Lex!! Thank you for this thoughtful and (unfortunately) necessary essay! I’ve heard rumblings about such things happening myself in publishing as well as academia. We talk frequently about what to do if a student comes into the writing center with a paper that was clearly helped along by AI and what to do next semester when we’re actually teaching students. If the consequences for a student are as high as possible expulsion, should not the consequences for an author be just as high? We are trying to teach the next generation that the act of writing, the entire process, is just as important as the final text. That a work has value because of the person and brain behind it. Without that human element, a text is just random soulless words stolen from god knows where and rearranged to meet a prompt. Like you, I have found AI to be helpful with schedule and research organization, but there’s a line I refuse to cross and as I teach students how to write ethically, I feel even more disappointed (even a bit angered) by the grown adults with book contracts these students would naturally look up to as professional writers who have taken a route that is plagiarism by another name 😫
Again, so appreciate your brilliant and experienced thoughts here ❤️❤️
Thank you for your thoughtful reading, friend! My sister-in-law is teaching a composition course and had to confront a student for handing in AI-written work and the student did not understand the issue. It’s a wild space!
I think we all must be louder about the power and beauty of a written piece not being that it simply exists, but that it is a method of human connection that we’re all so desperate for.
Thanks for holding the horror and the hope here with me.
"The metaphorical trees broken down to bits and pressed into particle board for others to cut into the general shape of a tree and claim they grew it themselves from a sapling." Amen.
I have been troubled by how many writers have gone from this being an outrage, to shrugging it off and feeling the ends justify the unethical AI-means. And I’m not ready to pretend it’s not built off of the backs of the labor and care of so many others.
Well done, friend. The unfortunate times we are living through. It’s thoughts like yours that help us all—awareness, honesty, information. I’m paying attention.
Every now and then, I read something that doesn’t just inform BUT affirms what we know to be true. This was that, Alexis!! Thoughtful, sharp, and exactly the kind of conversation we need more of. Grateful for you! 🗣SPOT ON 🔥
I love to read the acknowledgements. Most work comes about because of conversations and research and bouncing ideas off other people. Seems like these writers are cheating themselves in using AI in this way. I am hesitant with AI but do use it for some things. Just not for writing.
It truly is robbing oneself of the depth and connection a writing experience can bring. I came across a fantastic little poem toward this end that I jotted in a commonplace book a few months ago! I’ll have to come back and share it with you—it was too good!
I don't think copyright is a concept they're concerned about unless it impacts their own profits. Hence the current attempt by tech lobbyists to water down UK copyright law.
One argument I've seen to counter the data ingestion accusations is that advice to authors to 'read as much as possible' and 'learn from - even ape - those writers you admire most' is the neurological training equivalent of how the tokenised neural networks in an LLM are trained to output their prompted texts.
If you believe that AIs in future will become conscious or sentient and human creativity arises from a mass of connected neurons, then there'll be little to distinguish us from them on a creative level, without reference to metaphysical concepts like 'creative essence' and the soul.
Lex!! Thank you for this thoughtful and (unfortunately) necessary essay! I’ve heard rumblings about such things happening myself in publishing as well as academia. We talk frequently about what to do if a student comes into the writing center with a paper that was clearly helped along by AI and what to do next semester when we’re actually teaching students. If the consequences for a student are as high as possible expulsion, should not the consequences for an author be just as high? We are trying to teach the next generation that the act of writing, the entire process, is just as important as the final text. That a work has value because of the person and brain behind it. Without that human element, a text is just random soulless words stolen from god knows where and rearranged to meet a prompt. Like you, I have found AI to be helpful with schedule and research organization, but there’s a line I refuse to cross and as I teach students how to write ethically, I feel even more disappointed (even a bit angered) by the grown adults with book contracts these students would naturally look up to as professional writers who have taken a route that is plagiarism by another name 😫
Again, so appreciate your brilliant and experienced thoughts here ❤️❤️
“a route that is plagiarism by another name” 💯
The truth! 🔥
Thank you for your thoughtful reading, friend! My sister-in-law is teaching a composition course and had to confront a student for handing in AI-written work and the student did not understand the issue. It’s a wild space!
I think we all must be louder about the power and beauty of a written piece not being that it simply exists, but that it is a method of human connection that we’re all so desperate for.
Thanks for holding the horror and the hope here with me.
"The metaphorical trees broken down to bits and pressed into particle board for others to cut into the general shape of a tree and claim they grew it themselves from a sapling." Amen.
I have been troubled by how many writers have gone from this being an outrage, to shrugging it off and feeling the ends justify the unethical AI-means. And I’m not ready to pretend it’s not built off of the backs of the labor and care of so many others.
Thanks for taking the time to read!
I loved this article! Thank you so much for talking about this!
I so appreciate you taking the time to read!
Well done, friend. The unfortunate times we are living through. It’s thoughts like yours that help us all—awareness, honesty, information. I’m paying attention.
Thanks for taking the time to read! And also thanks for your faithfulness in seeking writers that love words and their readers.
Appreciated this very much.
Thanks so much for reading!
Every now and then, I read something that doesn’t just inform BUT affirms what we know to be true. This was that, Alexis!! Thoughtful, sharp, and exactly the kind of conversation we need more of. Grateful for you! 🗣SPOT ON 🔥
Thanks so much for reading. And thank you for writing that is all you down to its bones!
I love to read the acknowledgements. Most work comes about because of conversations and research and bouncing ideas off other people. Seems like these writers are cheating themselves in using AI in this way. I am hesitant with AI but do use it for some things. Just not for writing.
It truly is robbing oneself of the depth and connection a writing experience can bring. I came across a fantastic little poem toward this end that I jotted in a commonplace book a few months ago! I’ll have to come back and share it with you—it was too good!
Would love to read it if you have time to share!
Found it!
https://poets.org/poem/student-who-used-ai-write-paper
ah, i do love that.
Great piece. Thanks for writing it. Hate that it had to be written.
Thanks for taking the risk in reading. I’m grateful and I’m sorry.
So much to think about here! Thank you for this!
Thanks for taking the time to read! I’m really grateful.
Beautifully articulated, Lex, and eye-opening. Thankful you're calling out the troubling trend here. And thanks for the shoutout!
Thanks for reading! I’m sure as both a writer and now editor, it can be discouraging to watch this tool embraced in this application.
But also thank you for your own wise and beautiful writing!
"Do we value our creative impulse so little that we are willing to let a machine mimic it for us?" 🔥 Ugh, yes.
Thank you for writing this. Like so many others, I’m saddened that it is necessary.
For your sixth footnote, I expressed this fear to the latest AI iron to poke the human creative fires.
https://x.com/JohnathanReid/status/1900069401199526371?s=19
I don't think copyright is a concept they're concerned about unless it impacts their own profits. Hence the current attempt by tech lobbyists to water down UK copyright law.
One argument I've seen to counter the data ingestion accusations is that advice to authors to 'read as much as possible' and 'learn from - even ape - those writers you admire most' is the neurological training equivalent of how the tokenised neural networks in an LLM are trained to output their prompted texts.
If you believe that AIs in future will become conscious or sentient and human creativity arises from a mass of connected neurons, then there'll be little to distinguish us from them on a creative level, without reference to metaphysical concepts like 'creative essence' and the soul.