Contest April-May 2025 Short Story Contest (entries close May 14th)

Oh no... my greatest champion!

 

A @Scalenex short story Turing test?

 

The annoying thing, is this month I was actually hit by a bunch of articles in my feed, all about how M-dashes are a sign of AI writing. I then looked at my own works, written with no AI involvement, and look upon the M-dashes I like using, usually in place of a semicolon.

I swear, if people start accusing me of using AI to write my fiction I will bludgeon them upside the head. With the very M-dashes that they are trying to use as evidence.

On the flip side... I'd like to think I'd actually be able to tell an AI story in the wild, if just because the AI has a weird fixation on nobody being unhappy by the end, even if it makes no sense. And if I can pick up wild AI stories, I'm sure other people can...

 

The question is, what are the odds that the AI story could win the contest? I wouldn't think so, but I'm not that familiar with its capabilities.

Unless of course we prompt the AI to include Chaos Dwarfs... but that wouldn't be fair.

 

So, having actually experimented with AI generation and asked it to write stories in the past, because sometimes I've had an idea that I really wanted to read but not write myself (and never published, because what's the point of publishing an AI work? It's like plagiarising, but it was an algorithm that you ripped off)... even putting in Chaos Dwarfs would not give it a win... besides how obvious - at least to me - they were as being written by an AI, like I said, the AI had a trend of trying to be... I suppose un-triggering would be the word? Like, somebody else used AI to write a short story for a picture they posted online, and the premise was that a group of siblings were all trick or treating, and all of them got absolutely bum treats, except the youngest... and despite the fact that they were all really narked off with their "treats" (a used toothbrush? ew?) they all just looked at the youngest who was so happy with buckets of sweets, that they all just smiled and said "ah well, so long as youngest is happy".

And that's a general theme that weirdly comes about often with my experimentation. Characters get into an argument, and not even a paragraph later, everything is hunky-dory, and its all water under the bridge. Heaven forbid that this argument cost them their friendship... or heaven forbid these strangers arguing over something not become friends because they had a good argument...

Or the attempt at shoehorning in a moral lesson, that was a weird habit I noticed.

It's... actually hilarious, in its way.

Edit: And now I dare somebody to prompt the AI to write a story with Chaos Dwarfs, just for the stupidity of it's inevitable decision to have the lizards and the tall-hat stunties just deciding that fighting isn't worth it and becoming chums

 

Come oooon.... It's the 15th, I need my fix of short stories and voting. And to shake my fist if any story that isn't mine gets more votes than any story that is mine.

 

Translation: BWAHAHAHA! *evil moustache twirl* The moment I win again I shall reveal that I did indeed submit an entry and those fools will realise that their hope of victory was a false one. BWAHAHAHA!

 

Yes... yes I would.

It would be pleasing for Tzeentch.

 

Me while waiting for the entries to be revealed for my reading pleasure:

I'm sure it'll be here soon. Nothing to worry about. patience is a virtue.

Also me: