ChatGPT as theft

And what I'm going to do about it, maybe

June 19, 2023

I’ve been pondering upon this article talking about ChatGPT as theft:

But in calling these programs “artificial intelligence” we grant them a claim to authorship that is simply untrue. Each of those tokens used by programs like ChatGPT—the “language” in their “large language model”—represents a tiny, tiny piece of material that someone else created. And those authors are not credited for it, paid for it or asked permission for its use. In a sense, these machine-learning bots are actually the most advanced form of a chop shop: They steal material from creators (that is, they use it without permission), cut that material into parts so small that no one can trace them and then repurpose them to form new products.

Just a few months back I was pondering and invested in the idea of having all my Rosieland content open. Now I have second thoughts, but it also hurts me to think about this because of AI.

It’s a whole new era of plagiarism. Of summarizing things into small snippets whilst not caring about where it really came from. It’s dehumanizing the whole process. The people refusing to give me credit for the work I’ve done in the past now seems like a drop in the ocean compared to this.

Maybe the internet that I loved in the early 2000s is gone, where people supported each other’s ideas. Gave credit. And we got excited together. The culture created exciting and innovation. People felt hope and like they were a part of something.

Not only does this feel gone with a culture of influencer-isms, it’s magnified by the speed of what AI can take from us.

When search results are now bringing up content interpreted by AI instead of giving enough visibility to the content that it originated from, then what is the point of us putting content out there for free in the hope that search engines will find it?

There are so many what if’s. I can’t, nor am I going to try to, predict the future. I’m also trying to get better at not getting stressed out by what I can’t control.

I can choose to take action in how I operate. And perhaps it’s time to rethink how I do things.

I can still take the idea of how can I give freely whilst also protecting myself and my work.

I can give fewer damns about search engine optimisation and focus more on other ways to create reach and achieve the goals I aspire to.

I’m not sure what this will actually look like, but as a starting point it’s me putting more of my things behind a free wall.

I don’t think it’s me being paranoid, it’s more about me recognising that I have and want to give, but I can also explore ways to do that on my terms and in a way that I can find connection with people who also care about the same thing.