(Free to enter | $500 prize | Deadline will be announced once Google’s crawler stops ghosting our new domain)
Illuminati Press Short Story Contest
Free Entry • $500 Prize • Open-Source Voting Experiment
Overview
We are launching a new short story contest, with free entry and a $500 prize awarded to the best work of fiction, judged by open public voting.
However, unlike most traditional writing contests, we are allowing the use of AI—and we are doing it deliberately.
Most contests today ban AI-generated work, but there is no effective way to enforce these bans. Meanwhile, recent studies suggest that AI-assisted writing often performs extremely well with readers—sometimes outperforming human-only drafts—and many people cannot reliably tell the difference.
We believe it’s time to test these assumptions properly.
This contest is open to all writers, regardless of whether they use AI tools for idea generation, drafting, editing, or not at all. All entries will be judged purely on their quality, not on how they were created.
Why This Matters
Is there a meaningful difference between human mimicry and machine mimicry?
Can readers reliably tell whether a story was crafted with or without AI assistance?
We believe that an experienced writer working with AI (for brainstorming, story generation, editing, or refinement) will likely produce stronger work than an experienced writer who refuses to use AI—and certainly stronger than a beginner relying only on AI without storytelling skill.
But we want to find out.
This contest is designed as an open, anonymized experiment to see how stories perform, regardless of their creation method.
How the Contest Will Work
- Writers may use any tools they like, including AI, or none at all.
- There is no penalty for using AI assistance, and no requirement to disclose it publicly.
- All entries will be anonymized before public voting.
- Readers and judges will not know whether a story was AI-assisted or human-only.
- After the contest concludes, we will privately survey entrants about their writing process.
- We will publish general, anonymous statistics (e.g., “76% of top-rated stories involved AI assistance”) without linking results to individual authors or entries.
Addressing Fairness Concerns
Some may say, “But that’s not fair!”
It’s true that AI cannot submit stories independently. Every entry will have been created through human will—whether motivated by art, competition, curiosity, or simply the prize money. The act of choosing to create, edit, and submit a story remains fundamentally human.
Our goal is to see whether pure art can outshine soulless drivel, whether humans can recognize the difference—and whether the line between them matters as much as we think.
Confidentiality and Anonymity
We recognize that many serious writers who use AI may not wish to disclose it publicly, due to ongoing stigmas, blacklists, and career risks.
Therefore:
- We will not reveal which stories used AI tools and which did not.
- We will not require public disclosure of tools or methods.
- We will protect writers’ privacy while still gathering anonymous research data to better understand how AI is changing the landscape of creative writing.
Entry Details
- Theme: Ghost in the Machine (interpret as you wish)
- Word Limit: 2,000 words maximum
- Entry Fee: None
- Prize: $500 to the top-rated story, paid via PayPal or cryptocurrency (as preferred)
- Rights: Writers retain all rights. We request only temporary, non-exclusive display rights for 90 days after the contest ends.
- Timeline: The contest will officially open once our site indexing is complete and enough interest has been generated. (We expect to launch later this summer.)
Public Voting and Safeguards
We will do everything possible to ensure a fair contest:
- Story entries will be randomized and anonymized.
- Author names and titles will be hidden during voting.
- Public readers will not know which stories are AI-assisted or not.
- Multiple voting protections will be in place to prevent manipulation (one vote per IP, randomized story order, etc.).
This is not intended to be a popularity contest based on who has the largest platform—it’s a laboratory experiment designed to measure how people actually respond to writing itself.
Our Broader Goal
This project isn’t just about one prize or one winner.
It’s about learning:
- What does “human creativity” mean in an era of language models?
- Can readers tell—or do they even care?
- How is storytelling changing, and how should we, as writers, readers, and publishers, respond?
The more data we gather, the clearer our answers will be.
We hope you’ll join us in this experiment. If you support the idea—or even if you hate it—please consider linking back or sharing. The sooner we reach critical mass, the sooner we can begin.
Stay tuned for the official launch. Let’s see what ghosts the machine can conjure.
Questions? Email editorial@illuminatipress.com.
The provocation
The polite rulebook says “No AI—real writers only.”
We’ve read the rulebook, underlined its good intentions, and tossed it in the canal.
Our wager: an experienced writer with AI will still out-write an inexperienced writer with AI—and probably out-write an experienced writer who refuses every silicon assist. The only way to know is to run the experiment in public.
The lab setup
- Blind reading. Stories are stripped of author info, fed to a public voting interface, and shuffled per refresh so no one can brigade their entry to the top.
- Any tech allowed. Whisper dictation, Claude brainstorming, Midjourney mood-boards, ChatGPT rough-and-ready prose—use or refuse as you wish.
- After the vote. Winners get cash and laurels; we never out anyone’s process. Separately (and anonymously) we’ll publish aggregate stats: e.g. “73 % of top-quartile stories involved AI editing.”
The unavoidable “Not Fair!” section
“AI can’t submit on its own.”
Correct: a language model doesn’t pay entry fees, doesn’t pick themes, and doesn’t feel humiliation when it bombs. Every manuscript will still be forged by a human will—mercenary or artistic. That’s the variable we’re measuring: human discernment wielding—or spurning—new tools.
“Readers will just vote for their influencer friends.”
Our interface hides titles, author names, and even randomized excerpts. Think Tinder for paragraphs: you swipe, you score, you move on. Quantity of votes, not follower count, decides shortlists.
“We’ll never trust the results.”
Fine. Replicate us. We’ll open-source the anonymised vote logs and the post-contest survey questions so any statistician can audit our chi-squares.
Practicalities (because someone will ask)
- Word cap: 2,500 words. Micro enough to read in one subway ride, long enough to reveal whether your twist actually lands.
- Theme: Ghost in the Machine. Interpret with zero, one, or seven layers of irony.
- Rights: You own everything. We request non-exclusive digital display for 90 days.
- Prize: $500 USD via PayPal or crypto. Yes, crypto is tacky; sometimes tacky pays faster.
- Timeline: We’ll post formal dates once search-engine indexing stabilises (think late summer).
Why bother?
Because every dinner-table argument about “soulless AI prose” lacks data. Because some of us write better first drafts after riffing with a chatbot, and others feel that’s a deal with Mephistopheles—and both camps deserve evidence, not vibes. Because if the future of authorship is hybrid, we’d better map the fault-lines now, before lawyers and LinkedIn thought-leaders do it for us.
Link this call if you’re intrigued, mock it if you’re horrified, remix it if you have a braver design. Either way, the experiment starts when enough curious minds show up.
Light the lamp, feed the model, sharpen the quill. Let the best ghost win.