Is the Use of AI Plagiarism?

BurnSteem25 Didn't Work

In my last post, I suggested that outsider authors send 25% of their earnings and use the #burnsteem25 tag to promote their posts.

It didn't work. The post failed to cross the elusive $0.02 mark.

Perhaps the tag trick failed because I used an #ai-image for the post. I've noticed some people in the #steemcleaners effort are hostile to any use of AI.

So, I contemplated the question: Is the use of AI plagiarism?

Is the Use of AI Plagiarism?

As a curator, I want to support human generated content.

As we live in an age of AI, we should expect a huge of computer generated content to spill into our lives.

Rather than just rejecting all AI content outright, I decided that I need to find a way to live with the technology.

SteemIt posts all but require that authors include an image with the post. Many people use stock photography. I see little difference between AI images and stock photography.

For this post I want an image about plagiarism. I asked Night Cafe to produce a person plagiarizing content from robots with the prompt: " Imagine a person plagiarizing content produced by AI. Imagine a person standing in front of a line of robots holding up a piece of paper as if he were the author."

I wrote an original prompt. The AI generated the image I used for this post. Here are the AI Images I used on SteemIT.

The prompts used to create the images are original. The images themselves are generated.

For most of my posts the image is not the primary focus of the post. The AI image simply enhances the post.

Should We Consider AI Content to be Plagiarism?

The focus of this post is the legitimate use of AI.

I ask ChatGPT the question: "Should we consider the act of republishing content from an AI to be plagiarism?"

Please note. As with the image, I generated the prompt which created the answer. The prompt is original work on my part.

Its answer contained the following sentences.

"if someone republishes AI-generated text while falsely claiming it as entirely their own original work, it could be considered unethical."

This first point hits the crux of the matter. Plagiarism is largely a matter of the intent of the author. For this post, I used AI as a tool to generate an image an some AI text to enhance an article.

BTW: I was expecting the article to include something similar to the point above.

The Legal Definition of Plagiarism

This second point touches on legal matters.

"If the AI-generated content was trained on copyrighted materials and closely resembles them, then republishing it without transformation or attribution could lead to issues of copyright infringement rather than plagiarism."

Publishers are furious with AI as the AI industry is robbing the publishing world from its main source of income. AI simply republishes the content produced by publishers.

We are starting to see lawsuits about this problem.

I decided to ask some follow up questions. I asked "If a person republishes content from AI that closely resembles a copyrighted work; who is guilty of plagiarism, the person or the AI?"

ChatGPT responded with the cop out:

"Plagiarism is typically a human act—it involves someone taking credit for another's work without proper attribution. Since AI lacks intent, responsibility falls on the person who republishes the content."

It added a legal claim:

"AI Lacks Legal Responsibility – AI is a tool, not an entity capable of intent or legal accountability. If AI generates text that closely resembles copyrighted material, the onus is on the user to ensure they are not violating copyright or ethical standards."

I asked the follow up question: "People have limited resources. AI trains on a huge collection of data. How can a limited human know if AI trained on copyrighted materials? Do humans even have access to the dataset on which you trained?"

And the system obfuscated. ChatGPT wants to blame plagiarism on the individual using the product and not the corporate entity that produced the AI.

Who is to Blame for Plagiarism?

I decided to end my ChatGPT session with the question: "If an AI trains on copyrighted materials. Would the company that produced the AI be liable for the plagiarism that results?"

Again, it produced a long obfuscated text the concludes:

"AI user bears most of the responsibility for avoiding plagiarism, while AI companies may face legal challenges regarding their training methods."

ChatGPT wants to blame the user for misuse and not the system.

Conclusion

AI is now part of our ecosystem and we must learn to live with it.

I see the technology as a tool that people can use. The moral questions about AI really drill down the the question of how people use AI.

Personally, I see the AI image generators as a great tool for producing images for SteemIt posts.

IMHO, so long as the image is not the primary focus of the post and is properly atributed, it should be acceptable.

For this post, I engaged with ChatGPT.

I see AI as a useful tool; so I am not quick to label all use of AI as plagiarism, although I am not sure where people should draw the line on AI usage. This post is an example of what I consider to be proper use of AI. Notice that this post contains more original content than most SteemIt Posts.