Sunday, October 01, 2023

Is AI-Generated Writing Truly AI-Generated or Just Plagiarized?

Here's an "AI-generated" piece of writing people are sharing online: "In the theater of the absurd called life, we are both the puppet and the puppeteer, dancing to a tune we can neither hear nor understand."

Parts of it sounded familiar, so I Googled them. 

A 5-word phrase here — "can neither hear nor understand" — was plagiarized from "Only You" by Sting.


Another 8-word phrase – "we are both the puppet and the puppeteer" — is the title of an opinion piece by Charlie Grosso. 


"Theater of the Absurd' is the name of a genre of performance art. That's another 4 words. 

So far, I've found 17/26 words that were plagiarized from humans, and I'm hardly even trying. 

This is what AI does. It plagiarizes, plagiarizes, plagiarizes. That's why writers are putting together a lawsuit to get it to stop using our work as sources. Our words belong to US. They are not for computer programs to steal, manipulate, and take credit for.