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An AI agreement on an online literature platform triggered a joint condemnation from online writers.

Recently, many online writers have revealed on social media that a new "AI Training Supplementary Agreement" has been added to the contract agreement of Tomato Novel, an online writing APP under ByteDance, requiring authors to agree to "feed" their works to the platform's AI for content development, which caused an uproar in the online writing circle.

According to the agreement, after signing, all/part of the author's work and related information will be used for platform AI model training or other new technology research and development application scenarios, and the training and production content will be protected by the platform's copyright. If signed, the author will "be given priority to participate in the internal testing of new AI functions on the platform."

On July 23, a relevant person in charge of Tomato Novel told the reporter from The Paper that for authors who have signed supplementary agreements or contract terms that include AI-assisted writing clauses, Tomato Novel has launched a functional entrance to cancel the relevant clauses. Users can initiate the cancellation of relevant clauses through the Tomato Writer Assistant APP and the Tomato Novel Network Author Workstation.

How big an impact does AI have on content creation?

A reporter from The Paper registered for the Tomato Novel APP and found that the APP currently has AI assistant-related functions such as AI expansion, AI rewriting, custom description, and AI continuation. The author needs to agree to AI-related precautions before using the related functions.

According to the notes, using this service to upload, publish or transmit content or using this service to generate output content represents the right and consent to permanently, irrevocably and free of charge grant all products or services of Shiguangfenran Company (and Tomato Novel's parent company) and its affiliated companies the rights to store, use, publish, copy, modify, adapt, publish, translate and create derivative works, disseminate, perform and display information content worldwide.

At the same time, Tomato Novel is also authorized to incorporate all or part of the information content into any other form of work, media, or technology; to use the information content to optimize models and services, and to sublicense all/part of the above rights to other third parties for use in the above manner.

"In Tomato's AI novel account, there are AIs that update 50 novels a day, and some that update tens of millions of words a month." Online writer "Xiaolu" told The Paper, "Each novel is the product of the writer's hard work day and night, just like his own child. Forcing AI to write is like watching a child become a part of someone else's body right after it is born, and the writer will feel heartbroken. In addition, after AI uses the "child" to train new texts, the platform can report the "mother" for plagiarism, which poses many legal risks."

In fact, similar AI assistants have been widely used in the online literature industry.

In this regard, Xue Hong, a member of the presidium of the Shanghai Writers Association and president of the Shanghai Online Writers Association, told The Paper that in the short term, the actual impact is not significant. "It will not have a big impact on novels that focus on plot design and character description. For top authors who have their own unique worldview and structure, this may be a more convenient creative tool."

Online writer "Dabaizhizhu" also agrees with the above view. "Currently, novels created by AI are very dull, and the characterization is also lacking. They cannot imitate the spoken language of humans. Judging from the creative level of AI, there is no sign of catching up with humans, but it may replace a large number of grassroots writers and momentum studios."

"The 28 effect in online literary creation is serious. Currently, the people most affected by AI are the grassroots writers, who account for about 90%. They want to work in this industry but have not yet formed a stable income, and the impact on them is the most severe. For top writers, AI is far from developing to the extent that it can affect them, and they often don't care." Lord Dabai admitted.

Talking about the reason why the AI ​​protocol of Tomato Novel was collectively boycotted, he said: "In fact, online literature is an industry that is powered by love. Many writers have invested a lot of effort and love. Apart from writing, they have no other skills. If AI replaces their way of making a living, it will subvert their lives."

The well-known online writer "Talking Elbow", who was once named one of the "Twelve Kings of the Online Literature Circle", told the Pengpai News reporter that AI is indeed impacting the living space of grassroots writers. AI's super learning ability may threaten the creative status of online writers and even lead to changes in the entire online literature creation ecosystem.

Strong protests from writers have forced the platform to make some concessions. On July 23, a person in charge of Tomato Novel told The Paper that Tomato Novel has launched a function to cancel the relevant clauses for authors who have signed supplementary agreements or signed contracts that include AI-assisted writing clauses. Users can initiate the cancellation of relevant clauses through the Tomato Writer Assistant APP and the Tomato Novel Network Author Workstation.

In fact, using AI to assist in creation is very common on various online writing platforms.

On July 19 last year, China Literature Group announced the launch of the domestic online literature industry’s first big model “China Literature Miaobi” and an application product based on this big model, “Writer Assistant Miaobi Edition”, to create supporting measures for writers to create online literature, including writer services, data operations, and technical tools.

At that time, Yang Chen, editor-in-chief of China Literature Group, told the reporter of The Paper that, like pen and paper and computer, AI is also an aid for writers. "AI will not directly generate a novel in the end, but it should be of great help to writing. Every writer may have weak areas, and AI can help you make up for some of them." On the other hand, for writers, with the help of AI, how to combine words and what kind of logic to tell what kind of story, "these are the foundation of writers' writing."

In the same month, the "Qimao" platform announced that based on its cooperation with Baidu's "Wenxin Yiyan", it provided authors with "AI Assistant" and other related auxiliary writing functions, which can provide historical and cultural information, name characters, generate scene descriptions, etc.

On October 13 last year, Chinese Online released the Chinese Xiaoyao Model, which can provide functional assistance for the entire creative cycle, from story conception, plot arrangement, content writing, to character dialogue, illustration production, content evaluation, etc. It can generate 10,000 words with one click, write a novel with one picture, and understand a 1 million-word novel at a time.

Regarding the question of whether AI creations will become homogenized, Tong Zhilei, CEO of ChinaNet, once told a reporter from The Paper that AI-assisted creation does not mean that the right to create is by no means completely transferred to a big model, and the author will never become a "slave" of AI.

"China now has more than 10 million online writers, and the number of works produced each year is in the millions. No reader can finish reading all the works." Tong Zhilei said that the function of assisting creation will not lead to a particularly large difference in supply, but will bring more help to top writers.

Although AI has been deeply integrated into online writing, according to analysis by many industry insiders, Tomato Novel is currently the only platform that has directly announced that it will "feed" the corpus to the big model, which has sparked fierce protests. "Some other platforms also have AI assistants, but they appear in the form of tools to assist writing, such as helping with naming, describing scenes, etc. For the time being, I haven't heard of other platforms using artificial intelligence to replace authors." Xuehong said.

Experts call for full protection of the legitimate rights and interests of copyright holders

The wave is coming, and whether online writers are willing or not, it seems that AI changing literary creation has become an inevitable trend.

In May this year, Professor Wang Feng of East China Normal University published the first million-word novel completed by artificial intelligence, "The Apostle of Destiny". It is understood that "The Apostle of Destiny" adopts the model of "domestic large language model + prompt word engineering + manual post-polishing", of which AI contributes up to 70%, and the remaining 30% is carefully planned and polished by humans.

At that time, Wang Feng said in an interview that literary entrepreneurs who do not know how to use AI may be unemployed in ten years. "With the continuous advancement of AI technology, proficient use of AI will also become a key skill. Individuals who fail to adapt to and effectively use AI may fall behind in the workplace competition."

Zhai Wei, executive director of the Competition Law Research Center of East China University of Political Science and Law, told reporters that when using AI to generate corpus, the legitimate rights and interests of copyright owners need to be fully protected; only with the permission and authorization of the copyright owner can the platform use copyrighted works as corpus for AI training. Only in this way can the original author's creative enthusiasm be maintained, the innovative momentum in the field of literature be stimulated, and more high-quality works be produced. These high-quality works can further become high-quality corpus for platform AI training through licensing and authorization, promote the iterative update of AI technology, and thus form a virtuous cycle mechanism driven by innovation. Given that AI training requires a large amount of corpus, the platform can consider obtaining copyrighted works used as AI corpus through general authorization, collective authorization, and other methods based on fair and reasonable principles.

Zhai Wei said,If the platform takes advantage of the author's dependence on the platform, violates the author's independent will, or refuses to provide the author with a reasonable price, and forces or disguisedly forces the author to provide his or her writing materials to AI, this requirement is unreasonable, and the rights and obligations of the platform and the author are not equal.In this case, if the platform has a dominant market position, it may also constitute an abuse of its dominant market position. If the platform and the author reach an agreement on the basis of equal and voluntary negotiation, the platform provides the author with a reasonable price, and the author authorizes the platform to use his or her work as AI training corpus, then such an agreement is a legal and reasonable normal market transaction.