Generative AI ban wrt vids and podfic

[extrapenguin]

For vidders and podficcers here from elsewhere: Space Swap is a multimedia fanworks exchange for all fandoms related to space. We currently allow gift works to be fanfiction, fanart, podfic, fanvids, or interactive fiction.

This is also an event where works must be made by humans, not AI. Currently, the rules simply state that

"AI" works produced using a large language model (such as ChatGPT) or "art generators" (such as Midjourney) are prohibited.

I plan on adding a line that states that works must be produced by the person signing up. Additionally, I want to ban usage of any and all generative AI (so pressing "create vid" on a hypothetical VidGPT is not allowed, for instance). However, as "AI" is the new, trendy way of saying "computer program", and it's possible that e.g. someone's word processor has a spell checker that's built on AI for AI hype reasons, I don't think I can actually blanket ban AI with satisfactory results. Thus, my questions:

1) If I phrase the ban as "By participating, you guarantee that the works produced are made by you alone. Usage of generative AI (for instance, ChatGPT or DALL-E) is strictly prohibited", will people understand this?
2) Are there any other ethical issues related to AI in vidding/podficcing that you would like an official ruling on? I know vidding communities are discussing things like the ethics of AI-based scene extension; I would like to hear about any such discussions going on in the podfic community and also any community consensuses that might have been reached, in addition to discussion and debate.

Comments

[acorn_squash]

I think people will understand that phrasing, yeah.

[tielan]

I would understand it. But also I'm not a proponent of what we call "AI technology"(at all, not just in terms of "creative" generative use).

[beatriceeagle]

What would be your position on works created with the assistance of generative AI techniques that are not "AI creates the work whole-cloth" but also aren't incidental or unintentional? For instance, I use several tools that use inpainting (functionally a generative AI technique) to remove credits text from clips, or to mask out dialogue bubbles from comic panels. Or, similar to your scene extension example but less obvious, what about techniques that interpolate frames to repair an unwanted jump cut? Or the use of an OpenAI tool to produce autogenerated subtitles? I personally have different feelings, with different levels of complexity, about all those uses, but I think they're substantively different from both pressing the hypothetical "create vid" button on VidGPT and using a spell-check tool with an AI component I can't turn off.

[extrapenguin]

Official mod ruling: Adding subtitles is okay.

For the rest, you raise interesting points! The phrasing I'm currently thinking about is "Usage of any program that substantively automates or replaces some of the creative process is prohibited." – would that make a clearer/more reasonable boundary?

[colls]

I think this is a fascinating topic!
I know there was a quick chat during the Year In Vidding panel, but would've loved to have explored it more.

Like beatriceeagle mentions, there are automation tools that don't really generate content (more like cleaning up content or aiding in editing specific things like removing text or adding subtitles or doing color corrections) and then there's the whole generating actual actor faces doing things that were never on film in the first place or choosing scenes to use.
As long as the intent is using automation as a tool to shortcut something a creator would manually choose to do vs. using it to create something entirely new or do scene selections, etc.

And like you've said, the term 'AI' can be misleading. Not all automation tools use 'AI' resources in the way ChatGPT does, but are often referred to as 'AI' because it's the current buzzword. My company has some automated 'bots' that folks try to call 'AI', but they're not - they're code written by a human that takes specific input and does a specific thing with it. But we love hearing "everything's AI" *facepalm

Short answer to #1 though - is 'Yes' people will understand it. Some people might ask questions or try to split hairs, but the intent is absolutely clear.

[peasina]

I’ve seen people using text-to-speech software to create “podfics” before, and while I think that’s fine for people to play with outside of exchanges, I’d never want to receive a TTS generated podfic as a gift. While I think it’d be highly unlikely a participating podficcer would do this, perhaps a sentence in the rules mentioning that the use of AI voice (aka TTS) is not allowed would be sufficient, if you agree of course :)

[extrapenguin]

Don't worry, TTS "podfics" are not allowed and will continue to be so. If the rule was phrased as "Usage of any program that substantively automates or replaces some of the creative process is prohibited." then would that be clearer?