Your clear distinctions are worthy of highlight as the anti AI bandwagon gains momentum.
Just last night I enjoyed a spirited conversation with someone about AI. My argument being that the human brain is essentially a LLM (currently it seems advanced). In essence, all in the universe is calculate-able with enough computing power.
I appreciate that. I find that the pro-AI group is actually easier to deal with, whereas the anti-AI group often misunderstands the human brain, culture, social learning, and more. Anti-AI misses the fundamentals of who we are in their arguments, while then stretching to make legal and ethical claims that also misuse concepts.
I dislike the pro-AI lack of respect for traditions and culture, but I don't find them ignorant. In fact, they want to create something human-like like so they're willing to learn about who we are.
If you ever want a dose on anti-AI, just find any article on the subject in the NYT and then go to the attached comment section. It's like reading notes from a luddite convention!
That’s a helpful distinction that I have not considered. I wonder if these two camps will separate (and galvanize) predictably based on political affiliation.
AI models are trained on massive corpora of human work — books, art, music, research, code — without meaningful consent, compensation, or control for the creators. The article leans on “fair use” and plagiarism definitions, but fair use is a legal loophole that has nothing to do with fair compensation or moral rights. Corporations built multibillion-dollar products by feeding them the intellectual labor of others — often without licensing — and then sell outcomes back to the public. That’s not inspiration; it’s extraction. Another layer that isn’t addressed is who benefits. Today’s generative AI landscape is dominated by Big Tech — companies with disproportionate control over data, compute, and market access. These entities can set the rules of the informational economy, displacing smaller creators who lack bargaining power. This dynamic isn’t neutral mimicry — it’s a power differential that privileges the already powerful. Even when outputs aren’t verbatim copies, there’s a provenance problem — the models can regurgitate ideas without context, credit, or lineage, breaking the chain of intellectual credit that underpins scholarship and craft. This isn’t classic plagiarism, but it still harms the ecosystem of original creation and recognition.
AI itself doesn’t have motives — corporate incentives do. A model could be deployed to support education, augment Human creativity, or empower underrepresented voices — but in practice, it’s marketed as a substitute for expertise, reducing demand for human labor in writing, design, research, and creative industries. That reinforces extractive dynamics.
You'll notice I addressed that as well in the fact that each human is trained on a massive corpus of human work. Each of your arguments was addressed in one form or another. My focus wasn't exclusively on fair use, as you can tell.
I also love your use of Em Dashes. Go stick it to the AI! (but it does read suspiciously like a copy/paste from an LLM, which I find ironic, right down to the "the article leans on...")
Well that’s a problem in itself if you immediately accuse people you interact with of using AI, a form of ‘ad-botinem’ attack which potentially stifles meaningful debate. ‘Leans on’ may be a tad cliché - apologies for that if the style irks you or if my hyphens are disproportionately long - I am not an academic, in fact I left
University long ago with a mere bachelor’s degree. I am not a bot or a fan of AI plagiarism and reserve the right to be treated respectfully on a forum. Thank you. — MamBoobs
Let's just clear this out: I don't immediately accuse people I interact with of using AI; just where the AI jumps off the page. As for meaningful debate, one reason I accused AI is that your comment didn't actually acknowledge that the points were mostly made in the article. There are a lot of bad-faith debaters out there, and this one met all the initial criteria for a strawman.
And you were treated with respect, just gently called out for not fully reading the article, laquatiousness and a poke at popousness. Given that you aren't an academic, that flags it as AI even more, since normal people don't talk like that.
I'm also not sure why you switched from the em dash to the normal hyphen, as the em dash is actually more accurate, whereas the hyphen works best for word conjunctions. Ironically, it's only academics who use em-dashes in non-fiction writing.
So, if you'd like to start over, let's at least poke at a good counter-argument to whether AI is plagiarism. I've already countered what I could deduce from your word-salad sans the misinterpretation. No need to be Boobs about the discussion.
I had not heard of your Singularity books. I just made a suggestion that my local library system purchase the two books for their collection. Usually, they approve my suggestions.
"It really doesn’t help to make accusations of plagiarism or malicious intent against a tool, and it doesn’t help to misunderstand how AI works or how humans are creative."
---
Gioia has a habit of spewing this kind of 'woe is me' and 'I hate AI' BS, which is why I unsubscribed from his substack quite a while back. The constant complaining was annoying. And of course, like too many SS writers, he would hold much of his writings behind the paywall.
Your viewpoint seems much more realistic and enlightened.
Very, very, very few people are uniquely creative. Almost everyone has been influenced by people and things in the past. If I read books on a subject, become well versed in the subject and then write my own book on the same subject, have I stolen the work of all those I learned from? I think not.
Yeah, Ted has taken to a never-ending pearl clutching that just doesn’t slow down and consider. Also telling is that he rarely engages with critique, either.
A well thought out essay. People want to make the AI ethics issue so black and white. Well, those people are, well, challenged.
I'm completely against people asking for a Pixar style image and then trying to foist it off as a Pixar image. That's totally wrong. But again, it's not AI it's unscrupulous people who are wannabe creators abusing AI as an image generation tool. Without AI these people would be nowhere but on the fringe, envying other people more creative and talented as themselves.
So, what about the case where I ask AI to render an image in a photorealistic style? I'm not ripping off anyone. How about when I ask for a style and color palette and lighting of, say Rembrandt or Vermeer? I can sleep soundly at night knowing I'm not violating any ethical issues the anti-AI crowd claims.
When it comes to writing, again it's people who abuse the tool. These creative wannabes abuse the tool so they can call themselves "writers" when without AI they couldn't put together a collection of words to make a believable statement.
Just like people will drive drunk that's not an inditement of automobiles. It's humans who are cheating and being abusive, not AI.
I'm not interested in a false equivalance between humans and algorithms. Humans study the works of other humans and get inspired to create similar but different works, which takes effort, skill, and time. AI makes a mockery of this process by turning into an instant factory function - replicate an artists entire repetoire of work in minutes. I don’t care about whether it's grammatically, semantically, or legally correct to say AI is plagiarizing. The point is, AI is an insult to art, and AI can't generate anything at all without consuming vast quantities of prior material that is commonly taken without consent.
Well, 1. This isn't a false equivalence. You just don't like the comparison. And 2. That you don't care about grammar, semantics, or law says it all about #1. Your argument is emotional, not rational, and that's fine. In fact, it's exactly the arguments I use in my novel about AI. You're also in good company, as the same argument has been made for the written word, the printing press, photography, and cell phone cameras.
Are you a utopian accelerationist? Do you believe in the singularity? Why disparage humanity as being similar in any way to statistical algorithms and why act like it's totally okay if techlords usurp human thought and craft in order to consolidate more wealth for themselves, leaving us devoid of spirit or purpose? I don't think you're rational enough, you're just fixating on winning the argument even though you've never grasped the plot.
But we will. AI's will be smarter. If we are nice, hopefully they will take care of us and provide for us. If we aren't, well, there are plenty of SF stories where emachines don't see the need for meat to exist.
“It’s a technique called copycatting and has been going on for millennia across all commercial sectors, from food brands and luxury goods to books and movies.1”
It’s been going on for millennia, has it? Two-thousand+ years?
Actually, yes. All the way back to ancient Egyptian where artisans were copying Mesopotamian cylinder seal designs and motif and, likewise, Phoenician craftsmen exported “Egyptian-style” goods that were not actually Egyptian. They had a dickens of a time enforcing seals/markings etc.
I did wonder what inspired The Singularity Chronicles. I read the first book so far. I wondered the entire time where certain aspects of the story originated. Thanks for sharing that. It is such a simple but lovely thing to do. It helps other artists and it adds to our reading list!
That's awesome. The story itself is a novelization of Mixed Mental Arts. It was concieved on a hike in the mountains with friends as a way to explore what makes us human.
I was working in a movie theater at the time when Deep Impact and Armageddon were out, and I recall the Ants/Bug's Life duality around that same time. Good gravy! The copycat thing was just so naked, but: remember K-9 and Turner and Hooch? I think the copy proved to be a way bigger moneymaker (though I loved K-9!).
As a lifetime artist and creator, I am having the time of my life creating with these new tools. This is a renaissance for creators with open minds.
Heads up, ChatGPT doesn't have access to Substack. I asked. I use it to help me edit my articles, cut them down, organize them better, etc. just like a human editor. I don't know if the other AIs do. Would be an important question to ask if you're on Medium, Beehiv, and some of the other platforms too - I don't know if they're off-limits too.
You can turn it on or off in the settings I think. That said, there's certainly a question when it does get access. I use Grammarly to help with editing and ChatGPT does great for synthesizing research.
Your clear distinctions are worthy of highlight as the anti AI bandwagon gains momentum.
Just last night I enjoyed a spirited conversation with someone about AI. My argument being that the human brain is essentially a LLM (currently it seems advanced). In essence, all in the universe is calculate-able with enough computing power.
I appreciate that. I find that the pro-AI group is actually easier to deal with, whereas the anti-AI group often misunderstands the human brain, culture, social learning, and more. Anti-AI misses the fundamentals of who we are in their arguments, while then stretching to make legal and ethical claims that also misuse concepts.
I dislike the pro-AI lack of respect for traditions and culture, but I don't find them ignorant. In fact, they want to create something human-like like so they're willing to learn about who we are.
If you ever want a dose on anti-AI, just find any article on the subject in the NYT and then go to the attached comment section. It's like reading notes from a luddite convention!
I’ve seen that in spades. It’s crazy how wound up they get without understanding who we are.
That’s a helpful distinction that I have not considered. I wonder if these two camps will separate (and galvanize) predictably based on political affiliation.
I'm seeing an equal distribution politically. I don't see any corrolation.
This was really helpful in understanding the arguments. It certainly forced me to reconsider the 'simple answer'.
That’s awesome to hear!
AI models are trained on massive corpora of human work — books, art, music, research, code — without meaningful consent, compensation, or control for the creators. The article leans on “fair use” and plagiarism definitions, but fair use is a legal loophole that has nothing to do with fair compensation or moral rights. Corporations built multibillion-dollar products by feeding them the intellectual labor of others — often without licensing — and then sell outcomes back to the public. That’s not inspiration; it’s extraction. Another layer that isn’t addressed is who benefits. Today’s generative AI landscape is dominated by Big Tech — companies with disproportionate control over data, compute, and market access. These entities can set the rules of the informational economy, displacing smaller creators who lack bargaining power. This dynamic isn’t neutral mimicry — it’s a power differential that privileges the already powerful. Even when outputs aren’t verbatim copies, there’s a provenance problem — the models can regurgitate ideas without context, credit, or lineage, breaking the chain of intellectual credit that underpins scholarship and craft. This isn’t classic plagiarism, but it still harms the ecosystem of original creation and recognition.
AI itself doesn’t have motives — corporate incentives do. A model could be deployed to support education, augment Human creativity, or empower underrepresented voices — but in practice, it’s marketed as a substitute for expertise, reducing demand for human labor in writing, design, research, and creative industries. That reinforces extractive dynamics.
You'll notice I addressed that as well in the fact that each human is trained on a massive corpus of human work. Each of your arguments was addressed in one form or another. My focus wasn't exclusively on fair use, as you can tell.
I also love your use of Em Dashes. Go stick it to the AI! (but it does read suspiciously like a copy/paste from an LLM, which I find ironic, right down to the "the article leans on...")
Well that’s a problem in itself if you immediately accuse people you interact with of using AI, a form of ‘ad-botinem’ attack which potentially stifles meaningful debate. ‘Leans on’ may be a tad cliché - apologies for that if the style irks you or if my hyphens are disproportionately long - I am not an academic, in fact I left
University long ago with a mere bachelor’s degree. I am not a bot or a fan of AI plagiarism and reserve the right to be treated respectfully on a forum. Thank you. — MamBoobs
Let's just clear this out: I don't immediately accuse people I interact with of using AI; just where the AI jumps off the page. As for meaningful debate, one reason I accused AI is that your comment didn't actually acknowledge that the points were mostly made in the article. There are a lot of bad-faith debaters out there, and this one met all the initial criteria for a strawman.
And you were treated with respect, just gently called out for not fully reading the article, laquatiousness and a poke at popousness. Given that you aren't an academic, that flags it as AI even more, since normal people don't talk like that.
I'm also not sure why you switched from the em dash to the normal hyphen, as the em dash is actually more accurate, whereas the hyphen works best for word conjunctions. Ironically, it's only academics who use em-dashes in non-fiction writing.
So, if you'd like to start over, let's at least poke at a good counter-argument to whether AI is plagiarism. I've already countered what I could deduce from your word-salad sans the misinterpretation. No need to be Boobs about the discussion.
I should get CEUs for reading your work
Haha. I’ll have to figure out how to do that.
I had not heard of your Singularity books. I just made a suggestion that my local library system purchase the two books for their collection. Usually, they approve my suggestions.
You should ask your readers to do this for you.
P.S. I hope the books don't disappoint.
That’s awesome. Thanks. I did the same for my local library. And I too, hope the books don’t disappoint! 🤣 So far they’re getting great reviews.
"It really doesn’t help to make accusations of plagiarism or malicious intent against a tool, and it doesn’t help to misunderstand how AI works or how humans are creative."
---
Gioia has a habit of spewing this kind of 'woe is me' and 'I hate AI' BS, which is why I unsubscribed from his substack quite a while back. The constant complaining was annoying. And of course, like too many SS writers, he would hold much of his writings behind the paywall.
Your viewpoint seems much more realistic and enlightened.
Very, very, very few people are uniquely creative. Almost everyone has been influenced by people and things in the past. If I read books on a subject, become well versed in the subject and then write my own book on the same subject, have I stolen the work of all those I learned from? I think not.
Yeah, Ted has taken to a never-ending pearl clutching that just doesn’t slow down and consider. Also telling is that he rarely engages with critique, either.
Remarkably sensible. Lots of people will hate it!
Lots of people do hate it! 🤓 I'm ok with challenging bias.
A well thought out essay. People want to make the AI ethics issue so black and white. Well, those people are, well, challenged.
I'm completely against people asking for a Pixar style image and then trying to foist it off as a Pixar image. That's totally wrong. But again, it's not AI it's unscrupulous people who are wannabe creators abusing AI as an image generation tool. Without AI these people would be nowhere but on the fringe, envying other people more creative and talented as themselves.
So, what about the case where I ask AI to render an image in a photorealistic style? I'm not ripping off anyone. How about when I ask for a style and color palette and lighting of, say Rembrandt or Vermeer? I can sleep soundly at night knowing I'm not violating any ethical issues the anti-AI crowd claims.
When it comes to writing, again it's people who abuse the tool. These creative wannabes abuse the tool so they can call themselves "writers" when without AI they couldn't put together a collection of words to make a believable statement.
Just like people will drive drunk that's not an inditement of automobiles. It's humans who are cheating and being abusive, not AI.
I totally agree and Iike how you described it.
I'm not interested in a false equivalance between humans and algorithms. Humans study the works of other humans and get inspired to create similar but different works, which takes effort, skill, and time. AI makes a mockery of this process by turning into an instant factory function - replicate an artists entire repetoire of work in minutes. I don’t care about whether it's grammatically, semantically, or legally correct to say AI is plagiarizing. The point is, AI is an insult to art, and AI can't generate anything at all without consuming vast quantities of prior material that is commonly taken without consent.
Well, 1. This isn't a false equivalence. You just don't like the comparison. And 2. That you don't care about grammar, semantics, or law says it all about #1. Your argument is emotional, not rational, and that's fine. In fact, it's exactly the arguments I use in my novel about AI. You're also in good company, as the same argument has been made for the written word, the printing press, photography, and cell phone cameras.
Are you a utopian accelerationist? Do you believe in the singularity? Why disparage humanity as being similar in any way to statistical algorithms and why act like it's totally okay if techlords usurp human thought and craft in order to consolidate more wealth for themselves, leaving us devoid of spirit or purpose? I don't think you're rational enough, you're just fixating on winning the argument even though you've never grasped the plot.
There is nothing special about humans. We are just another form of life in a universe that is likely spilling over with life.
At some point, not too distant in the future, an AI is likely to be in control of all humans.
We could have a Terminator future or we could have a Iain M. Banks, Culture future run by benevolent AI Minds. I'm hoping for the latter.
I think people will cede control to AI like they already are with the social media algorithms. I just hope humanity doesn’t lose agency.
"I just hope humanity doesn’t lose agency."
----
But we will. AI's will be smarter. If we are nice, hopefully they will take care of us and provide for us. If we aren't, well, there are plenty of SF stories where emachines don't see the need for meat to exist.
I like the Sci-Fi stories that show how well they work together without antagonism.
Oh god another robot bootlicker. Bow down to robot overlords if you want, I choose my own path.
The culture novels were juvenile and mostly filled with body horror and cheesy action. Why do crypto and AI bros love them so much?
That's a great strawman. You must not have really read what I said. In fact, I wrote a novel about it.
https://thesingularitychronicles.com/
“It’s a technique called copycatting and has been going on for millennia across all commercial sectors, from food brands and luxury goods to books and movies.1”
It’s been going on for millennia, has it? Two-thousand+ years?
Actually, yes. All the way back to ancient Egyptian where artisans were copying Mesopotamian cylinder seal designs and motif and, likewise, Phoenician craftsmen exported “Egyptian-style” goods that were not actually Egyptian. They had a dickens of a time enforcing seals/markings etc.
https://www.academia.edu/41692593/Earliest_Cylinder_Seal_Glyptic_in_Egypt_From_Greater_Mesopotamia_to_Naqada
I did wonder what inspired The Singularity Chronicles. I read the first book so far. I wondered the entire time where certain aspects of the story originated. Thanks for sharing that. It is such a simple but lovely thing to do. It helps other artists and it adds to our reading list!
That's awesome. The story itself is a novelization of Mixed Mental Arts. It was concieved on a hike in the mountains with friends as a way to explore what makes us human.
That is what I was thinking when reading it, the question of what makes us human. 😊 Thanks for sharing.
I was working in a movie theater at the time when Deep Impact and Armageddon were out, and I recall the Ants/Bug's Life duality around that same time. Good gravy! The copycat thing was just so naked, but: remember K-9 and Turner and Hooch? I think the copy proved to be a way bigger moneymaker (though I loved K-9!).
As a lifetime artist and creator, I am having the time of my life creating with these new tools. This is a renaissance for creators with open minds.
I agree. It just bothers me when people get basic concepts wrong in their moral panics.
Heads up, ChatGPT doesn't have access to Substack. I asked. I use it to help me edit my articles, cut them down, organize them better, etc. just like a human editor. I don't know if the other AIs do. Would be an important question to ask if you're on Medium, Beehiv, and some of the other platforms too - I don't know if they're off-limits too.
You can turn it on or off in the settings I think. That said, there's certainly a question when it does get access. I use Grammarly to help with editing and ChatGPT does great for synthesizing research.