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I read a summary for an article in the NYT.
The articles title is "One Woman Conceived a Baby. One Carried Him. Who’s the Mother?"
The summary reads... "A surrogate refused to have an abortion after the fetus was diagnosed with a serious heart problem. She fled to Texas and had the child. Now she wants a judge to give custody to her instead of the biological parents."
[the above was directly quoted from [email protected] and is the property of the New York Times]
In this situation, to me, the bio-parents insistence on an abortion is equivalent to them requesting a discontinuation of the carriage of the fetus. Ergo, the new word - discarriage (the purposeful cessation of a pregnancy - aka an abortion). This is a contrast to a miscarriage (an accidental cessation of a pregnancy).
Why the new word?; to highlight by contrast & commonality the underling difference in meaning. One is purposeful and the other is accidental. In most jurisprudence, the distinction is crucial to judgement.
Why am I blogging about it here? To illustrate to other authors and readers that word choice is crucial to 'fleshing out' the reasoning & meaning of a written (or spoken) passage. If you feel the need, coin a word! {just make sure you explain your rational for the coinage somewhere}
re: the above real-life scenario -
I think adoption law covers it adequately. The bio-parents relinquished responsibility for (abandoned) their unborn child by requesting discarriage of the fetus (the unborn child). The surrogate mother makes her case for adoption by carrying the child to birth. All that's left in the adoption process is the test of suitability of parenthood - which I think should be waved (as it is for all other birth-mothers).
The issues of contractual obligations in the surrogacy is a whole different can of worms!
~That's all for now, folks~
~Ciao
I chuckled when I read the title of your blog...
and out right snickered when I read your whole blog...
You've gotten what I've been trying to say in my infrequent blogs!
-to truly create content from snippets you truly have to be an artist-
... and as all artist know...
-it's, gain through pain-
therefore:
to responsibly use A.I. well does not make the the artistic process easier or simpler.
{no shortcuts - no free lunch}
to all the content creators out there -
your craft fundamentals is your foundation...
A.I. is just a tool!
to all the content consumers out there -
don't pan it because it contains content you don't like or uses a technique that you don't care for...
pan it because it is poor quality art (conversely, praise it when it's good quality art).
... but, first, you have to try it...
more cents
'nuff said
~Ciao
If you are a content creator using a Generative AI there are a few things to remember -
The content that the Generative AI produces is the 'property' of the parent company!
It is plagiarism to use another's content without acknowledgment and it is theft to use the property for profit without compensating the owner!!
As to claiming creator-ship for derivative work, a piece of art that uses elements others' content, most 'courts' (including the court of public opinion) have concluded that if there is sufficient artistry in the "composition" of the various elements, then there is a valid argument to award some degree of creator-ship to the integrating artist.
Note, I have framed my arguments as "art in general" because of two principle reasons - First these arguments are applicable to almost all of the arts (of which, Literary Arts is just one form of art); and, second, that other forms have already provided enough case history with respect to 'synthetic electronic' elements (which is what Generative A.I. content is) being used as content in a composition - especially Musical Arts & Cinematic Arts.
Following up on Omachuck's recent blog... being an uncaring author will never produce a gem, no matter how good (or bad) the content is. I note that Omachuck gave an 'A' for originality, this is where conceptualization & composition come in - this is the secret sauce for any content creator who uses elements from others. The other scores highlight that lack of attention to the details is, at best, a distraction from appreciating the work to, at worst, a jarring disconnection that renders the work worthless!
Using Generative AI content does not excuse an author from the literary basics such as spell checking, grammar checking, etc. (there's no guarantee that the borrowed content is actually 'clean'). The author also needs to smooth over the 'style' of the various elements to insure a good fit. Plus the author also needs to produce 'clean' bridge/mortar content of the appropriate 'style'. Lastly, the author needs to do a continuity/consistency check over the entire work (which is a bug-a-boo for alot of authors). (whew...)
In closing, with respect to any art and/or creative process, Generative A.I. content elements may make the drudgery of certain parts of the creation process easier to deal with but it does not, in the overall analysis, lessen the amount of work needed in creating an art piece.
P.S. If you think Generative AI is creating a 'stir' in the Literary Arts... wait till it hits Culinary Arts!! that will truly be 'tempests in teapots' ;D
~Ciao
First things first...
A Mia Culpa!
@lojohnstone pointed out that the two anthems with the same melody are "God Save the Queen" (sorry still not use to a king) and "America" - not "God Bless America" (who's lyrics & melody were written by Irving Berlin).
Truth be told - "America" is what played in my head... but by the time the thought got to my fingers on the keyboard - the muse in me twisted it around because "God Save..." & "God Bless..." was simply more poetic.
I twerked it wrongly!!!
Second things second...
A question came up in the responses.
How exactly do you attribute an AI?
The key is to treat them as an assisting content provider or more specifically - a staff/ghost writer. Someone that helps you *write* the story but does not necessarily help you *tell* the story.
With that in mind, you acknowledge them where most acknowledgements go - in the 'front matter' (forward, acknowledgements, preface, etc.). Since these AIs are commercial products, it is best that you acknowledge them by name (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini {Google's}, Copilot {Microsoft's}, Meta AI {Facebook's}, etc.).
The wording of the acknowledgement could be something like: "portions of this work was written by...", "this work was completed with the assistance of...", etc.
You should not cite the passages that the AIs have written - not unless you are planning on elevating the AI as a coauthor. Neither are you required to stipulate how much was you and how much was the assistance - it usually becomes readily apparent to your readers anyway.
One (more) last thing...
Omachuck had asked - and I'm paraphrasing - How do we help make the AIs better?
Well the attribution / acknowledge process is crucial to that!!!
Just like in every other media that is dependent on written work - when the overall work is reviewed - a detailed critique will point out if the _writing_ was under or over par. Consistent underperforming writing should get someone fired.
Same with AIs as content assistants - everyone can see who's doing a better job. The companies behind the AIs will see it too and they will make the call to either get out of the literature content market or to double down (make the effort to make a better product)!
(stepping down off of the soapbox...)
'nuff said!
(signature closing phrase of the late great Stan Lee of Marvel Comics)
~Ciao
-David S
Omachuck asked a question about literary AIs about six months ago. I answered in a private message.
Eddie Davidson's blog about filtering prompts me to share my thoughts.
First...
To all the authors out there, if you are not attributing content that was not written by you then that is - *PLAGERISM* plain & simple!
Doesn't matter who wrote it, what matters is that you didn't & you don't acknowledge that fact.
BTW/FYI 'free use' does not mean unattributed use!
Someone invested a lot of $$$$$ to make the AI, they are letting you use their product free with the understanding that they will get marketing traction from word of mouth advertisement. Most contracts for free use say for private and/or personal use only.
Publishing works that include samples of their product is usually a no-no even if you don't make a profit from it. They will let it pass if you do free marketing and/or promotion for them...
but if you don't even attribute then that's not only a violation of the terms of use but it actually can be pursued as theft of services!
Don't think that just because a machine produced it there's no human involved. Like every other machine made product out there there is a long line of people waiting to get paid for their efforts.
Second...
The literary world is undergoing the same revolution that pop music has gone through with the advent of rap.
Now that we can 'sample' literary passages created by a machine, can a composition that's primarily of samples be considered original work?
The answer is yes!
When a (visual) artist creates a collage out of pieces of other pictures then, if the composing of those image fragments brings something to light that the individual pieces alone could not then creation has happened in the composition.
Same is true with rap music. If at the end of the composition - the musical piece evokes a different feeling than any of the samples then the producer has created something new. BTW - sampling is an old tradition in music: God Bless America and God Save the Queen are different lyrics over the same melody.
In all of the above cases the 'sample' was attributed or the work would be considered fraudulent.
Third...
Now to the heart of the matter - Why is it so easy to spot AI content? and Why is AI content so 'flat' and/or disconnected.
The answer is simple - AIs don't emote!
From a language processing perspective:
A computer program can parse better than most humans (they recognize words in a string of letters, punctuations, & whitespace).
The can do syntactical analysis really well (they do grammar checking well - making sure you follow all the rules for proper sentence structure in the language of your choice - do you remember ALL of the rules?? they do!).
They've gotten better at semantical analysis (to ascribe meaning to a phrase - which is necessary for translation from one language to another; or even between dialects in the same language).
What they are barely adequate at is - pragmatical analysis (figuring out which phrase to say to get the best outcome in the communication).
In narrow domains such as legal and/or business communication - where the inclusion (or ommission) of facts are paramount - AIs have done alright (not brilliantly) enough to be cost efficient when compared to the cost of training and compensating a human worker.
But when it comes to a wide open domain such as fictional prose - where the communication is not only supposed to pass information but it is required to evoke feelings if it is to be judged as worthwhile! - the works of a processed algorithm fall flat almost all of the time.
This will continue to be the case until someone can stuff emotion into an algorithm!
In conclusion...
I am not saying that using AI samples is of no use to an author - what I am saying is creating a genuine work of art using AI samples takes a different kind of authorship (more of a curating editor) and it will need different kinds of readers (those who relish the uneven word play and are stirred by the discovery of things hidden in the composition - those who delight in puzzles wherever they are found).
One day a major literary award will be given to an author who manages to create a great work from these mediocre pieces!
Why? because it will truly be miraculous!
Why bother? because we are human!
~Ciao
-David S
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