A small publisher for speculative fiction and roleplaying games is shuttering after 22 years, and the “final straw,” its founder said, is an influx of AI-generated submissions.
In a notice posted to the site, founder Julie Ann Dawson wrote that effective March 6, she was winding down operations to focus on her health and “day job” that’s separate from the press. “All of these issues impacted my decision. However, I also have to confess to what may have been the final straws. AI…and authors behaving badly,” she wrote.
I see this in my day job, too. When I’m in a charitable mood, I chalk it up to pandemic trauma. But more realistically, I think it is a real change in our society’s ability and willingness to compromise and see the world through the eyes of others. People want what they want and they don’t give a fuck who they have to roll over to get what they want. They treat getting what they want as a matter of principle.
The only change I’ve seen in this regard is a dramatic reduction in people’s willingness to tolerate these people. They’ve always been here and always been like this, but we as a society used to just let them have their way to make them go away.
So I see articles like this as being nothing but good news.