#genAI scrape

[nbraraeaves]

welp. I just got it confirmed this afternoon that twenty five of my fics got caught up in the last AI scrape on AO3.

I've had my fics locked for over a year now, so. that officially means nothing anymore. these poor excuses for human beings are using accounts in bad faith, or otherwise circumventing not having one's fics public to get at them.

if you're worried about your own work, you can go here and request the nice person digging through the metadata see what turns up when they search your username. if you don't want to make an account on AI Assholes R Us there, you can also message @occasionalklance here on tumblr, who is the person kind enough to do all the data-digging on their off-hours.

all this to say, I am tired, and not inclined to finish or post anything right now or maybe for a while, especially because the assholes over on hugg/ingface are saying they've set a scraper to capture any newly posted work. they might just be talking out of their collective ass to scare people, but I just don't feel like fucking with it.

to all genAI knobgobblers, I wish a very "Explosive Diarrhea Forever" 🖤

[yourbookcouldbegayer]

PSA: Your AO3 work might have been scraped for a GenAI dataset

(PLEASE NOTE: At this time, access to the dataset has been disabled. You can file a DMCA takedown request if your work is included in the scraped data to campaign for full deletion, but at this time it is considered unnecessary.)

This is intended as a general notification for all the writers following this blog who post on AO3.

Approximately 12.6 million public works were scraped from AO3 and several other published-work sites, including PaperDemon, which has regular updates on the situation as well as resources. Here is the link to their updates.

Affected AO3 users are those whose work IDs were public-facing (that is to say, not locked to registered AO3 users only), and whose work IDs are between 1 and 63,200,000.

Your work ID is the number in your work's site URL, like so:

This work has an ID only in the 61-million range, and so was scraped for the dataset.

If you wish to lock your works to be visible to logged-in users only, you can do so through Works > Edit Works > All > Edit > Only show to registered users.

[basedonconjecture]

I really debated even sharing this because it’s not worth giving it attention. It’s a bot. It’s not true. It could make people suspicious anyway, etc etc. Which sucks because I think, like most creators, we love talking about the things that go on behind the curtain should anyone ask. And I am always happy to yap about my drafting process and answer questions that are genuine. Truly, I am sitting on my hands to keep from spilling the beans on every little thing.

However, the potential for real harm to authors here is horrendous. Considering what a hot button topic AI is, and how quickly accusations get slung, and especially when that fic was fucking scraped. There’s little chance of it passing AI detection now even if I can prove I typed every single word. I can even highlight my own writing quirks that appear across works. But would it matter if somebody (a real person) decided I must be “polishing” my fics to hide AI? I don’t know :/

I’m keeping my fics public for now, but I’ve turned off guest comments, and may change my mind if this continues.

And just in case it wasn’t clear: fuck gen AI.

[liondrakes]

Hey so, can we talk about how absolutely horrific it is that AO3, one of the biggest writing platforms on the internet, got fucking scraped for datasets that go towards training AI?

Up to 12.6 million fanworks were contained in the dataset. DMCAs have been filed against Hugging Face, the platform storing the dataset, to prevent further usage of their users’ works. Although the dataset is no longer accessible, I’m floored at the amount of creatives who were stolen from.

One writer, Dean (dicklessthewonderclown on AO3), shared that 42 out of 48 of his works were scraped. He also covered the situation on TikTok, including a summary of what happened, who was affected by the scrape, and how to figure out if you were affected as well.

AO3 wasn’t the only creative platform that’s been hit with such a massive scrape, either; PaperDemon, Character Hub, Artfol, Artgram, Paintberri, and Itaku were affected as well.

Bogus Red, the owner of PaperDemon.com, has updates on the situation. The most recent of which can be watched on PaperDemon’s TikTok page. Updates can also be found on the PaperDemon website.

[softwaring]

[unfinishedmural]

Soooo, apparently, someone by the name of "nyuuzyou" recently scraped tons of fanfics off of AO3 and posted them to various generative ai database sites. It seems like fics which were only viewable by people with profiles were safe, so a bunch of people are locking their accounts. I don't know if I'll be locking mine yet, but if you've been using AO3 as a guest, you may want to sign up soon. If you do have an account, and your fics were victims of the scrape, you might be able to file a copyright claim. This reddit post seems to have most of the information, including what works were scraped and where the data was posted.

Or, if you don't want to read all that, here's the user's profile on Hugging Face (one of the ai database websites)

[heyftinally]

A podcast I listen to just posed the question of "will the Ao3 fic scrape result in people accidentally generating work emails full of smut due to the nature of Ao3 content?" and honestly I think that would be both incredibly hilarious and completely deserved.

[theultimatedisaster]

The recent AO3 AI scraping incident is killing my motivation to keep writing.

I have recently checked to see if my one (1) fic that I’ve posted on ao3 is indeed in the database. And it is.

I literally feel so shit rn. I felt like that ever since I’ve found out about the scraping.

I’m in college rn and my exams will start soon, so I should probably be preparing for them and not care too much about anything else, but I can’t.

There are only the first three chapters of my fic in that database - the latest one was uploaded a week ago or so and at that point, I’ve locked my fic. But I still feel so fucking nauseous that MY WORK is used to train a fucking GenAi model - a thing that I’ve been against for a long time. I’ve yet to write that asshole (which I won’t even bother to name) on huggingface a doi to remove my fic from the database (I still need to create an account on there).

When I saw that the fic is indeed in that database, I genuinely wanted to scream, cry, throw up, anything. I did not consent to this - I dare to say that the vast majority of ao3 authors didn’t.

I highly doubt that the scraper in question is reading this, but if they actually do, then I just want to tell them this:

Go fuck yourself. You are a fucking thief who stole other people’s work and is now using it for AI without the creators’s consent. You are nothing but a filthy parasite who is invading one of the very last places on the internet that hasn’t been corrupted with ads and aggressive capitalist tactics and is putting people there through misery. You are not a 'noble archivist' who is saving something that might become lost media in the future. Like I said, you are a parasite who is preying on actual creative people’s happiness and uses their work for something so pathetic, disgusting and shitty like training a GenAI model.

And to whoever defends this piece of shit or even tries to do the same things they did, go fuck yourself as well. Seriously.

Ever since I found out that someone did this to my work - my work that I’ve put my heart and soul into, I’ve felt hopeless. I’ve decided to take a break from writing so I could focus on my exams…but I still feel depressed because of it. Writing has been my passion ever since childhood, and now, that I’ve finally decided to post something of my own on the internet, it’s being stolen and used without my consent in such a disgusting way.

Like I already mentioned, I locked my fic. It will no longer be available to guest users because I want to have atleast some form of slight 'protection' against similar incidents in the future. But I also know that there have been those that had their fics appear in that database despite the fact that they were locked.

In which case I have to ask: WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE, AS FANFIC WRITERS (and artists in general) SUPPOSED TO DO TO PROTECT OUR WORKS AGAINST SHIT LIKE THIS???

As if I didn’t make it clear enough already, I never consented to my work being used to train AI and I never will. I hate generative AI with every fiber of my being and I sincerely wish that every such program would be completely destroyed and deleted from existence. If someone ever uses my work to train AI, than I want them to know that I fucking hate them and they should go fuck themselves.

AI """art""" is not art and it will never be. It is nothing but a gross, pathetic form of theft.

[multi-fandom-lunatic]

due to all the ai scraping happening on ao3, my fics are now only visible to ao3 users with an account :/

[a-grim-thin-hope]

I don't know if this is something any of my readers (if they are on tumblr or follow me or otherwise) are concerned about, but I'd like to state once and for all that I won't be locking my fics on Ao3. There's a variety of reasons but the primary are--well, you can't unscrew the pooch and everything on there is already taken. Secondly, I've been a guest reader for nearly six years or around there. The position I was in at home didn't allow me to create an account or use my email address, and being able to read fics for free meant so much to me, especially when they were so high quality and so entertaining. They gave me literal hours of comfort, so the idea of that being removed for people in my same situation is sobering. I've had so many guests tell me they loved my work, which is so honouring, and half of my kudos are from them. I don't want to take that away. AI and scrapers are unfortunately going to be a part of our lives now, and only increasingly so as technology improves. Writing fanfic has always been SOLELY for my own enjoyment and improvement, and with how intertwined our lives and interactions are with the Internet, I don't really believe that you can keep anything perfectly private and secure. I understood that risk, and though I'm angry at the thought that my hard work and original ideas have been taken just to be recycled and ruined, it's also not something I can really change. The only control I have is whether or not I want to keep indiscriminately sharing something that brings me joy to do and has brought me joy to experience. And I do.

[ingo-ingoing-ingone]

Btw just wanted to say! In light of more AI scraping bullshit, I'm NOT gonna be locking my fics.

I totally get why others are choosing to! It's just not a choice I want to make, to allow my Anon readers to continue to have access to my works.

FUCK genAI and the shitty horse it rode in on, but I also dare it to begin to use medical jargon for fanfics and see how far that gets it lmao

[bxriles]

your not better then me bc you write your fics and I use ai to help me with writers block and scenes. stop being a gatekeeper. ai is a tool and ppl like you need to get over yourselves. you call us grifters when your the real one who is just mad that ai fics are better than ur badly written ones

I am not saying that I am better than you because I choose to actually write while you choose to enter a prompt into a generator. You are the one who said that. Not me.

What I am saying is that the act of you entering a prompt into a program and having the program generate an entire fic/chapter/scene/book/whatever for you that you did not write does not make you a "writer" or "author" in a traditional sense. If that sounds harsh or hurts your feelings, I do not know what to tell you. You did not write that scene. You wrote a prompt and entered it into a program and let the program write the scene for you. I guess(?) you can argue that you're a "writer" because you wrote the prompt that you entered into Chat GPT or whatever the fuck people use, but writing a few words/sentences for a prompt is very different from writing a narrative.

What I do not understand is why tech bros and AI fanatics have this weird obsession with being lauded as authors and artists and creatives when they clearly do not care about the labor behind *being* those things. Creatives do what we do because we love the process. Would I love to be a full-time author who is on the NYT best-seller list every week? OF COURSE!! But that's not why I write. I write because I love the act of writing and I would argue that 99.999% of creatives feel the same way. I don't really care if someone considers me a "writer" or not. I know I'm a writer because that's what I do. I write. AI fanatics INSIST on being considered writers when they're not even writing. I just don't get it. (Note: I'm using writing as an example because that's my creative outlet of choice. This of course also applies to artists/photographers/other creatives.)

Finally, that is not what grifter means. Per Merriam Webster: "grift" is to "to obtain (money or property) illicitly (as in a confidence game)." I am not obtaining any money or property by being Anti Generative AI. So no, I am not a "grifter" because I hate gen AI. AI grifters are the people who use AI to spew out books in a matter of minutes that they then post on Amazon to turn a quick profit.

[sabulana]

Might have to lock all my stuff on AO3 and I really wish I didn't have to think about that at all

[indefenseofmasochism]

the huggingface ao3 database thread again

embarrassing.

like damn bro i consent to having sex with your mom, that doesnt mean all ao3 authors consent to having sex with your mom. she’s freaky as fuck and that’s just not a ride every man can survive

[123artist-freak123]

Some angel doodles cuz I went swimming today lol

[icicledream]

"so many things using the term ai feels like deliberate obfuscation" i hate to tell u this but we have been using the term ai for video game npcs and scientific models and automated tools and generative tools for many decades.

like if this was a more recent acronym yeah it'd feel deliberate but all of those things are, in fact, forms of artificial intelligence

and sure they're trying to buzzword it bc of the genai craze but that shouldn't take away from the fact that we've been using that acronym for decades