There is a laughable proposition that has recently surfaced, laughable especially in the composing of fiction…if not in every other kind of writing.
“Artificial Intelligence” has also been named…by Noam Chomsky, no less…as “Plagiarism Software.” This is a much more accurate term since it recognizes clearly the sources of all artificial intelligence…the entirety of which comes from the many millions of human beings who have put pencil to paper to compose (quill to parchment, or fingers to typewriters, to computer keyboards…whatever) . So, “AI” uses as a base for its own composition the written efforts of countless individual writers who have existed since time immemorial.
(For an idea of how this can be, please see this recent letter from PEN America to like-minded authors and organizations:
“Dear member:
“We are writing to make you aware of the opportunity to submit information to the plaintiffs' attorneys in Bartz v. Anthropic, one of the copyright class action lawsuits involving AI. The court found that Anthropic infringed authors' and publishers' copyrights by downloading millions of books from the pirate websites Library Genesis (“LibGen”) and Pirate Library Mirror (“PiLiMi”) to train their AI model and also certified a class comprised of all rights holders of copyright-registered books downloaded by Anthropic from these sites.
“The plaintiffs' attorneys are collecting contact information from all authors and publishers who may be part of the class to ensure that they receive official notices in the case going forward and have the opportunity to opt out or to stay in the suit and receive their share of the award.
“The attorneys have created a website where rights holders can confidentially provide this information.
“We urge all members who believe their books may have been unlawfully downloaded by Anthropic to visit the website and provide the requested information. This is an important step in ensuring that as many authors as possible are compensated for the unauthorized use of their work to train AI.
“Thank you for your time and consideration.”)
Thus, instead of clear ideas, pondered by an individually bright human mind and expressed with clarity and taste, with “AI” you have a hodgepodge of various sentences or phrases, many in conflict with many others, that gathered together are expressed with contradictory confusion, put together by a thoroughly un-human gathering process that has no specific idea of how to tell a story, how to set a scene, how to present a hero and a villain, how to offer original thoughts on love, ill manners, worry, death, grateful thanks, the arrival of one’s self-awareness, political strife, the frightful waste of war, the end of love, the worry for children, the sense of what it’s like to swim in the ocean, to ride a bike, offer a kiss, feel betrayed, to rob a bank, to dance a tango, to be killed, to be born, to nurture…. And most other events or feelings that affect the human heart, which is to say, all events and feelings.
The very suggestion that “AI” could handle such a task is worthy of laughter, while the evidence that individual humans are up to the task has been crystal clear throughout the millennia before “AI” ever came about…that would be two or three years ago. So, if you are someone involved in any sort of creative endeavor, you have little to worry about. Keep writing. “AI” will stagger along far behind, confused by everything and offering further amateurish (and copyright infringed) muddle as its signal result.
Copyright © 2025 Terence Clarke. All rights reserved.
Note: No Plagiarism Software, also known as Artificial Intelligence, was used in the composition of this piece.
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thank you for sharing your perspective, Terence. many wrters share your concerns.
what I've discovered is that AI works best as a research assistant rather than a creative replacement, helping with the tedious parts while we humans handle the soul of the work
Your authentic voice clearly needs no assistance, and that's beautiful too