I have never thought to write anything for the purpose of making money. I’m thinking that is most likely a wise decision on my part as I would be that starving author, company for the starving artists in the world. Many times over the years that I have been writing and posting my blogs I have been urged to do just that. The fact that it is always by those that want me to pay them isn’t lost on me. It’s how they hope to make money. They call all of that, the vanity press. It is quite profitable from what little I have read, for the press, not for the authors.

I’m not a big fan of this AI stuff. I see a lot of deception involved with the use of it. I’ve read where the are writing programs now to detect when AI was used to create photographs and such. I’ve heard of cases where people used AI as a tool to attack other people. I did enter one of my blogs into an AI program out of curiousity. The AI analyzed it, provided a list of insights and then offered to rewrite it for me. It even offered several forms or styles to choose from. I had it do that and had to admit to myself, the AI was a better writer. I deleted that piece however, the simple reason, I didn’t write it.

Whatever writing I do, I do without having had any sort of training or instruction. I never took any writing classes, studied journalism or anything like that. I simply write down what I’m thinking about. I wonder if you can be taught to do that stuff in the first place. Oh, I understand you can learn about structure, themes, and that sort of thing but I don’t think you can teach creativity. Either you have that ability, or you don’t. That’s my thought. But maybe with enough polish you can sell it. When that AI had finished with my little story it did sound sellable, it was better writing.

It is something I believe, there is little you can say that hasn’t been said before. It is only in the manner in which you say it that changes. It’s why there are millions of love songs. Can AI really say anything new? Isn’t that the purpose of intelligence? No, I guess it isn’t, it seems like intelligence is measured by the amount of stuff you can remember. Computers are the proof of that. It was some years ago that a computer defeated the world chess champion. Remember when Watson competed on Jeopardy? That was fifteen years ago and that computer handily defeated two previous Jeopardy champions because it could remember more. Was Watson intelligent?

If I were to provide the story, however crudely written it is, and have it rewritten do I become the author of that? Or, is artificial intelligence the author? The computer didn’t have the thought, it expressed the thought. To whom goes the credit? Is AI any different from a ghost writer? You could make the argument that it is not. If I hire a ghost writer, I am credited with being the author. As the “author” I am responsible for whatever is written, good or bad. I don’t know, both seem deceptive to me. By signing, by taking authorship, I am implying that I wrote that.

Federal Copyright Law: The U.S. Copyright Office and federal courts require human authorship for a work to be eligible for copyright protection. If you submit a work containing AI, you must explicitly disclose its use, explain the human contributions, and exclude the machine-generated elements from your claim. How would they know? The human contribution is the thought, everything else would be the machine-generated element. Not much left to publish or copyright is there? Can you copyright a thought? A copyright costs between 45 – 65 dollars. I’m thinking that someone has already had that thought but maybe they haven’t copyrighted it. If I do, then no one else can use that thought! Consider the possibilites.