probably using an AI to do it, and pro-plagiarism AI techbros have what they think is a really good reason to hold a grudge, so.
I rest my case.
(and, because I
am creative enough to think I'm not the first one to have a thought and am not against credit: me and TheFoxAndPhoenix on reddit are on the same page here)
In a shocking sequel, I think I have even more evidence for my theory. With the hatebots evolving so quickly, I think we can even guess as to their goals. The last three iterations were: "This fandom is being depreciated to save space" (makes no sense outside of a tech context), mockingly effusive praise ("this belongs in a museum!") and "You clearly have lost steam for this story, you should go on hiatus/delete". With this, they definitely want to make writers feel bad (hippiegoth97's theory), and, if they can, get them to delete their stories. One of the guesses is that these are all trying to get people to take their stories down so they don't have provable copyright (I saw Smegoldidnothingwrong say this, but they also say 'that's the most concrete theory we have' so I think it's more commonly established and held at this point). I don't think these AI techbros know that Ao3
always emails you your story after it is deleted, so
at minimum you still have that if you're trying to DMCA. It's harder, true, but it doesn't make it 'free game'. Again, they're trying to mess around in a realm where they don't know how it works.
...I also missed the part where someone got a comment where the people behind the bot were so lazy they accidentally copy-pasted the first part of the chatGPT response where it was saying "okay, here are 20 fanfiction comments designed to evoke a strong negative emotional response from the author, focusing on a polite opening followed by harsh criticism". So, basically, their prompt they put in. I...am impressed at the sheer laziness and incompetence, but then, they want someone or something else to do the work and it
will, sadly, be effective against some writers, so why should they bother actually trying not to look this massively incompetent?
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