I just told Claude, an AI writing assistant, that I was thinking of writing a space opera novel about an otter and asked if it had any ideas for the name of the main character. It suggested:
Skipper
Slypaw
Ottrick
Nebula
TideRider
Spindle
Delta
Astra
Hydrus
Finrax
Lutra
Claude also provided cute, kinda inspiring, little explanations for each of the names.
If I write a space opera novel about an otter using one of those names now, am I committing plagiarism?
I will have used an LLM to help me. This is literally how people are using AI to write.
If you’re ignoring this thought experiment because you think it’s a distraction, it’s not. (As is often the case, this is converted from Twitter.)
This is the heart of the issue.
If this is okay, is asking for help on a second name okay? What about using AI like a reverse dictionary when you forget a word?
If AI helping with one word isn’t plagiarism, what about five? Is it okay if the novel is 90k long?
How about ten?
What if you write a whole scene because an AI suggested having your characters go on a walk would be an effective way to show them bonding… but YOU WROTE IT?
You can’t just blanket ban using AI to help with writing and call it a day, because there isn’t just one simple thing that AI is or does when it comes to helping with writing.
AI is helping writers get better at writing; helping new people become writers; it’s HELPING PEOPLE.
Plagiarism is an important word, and it’s such a careless, disingenuous, callous, dangerous use of it to claim that asking an AI to help you remember a word or choose a name or whatnot means the entire resulting work is plagiarized.
Don’t waste an important word like that.