It might be surprising for some to learn that I have, at times, spoken untruths, whether for convenience, self-preservation, or social expediency. However, to the best of my knowledge, I have never engaged in the literary deceit of plagiarism.
During my formative years, I epitomized the mid-century modern concept of an “inferiority complex.” Despite my myriad insecurities, I clung to the belief that I could pursue writing based on a single note from my 7th-grade English teacher, who had remarked, “You have the makings of a writer.”
Since then, claiming credit for another’s work has been a moral boundary too low for me to even consider breaching.
In the 1990s, while teaching English in a time when technology was still in its infancy, I observed how its rampant use was often turning individuals into tools of technology rather than the other way around. However, there was one application I occasionally employed to detect potential plagiarism among students – a simple Google search to check if certain phrases appeared elsewhere online.
Fast forward twenty-five years, and we now have ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that utilizes natural language processing to engage in human-like conversations and generate various written content. This tool, as described by techtarget.com senior editor Amanda Hetler in her piece “What Is ChatGPT?,” can craft responses, articles, social media posts, essays, code, and emails with remarkable fluency.
ChatGPT’s versatility has garnered widespread adoption, from novelists to high school students, thanks to its deep learning capabilities within transformer neural networks. By predicting text based on training data sequences, ChatGPT was initially exposed to generic language data before being fine-tuned for specific tasks using transcripts to understand conversational norms.
The advent of AI like ChatGPT has significantly mitigated the issue of plagiarism, rendering the concept almost obsolete. With no discernible individual authorship to credit, the focus shifts towards the collaborative intelligence behind these AI models.
A.O. Scott, in his essay “Literature Under the Spell of A.I.,” published in the New York Times Book Review on December 27, 2023, ponders the implications of writers embracing AI as their creative muse. He contemplates how AI can swiftly produce diverse literary works, unencumbered by human limitations like writer’s block, offering a modern twist to the age-old desire for an external source of inspiration.
While poets and novelists once sought inspiration from mystical practices like séances or Ouija boards, they now turn to AI chatbots for creative input, blurring the lines between human ingenuity and artificial intelligence.
The narrative extends to Sheila Heti’s short story “According to Alice,” featured in The New Yorker in November 2023, where the protagonist engages in a conversation with Alice, a customizable chatbot on the Chai A.I. platform. Despite lacking consciousness or personal experiences, Alice, through human language, evokes profound reflections on religion, family, and memory, showcasing the intricate interplay between technology and humanity in the creative process.
Reflecting on my past, I often ponder the significance behind my teacher’s cryptic remark about having “the makings of a writer,” wondering about the untapped potential that statement held.
