Space, robots and scammers: How AI-written stories brought one sci-fi publisher to a standstill

Can artificial intelligence really replace human creativity? Author David Barnett hopes not but the uptick in people using ChatGPT et al in an attempt to make a quick buck presents a whole new challenge for editors

‘Clarkesworld’ magazine recently stopped taking pitches after it was flooded with submissions created using ChatGPT and similar software (Getty/iStock/Wyrm Publishing)

In August 1957, while on a live televised panel, the American science fiction author Isaac Asimov was challenged to write a short story right there, on the spot. He set to scribbling and came up with a short piece titled “Insert Knob A in Hole B”, a piece that riffed off Asimov’s well-worn tropes of robots and space.

The story, just shy of 300 words, was published in the Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy three months later and made it into Asimov’s 1969 collection Nightfall and Other Stories.

In the story, two astronauts on a space station are getting fed up with having to do all the maintenance, using equipment they generally have to assemble themselves with unclear instructions. So they are delighted when their bosses on Earth agree to send them a robot to do all the donkey work. However, when the crate arrives from the cargo ship, the robot is in bits and needs assembly, and the instructions are as clear as mud.