4 ms·
Does it help writers block by writing for you? If so, are you still writing?
by hpen 4y ago
Does it help writers block by writing for you? If so, are you still writing?
- skissane 4y agoWhat if you take what it writes as a starting point, adding to it, removing bits from it, rewording it, etc? Surely then you are indeed “writing”
- jwestbury 4y agoNo, then you are plagiarising.
- skissane 4y agoWhat counts as “plagiarism” depends on the context. It is (in most cases) unethical to present the work of another human being as your own, but what about an AI? In an educational setting, it would be unethical to turn in an AI’s work as your own. But if a professional programmer uses GitHub Copilot, are they obliged to acknowledge Copilot’s contribution? If I have a personal blog, and ChatGPT helps me write a post, am I obliged to acknowledge ChatGPT’s contribution?
- hpen 4y agoSomewhat of an open question really. I think for all of blogging we have concluded that the words in your blog post were in fact written by you. I see two reasons plagiarism is bad: both and injustice to whom wrote the original but also a false indicator to your cognitive and creative ability.
- emodendroket 4y ago> I think for all of blogging we have concluded that the words in your blog post were in fact written by you. If "we" concluded that it was a little naive since ghostwriting predates the blog.
- hpen 4y agoI have to give you that. That is a good point. I definitely am or was naive enough to think personal blogs were personally written. Man, now I’m questioning how ethical ghostwriting is. Not sure that was your intention but that is thought provoking.
- emodendroket 4y agoWell, I think it is more challenging than that. Even if the author writes the piece himself, most professional writing is subject to editing, which can substantially change the finished product. The one thing we can be reasonably, if not entirely, certain of is that the piece is one the author is comfortable endorsing as his own.
- hpen 4y agoYou can argue plagiarist are comfortable endorsing as their own but that seems beside the point.
- hpen 4y agoI think the bigger picture to me is something like are you being disingenuous rather than are you technically plagiarizing. Thought experiment: if I tell people I’m great at multiplication and I don’t tell them I have an earpiece / mic with someone using a calculator on the other end. If I convince these people I have a great mind and they respect my math skills, have I not fooled them? As for the copilot argument, I’m not convinced it shouldn’t be required to cite.
- emodendroket 4y agoI don’t think the purpose of most writing is convincing people you’re a great writer.
- hpen 4y agoMe either. It’s to convince you’re a great intellect. That or to record a historical archive.
- skissane 4y agoPeople write for many different reasons. Sometimes it is because they believe in an idea (political, ethical, philosophical, religious, etc), and their main objective is to convince others to believe in that idea too-what you may come to think of their abilities as an author is rather besides their point.
- hpen 4y agoEh I don’t think that’s writing. But the very least would be for everyone to list chatgpt as a coauthor.