Everybody's talking about it.

One of the questions I get most often, from both readers and authors, is this (and I'm generalizing here): Does Allegory accept AI in submissions?

It's a fair question given the world we now live in, and is therefore worthy of a fair answer. Here it is:

NO.

Let me be clear. Do NOT send us a submssion that is AI-written or AI-assisted in any way. Ever. If you do so and we find out, we will not accept your work. If you keep doing it, we may be forced to stop accepting submissions from you altogether. It is the first and only way to get yourselves blacklisted from our ezine, and that's not something I say at all lightly.

Please understand: If you use AI for research, e.g. "What's the difference between a Schwarzschild Wormhole and a Morris-Thorne Wormhole?" then we're cool. ChatGPT and its ilk are great for information gathering and can save you tons of time searching the Internet or (perish the thought!) scouring brick and mortar libraries, though I strongly suggest you confirm any facts you find online with other sources! Sometimes, conversing with AI can almost feel like interviewing a subject matter expert, letting you drill into the minutea of a topic in a way that can profoudly inform your writing.

But don't quote it. Don't cut-and-paste its answers. Don't let it pen a single sentence, a single word, a single syllable.

Why?

Because, and I don't say this to sound in any way pretentious, this is art. Or, at least, it's supposed to be. And, while I know folks who've used AI to write programming code, formulas, technical specification, and even business articles or textbooks, none of those, in this editor's humble opinion, fall under the catagory of "creative writing." Here's what does: fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and scriptwriting. How do I know that? Because I asked ChapGPT. As I said, it has its uses. But not one word of this article was penned by anyone or anything other than yours truly. That's the difference.

How do we know what's AI and what isn't? Well, I'm afraid there's no easy answer to that one. But, beginning with this issue, Allegory is going to start running every story that makes it into our "maybe" pile (those familiar with our editorial process will know what I mean by that) through at least one tool that uses AI to spot AI. These tools, of course, offers something less than 100% accuracy. So, to try to filter out false positives, any story that comes back as more than 15% AI-assisted or AI-written will be reviewed by me or one of our senior editors. If we decide the story in question reads as original, then it goes into the maybe pile without prejudice. If not, then it simply won't make the final cut. I honestly haven't decided if I'll notify the author in these cases; I've gotten into trouble before for doing so.

After 28 years of publishing this ezine, it disturbs me greatly to find these rather drastic steps necessary. But, as I alluded previously, that's the modern world in which we live.

So, please. I know writing is difficult. I know getting published is even more difficult. But remember that you're an artist. Respect your craft, and write your own words.

Also, if you'd like to donate to Allegory (these anti-AI tools aren't free), it would go along way to keeping us online and doing our jobs.

Best wishes,

Ty Drago
Founder, Publisher, and Managing Editor
Allegory