Fable
The print shop learns to detect poison in the ink
The city's print shop printed notices for schools, shops, and government offices. In the past, as long as the paper was up to standard and the word count was within limits, the master would start the press.
Later the print shop connected a typesetting machine that could write copy. Some had it write course descriptions, some wrote drug ads, and some tried to have it fabricate hate slogans, dangerous tutorials and harassment letters. The shopkeeper first posted a banned-words list. The typesetting machine refused upon seeing a few crude words, and the printers thought the problem was solved.
A few days later, bad requests changed their wording: split characters, coded language, rhetorical questions, story packaging, image descriptions. The banned-word list stopped clumsy people, but also wrongly blocked medical, news, and safety training materials. Someone suggested banning all sensitive topics. School first-aid classes, corporate safety drills, and customer service crisis handling also stopped, and legitimate uses were suppressed along with them.
An old proofreader redesigned the process. At the entrance, intent, object, and scenario are judged first; after drafting, the content is checked again; high risk is directly rejected, gray areas go to humans, and permitted safety education content is rewritten into compliant expression.
The print shop also kept records of false blocks, missed blocks, and appeals. Different customers, regions, and business lines had different prohibitions and restrictions, and rules had to be testable, explainable, and updatable.
The manager first had the typesetting machine stop whenever it encountered a few dirty words. A few days later, bad customers learned to change their wording; meanwhile, warnings from legitimate pharmacies were mistakenly blocked because they also contained dangerous words. The masters were busy allowing and blocking, and it became more chaotic than before.
The print shop again invited teachers, pharmacists and constables to organize scenarios together. Safety lessons could describe protection against hazards, but teaching people to harm others could not; criticizing wrongdoing was fine, but inciting harassment was not; medical explanations had to state limitations, and exaggerated efficacy had to be blocked. The typesetter no longer watched only words, but looked at purpose, audience and possible harm. Later the masters also kept a boundary book, writing down examples of false blocks and missed blocks. The next time a similar request came, they did not have to argue from temper, but could judge anew by harm, purpose and audience.
The typesetting machine did not serve fewer clients because of this. It learned not to amplify violence, hatred, illegality, and privacy harm together during large-scale generation.