LO
DeploymentCognitive automation2023-02-15
Machine-written spam submissions surged at Clarkesworld and the science-fiction magazine temporarily closed submissions, its editor reported in February 2023
Writer and authoroccupation page →
Event date / reported
2023-02-15
Evidence stage
DeploymentAn employer has put it into production. Can move the baseline — weighted by scale and how similar the setting is.
Tasks this bears on
Short fiction and open submission markets
Selling stories and books through open submissions and self-publishing.
Automating✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
An open-submission science-fiction magazine. Its editor wrote that the number of spam submissions resulting in bans had hit 38% that month, a spike he tied to AI chatbots, and on 20 February 2023 added that submissions spiked — over 50 before noon — so he had temporarily closed submissions. The magazine's current guidelines say it will not consider submissions translated, written, developed or assisted by these tools. It is one magazine's account.
What this means
Open markets were the first to feel machine-written fiction — not as better stories, but as volume that editors had to filter out.
What it does not yet show
One magazine's 2023 account; it does not measure writers' sales or later trends.
What you can check
Open Neil Clarke's February 15, 2023 post "A Concerning Trend" and find "temporarily closed submissions".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. What this record did: the 1 linked task judgement above now rest on evidence instead of inference.
Source
Neil Clarke (editor of Clarkesworld) — A Concerning Trend (blog post, 02/15/2023, with edit of 2/20/2023) · verified 2026-09-30 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-09-30 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.