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Recently Dottie and I added a statement to our submission guidelines that I thought I’d better highlight here for writers thinking about contributing:

The Disappointed Housewife will not knowingly publish content generated by AI.

It probably doesn’t really need to be said, but in a time when some creatives might convince themselves that AI is just another tool in the toolbox, I think it’s important to spell out the risks to the craft of writing that AI represents.

First of all, I’m careful to say in the statement that we won’t knowingly publish AI content. That’s because it’s strongly possible that my editorial eye might fail to detect the telltale evidence in the future, mainly because AI is always improving and there will probably come a time when it will be much more difficult to identify a piece of writing that comes from an LLM instead of a human mind.

Beyond that factor, I, like most editors, am uninterested in devoting myself to this work if the writers haven’t put at least equivalent work into the writing. There is no point in publishing material that comes from machines when the reason we write is to reflect and express what it’s like to be human. If all writing, in the approaching dystopia, is created by AI, I’ll just stop reading. Or rather, I’ll reread all the good old stuff, the authentic stuff, the books that inspired me to write and that kept me going through the years. By comparison, AI writing is like electric sheep dreamed up by strings of ones and zeroes. It has no soul.

Also, reliance on AI will dull a writer’s own creativity over time. When Chat GPT or Grok can throw down a 1000 word story in eighteen seconds, you’re going to get lazy. You’ll cook up a dandy prompt, cut and paste the text, make a few minor revisions to hide the AI fingerprints, and then ship it off to a hundred zines without breaking a sweat.

That’s not writing. It’s clerical work.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think we’ve received too many AI creations so far. A few pieces I’ve rejected raised some red flags, but overall I believe the writers who submit here and appreciate our mission wouldn’t lower themselves to passing off AI as their original work. They have a lot of talent and self-respect, from everything I see. It would reduce them to do it, when creativity and originality are all about expanding imaginative possibilities. Why would they want to reduce themselves?

If you’re tempted, just don’t go there. But if you do go there, don’t send that stuff here. Be a writer. That’s where the satisfactions of art are to be found, and that’s what you’re shooting for. Art.

 

Kevin Brennan
Editor
The Disappointed Housewife