Clarkesworld magazine overwhelmed by AI-generated fiction submissions
Date: 2023-02
Affected: Clarkesworld Magazine — editorial workflow; broader publishing and content moderation industries
Attack vector: other
Category: real-world
Severity: Medium

Neil Clarke, editor of the Hugo Award-winning science fiction magazine Clarkesworld, publicly announced that the volume of AI-generated fiction submissions had become unmanageable. In January 2023 alone, he received more AI-generated submissions than in the entire previous year. The content was often superficially plausible but lacked originality. Clarke was forced to close submissions entirely to avoid being overwhelmed. The incident highlighted how generative AI could be weaponised for spam/fraud at scale in creative industries.

Impact: Forced closure of submissions; editorial resource exhaustion; precedent for AI-generated content spam in creative industries

Mitigations:
AI content detection at intake — flag statistically-likely AI-generated submissions for additional review
Rate limiting submissions per account
Provenance attestation — require human authorship declaration with fraud consequences
Watermarking requirements for AI-generated content (EU AI Act Art. 50)

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):
label: Foundation Models
notes: Model generates plausible-sounding fiction that passes initial human screening
role: origin
label: Deployment & Infrastructure
notes: No rate limiting or AI-content detection in submission infrastructure
role: impact
label: Evaluation & Observability
notes: No automated screening for AI-generated content before human review
role: blind-spot