Article Writing and AI

[The Steward]

Hi SIMHorseRacing,

We have gone ahead and shut down article submission for a little while.

Writing articles was meant to be a way for people to learn about the game and how it worked, what the best pedigrees are, etc. You are paid by article as a way to learn the game AND improve your stable cashflow. But recently there is a split between articles written by people trying really hard, and those written by AI and submitted in rapid fire fashion. We don't yet know (like MANY entities, schools, etc!) how to deal with AI submissions. How can we prove it, etc? But that's obviously not what was intended. As such, we have shut down articles for now until we can formulate a plan. Ideas welcome.

[Andrew Chillin]

Yes but can I write my jockey * fan fiction?

[Sara Julin]

I know there are certain pages online which is AI- dedectors. You submit a text and a program will give you the likelihood of AI involvement.
https://copyleaks.com/ai-content-detector Here is one, which is quite reliable (I've used it in the past).

It's sad that articles gets shut down because some players has decided to use AI to earn quick bucks.

[Nicole Marie]

I definitely could tell that some of the articles this last year were at the very least written with as little effort as possible, whether it's getting information wrong or the sentences being very choppy in a way that even someone whose native language isn't English wouldn't write. It's a shame for those of us who have relied on that to fund our game, but it's also understandable why this has to happen until there's a solution - I think there are programs where you can run text through it and it will tell you if it's suspicious or not, but I have no idea if those are free.

[Evelyne Cergerac]

I understand the decision but can't say I'm not disappointed. For players like me who try to build from scratch that's an important loss of income (articles accounted for 24% of my income last season). Hopefully, this situation will be resolved (sort of? not sure there can be a foolproof solution) quickly and players will be able to submit articles to stay afloat.

[Danny Derby]

I know I'm going to get a ton of * for saying this, but honestly I'd love to see the SIM lean more in to AI use as the technology progresses. There's thousands of races every week, wouldn't it be cool if we could read a preview or recap of each one if we wanted to? Headshots for every horse you own? The game is vast and feels empty much of the time, and adding a human touch to every touchpoint would be impossible. AI content, while not perfect, could also make everything just feel more alive and dynamic.

Since I've already got one sure to be unpopular opinion above, let me follow it up with one more below. Articles posted by humans (especially the newer players) are often filled with wrong assumptions and incorrect information. These being published with minimal proofing leads this information to be considered factual because hey, there's an article about it! I understand wanting players to learn about the game, but the games newest players shouldn't be the ones publishing content about the best pedigrees, race management etc. By the very nature of them being new they're still learning this stuff.

Going to step away from this thread for a very long while now.

[Elkippos Larysios]

Yes but can I write my jockey * fan fiction?

Paying 20k if you send it to me in pm

[The Steward]

I know I'm going to get a ton of * for saying this, but honestly I'd love to see the SIM lean more in to AI use as the technology progresses. There's thousands of races every week, wouldn't it be cool if we could read a preview or recap of each one if we wanted to?

This isn't the worst suggestion/comment. Like, totally that would be cool. That said, we can't pay for those to exist because no one is doing research work. I'm not against the articles existing, I'm against giving someone $80k a week for no reason.

Headshots for every horse you own?

I'm actually very surprised you said this, since it will leave someone you consider a friend unemployed. Which is why people are up in arms about the AI thing anyway, which you already know.

[Nena Olson]

I know I'm going to get a ton of * for saying this, but honestly I'd love to see the SIM lean more in to AI use as the technology progresses. There's thousands of races every week, wouldn't it be cool if we could read a preview or recap of each one if we wanted to? Headshots for every horse you own? The game is vast and feels empty much of the time, and adding a human touch to every touchpoint would be impossible. AI content, while not perfect, could also make everything just feel more alive and dynamic.

Since I've already got one sure to be unpopular opinion above, let me follow it up with one more below. Articles posted by humans (especially the newer players) are often filled with wrong assumptions and incorrect information. These being published with minimal proofing leads this information to be considered factual because hey, there's an article about it! I understand wanting players to learn about the game, but the games newest players shouldn't be the ones publishing content about the best pedigrees, race management etc. By the very nature of them being new they're still learning this stuff.

Going to step away from this thread for a very long while now.

Or how about not putting creative people out of jobs?

[Sue Wentz]

To start with, I'm disappointed that anyone would think AI is an appropriate workaround to improving their SIM cash flow.

A lot of folks, including myself, put a lot of honest effort into submitting articles. We work hard to find interesting topics and try to make them entertaining and educational. We have several writers here whose work I truly enjoy. Do we sometimes make errors, especially when we're new? Absolutely. I do like that there's a shelf life option on articles now. Heck, I'd love to see advanced players jumping in with counterpoint or rebuttal articles.

I'm hardly an expert on the techie side, but I do have some experience as a writer and author. After doing a little experimenting, I think AI generated articles--such as from ChatGPT--are fairly easy to detect. The vocabulary, syntax, and format are super consistent. This is MUCH different, to my mind, than articles written by someone for whom English isn't a first language. It's even different from those who make minimal effort but still write up to the word count themselves. Having said that, I know the technology is evolving by leaps and bounds.

I guess I would recommend a combination of both common sense and of Sara's suggestion. If the Entry Clerk has any doubt about an article that's been submitted, run it through an AI detector. Or, run them all through the detector, although I know that would take more time.

I'd also recommend changing the Submission guidelines to include a strong warning about not using AI. Whether there should be any penalties for someone found in violation of the rules (once they're written) I'll leave to the Steward and Entry Clerk to decide.

[Lily Wilkins]

I have a MidJourney account and use it from time to time for personal projects. It has NEVER managed to give me a horse that has a correctly depicted bridle, it’s always wonky as heck, and if you ask it to make you a “black thoroughbred” you will get a Friesian. Every. Damn. Time. I’m an artist, and I am confident that I could run laps around AI quality-wise. I might be slower, but I would create a better product.

At the end of the day, I would much rather have hand-drawn headshots that employ a living person, and depict the correct tack/breed.

[Danny Derby]

I'm actually very surprised you said this, since it will leave someone you consider a friend unemployed. Which is why people are up in arms about the AI thing anyway, which you already know.

There will always be a market for human art, and I'd still pay for a bespoke custom image over an AI one for my better horses. Just pointing out what could be possible in the future here, and I think even if it ever reaches a point where 95% of headshots are AI-generated they'd still need a human touch to get it just right.

[Andrew James]

The other option on Danny's comment could be something like:

A) player submits headshot request
B) artist uses AI tool to generate image and then polishes it from there
C) headshots can be produced at a much quicker level.

You could bring cost down as time is less. I think the total revenue generated would probably actually increase if cost and time were reduced.

I could be absolutely wrong here too. No firm opinion on this just thinking out loud.


Regarding the article problem, I unfortunately don't have a great solution. Best I have is take the financial incentive away and have a charity button people can press once a week if they are below a certain threshold (multi account cheating is a problem for this). I think people would still write articles even if no financial incentive.

[Sue Wentz]

As much as I'm looking forward to my next headshot-deserving horse, I'd rather do without than support a switch to AI generated images.

[Tim Matthews]

Let’s return the thread to its original topic, which is articles. I think it is tragic that I can no longer submit my beloved series of absurdist articles that has since been deleted. Luckily I have them saved in my google drive and intend to post them on the forum for all to freely enjoy.

An archive would be cool. Maybe limit paid submissions to one per week and have a dedicated employee or volunteer (not me) to approve or reject articles and determine pay based on apparent effort, quality, and value to the game, not word count.