Beat My AI: Flash Fiction: Originals

Overview
Beat My AI operates as an online magazine with a specific editorial proposition: the 'Original' section of its flash fiction submissions must contain a limited, clearly demarcated passage generated or heavily influenced by artificial intelligence. This is not a conventional literary call. It is a structured experiment in authorship, one that treats the AI contribution as a visible element within the work rather than a concealed tool. The journal's format pairs each accepted 'Original' with a human-made 'Contender' piece from another contributor, creating a deliberate juxtaposition between machine-assisted and human-generated text. The curatorial interest lies in transparency and craft: how a writer frames, integrates, and marks the AI portion within an otherwise authored flash fiction piece. For the submitting writer, the terms are straightforward. There is no submission fee. The call is rolling, with no fixed deadline. The venue is online and remote, which means no geographic constraint on contributors. What the publication offers is publication itself within a defined editorial framework, and the prospect of one's work entering into a comparative reading alongside another writer's response. There is no monetary prize listed, and no residency or exhibition component. The value proposition is editorial: a platform for work that engages directly with the conditions of AI-assisted writing, without pretending those conditions do not exist. The curatorial vision appears to be one of critical play. By requiring the AI element to be limited and clearly marked, the editors forestall the kind of undetectable AI use that has become a quiet controversy elsewhere. Instead, they ask writers to make the machine's role legible, and then to let another human writer answer it. This structure turns each accepted piece into a conversation about influence, originality, and the boundary between generated and composed language. Writers who submit should understand that the AI component is not a shortcut but a compositional problem to be solved on the page.