Bravo Fleet
We are in the exciting time of the year when Fleet Action is less than a month away, and the anticipation is in the air! The Fleet Action is one of my favorite events we run because, aside from being our hallmark event as an organization that brings all or most of our activities together at once, I also thoroughly enjoy the friendly competitiveness of it all. However, one of the biggest jobs I feel that the staff in Bravo Fleet have is to create a fair, even playing field for all members. As we got closer to the Fleet Action, the Bravo Fleet Senior Staff and then Bravo Fleet Command looked at and evaluated the Creative Integrity Policy within Bravo Fleet. The CIP has been our guiding star to a few things, but nothing perhaps more ever present in the minds of a lot of people these days than Artificial Intelligence. The CIP is barely two years old, and in that time AI has taken such leaps and bounds that I had finally asked David to look at a complete update to bring it to more modern (only two years!) standards with how quickly AI has come.
But, I should say, this didn’t come entirely out of the blue. A while back we did have some major issues shortly after the CIP was developed with generative AI writing, and people using it to generate massive amounts of text in order to earn themselves more activity ribbons for writing and, therefore, more merit medals and promotions. That isn’t fair to anyone. I know I speak for myself, but I’m sure I speak for most people when I say it isn’t fair that someone can generate 10,000 words of writing in mere seconds as a leg up. Add to that, generative AI tends to be rather fluffy and soulless in a lot of ways, which makes it just as unenjoyable to read it or to write with a partner who is using it. In the past few months, many of the generative AIs that have begun to insert an automatic, practically irrefutable tell that text is AI generated. We monitored it for a while and have come to realize that a not insignificant amount of people are still using generative AI for things like writing, character biographies for competitions, and even to earn Academy badges.
At my direction, the update to the CIP that David wrote up effectively bans all generative AI from Bravo Fleet for creative writing purposes. You can see the updated history changes here. This also has made the CIP significantly shorter and more straight forward. In addition to creative writing, we’ve also taken a pass at some wording regarding the use of AI images. We’re generally supportive of people using AI to create character art and the like, but our resources are not infinite. We have a lot of character biographies that have several large image files uploaded into a bio gallery where the main difference is the angle is slightly different. This has been taxing on fleet resources. The tl;dr highlights of the changes are as follows:
- AI content in all creative writing applications (bios, commands, missions, stories, personal units) is now affirmatively banned;
- An even clearer distinction is made between writing assistance tools and genAI;
- A clear distinction between using the genAI-powered tools in photoshop (background removal, for one) versus text-to-image or image-to-image generation;
- A reminder that it’s unnecessary to upload huge AI-generated images for character bio pics;
- A ban on AI-generated images in character galleries;
- A requirement that if image-to-image generation is used, the source image must also be credited and be something that a member has the right to use in the first place;
- A reminder that it’s on members to make sure they are using AI image generators ethically;
- A full ban on AI in competitions, rather than the way it was before where organizers could allow it; and
- Clarifies that text on the BFMS must be authored by BF members, and all BF members must be attached to the post.
This may seem extreme, but as a club that prides ourselves on our bread and butter of writing, it is the only way I can see to keep the playing field fair while also maintaining a personal quality touch to the items our members produce. A lot of which is consumed by other members in their free time for their own enjoyment. We are, after all, here to support each other. And, I felt this was a more equitable solution to all of the outstanding issues we’ve found rather than subjecting anyone to yet another JAG case about AI.
With that in mind and because I know plenty of people are probably wondering it for themselves… after speaking with Slagar, we have agreed that we will have an amnesty grace period. We know and understand that we have lots of people coming and going from the Reserves, different levels of activity, etc. So for now, I will say that the amnesty period runs from right now until the end of the Fleet Action. That should give people plenty of time to either come forward to myself, David, or Slagar with previous stories they’ve knowingly submitted with AI, clean up or replace bios that credit a generative AI, any Academy badges earned through use of AI, etc. After that, we will likely look at things on a case-by-case basis, especially for people who have been hibernating in the Reserves and then suddenly come back. The goal of this is not to get people in trouble. If we wanted to do that, we just would. Bravo Fleet is not about some sort of weird penance or punishment. I’ve often talked about how Bravo Fleet has largely become one big D&D campaign and I do strongly believe that. So this is just another way to keep the game fair and fun for everyone.
And another question that has already come up that I’m happy to answer now: this does not affect the use of something like Grammarly, which simply improves spelling or grammar but does not rewrite entire sentences. To take directly from the CIP: spelling, style, and grammar checkers such as the ones built into Microsoft Word or standalone checkers such as Grammarly are not generative AI and their use is encouraged.
For those that are still wondering if there is anything AI can help with when writing in Bravo Fleet, the answer is yes! Cath wrote an excellent guide to using AI as a tool in your writing and story development which I think everyone (whether you’ve used AI before or not!) should read as the pointers she has in here are absolutely fantastic and can help you craft much better stories and plot points!
Any questions can be directly sent to me, Slagar, or David, or brought up on Discord. We’re sure people will have questions!