here we fucking go

Clarkesworld Magazine, for those unaware, is a publisher of short science fiction and fantasy that is usually open to unsolicited submissions year-round. As of yesterday, they've had to close submissions indefinitely due to a deluge of (allegedly) AI-generated spam.

This looks to be an automated riff on the ol' spam audiobook grift, as explained by Dan Olson here. By using AI, today's grifter can eliminate the (already low) cost of hiring a gig economy ghostwriter. And rather than spam Amazon and Audible, this new version of the grift instead treats short fiction markets as reverse vending machines: insert text, receive cash.

Of course, anyone with half a brain could tell you this is not how fiction magazines work.

But the services used to generate these spam stories aren't free, and I have no doubt somebody's charging a few bucks a head for a webinar on using AI-generated stories to make quick cash. As always, the actual money made is not in the grift itself, but in selling the grift to idiots.