OUR "NO-AI" POLICY

WE DO NOT PUBLISH AI CONTENT

This includes AI generated, enhanced, or augmented content, and/or content that includes AI elements.

Since current laws and guidelines regarding AI are lacking, our policy is to automatically reject works where AI is suspected. If a published work is later proven to be AI, it will be removed from our publication, blog, and social media, and the author will be banned from future submissions. We reserve the right to suspend and/or add fees to any submission category where the vetting of AI-suspected content becomes too labour intensive.

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Other publications may decide differently, and that is their choice. We believe the distinction is worth preserving between human creativity and AI produced content. Artistic originality, copyright, and consent is worth fighting for. In fairness to human creators, who are already underpaid and undervalued in this world, and in accord with our mission as champions of the arts, AI content is not for us.

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Why have we made this decision?

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The production of AI content requires either 1) the infringement of multiple copyrighted works (by scrubbing the Internet) without seeking consent from creators, or 2) feeding your own work into a program to instantly produce derivative content passed off as original. As writers and artists ourselves, we have dedicated many years of study, practice, and professional experience (not to mention blood, sweat, and tears) to develop our creative skills. As such, we prefer to publish creatives who have put in similar effort.

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By publishing AI works, we would either be violating someone else's copyright and/or consent, or we would be rewarding those who cannot tell the difference between a vending machine and a Van Gogh. Our mission is to support human artistic endeavour, originality, and imagination.

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PLEDGE AGAINST AI SCRUBBING OF OUR CONTENT

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On behalf of those who entrust their works to us, we hereby state that we do not give permission for our published content (including social media, blogs, images, or any other media) to be appropriated for use by any current or future AI programmes. In addition, we will never voluntarily feed any of our content, or the works submitted to and/or published by us, into an AI programme under any circumstances.

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PLEDGE AGAINST IN-HOUSE USE OF AI

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We are committed to producing our own covers, in house images, text, and multi-media content without the use of AI. Images are produced by staff, with Canon digital cameras and iPhones, and edited in Corel PaintShop Pro X4, Photoshop, and Canva. We do not use stock images from Canva, as there is no way to tell what is AI content.

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Sincerely,

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Staff @ The Belfast Review

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