One of the largest debates about large language models (LLMs, imprecisely called “AI”) and authors has to do with rights: who owns what? Who consented to what? Are creators being fairly compensated? Those questions matter, and they’re not going away anytime soon. But the rights argument doesn’t explain the sheer intensity of the opposition to LLMs among authors, especially since there are plausible solutions available via tweaks to content licensing, copyright law, and compensation structures.
The other big argument centers around quality, but even that isn’t quite enough to explain the absolute fury I’ve seen in some quarters. Poor-quality writing has never been in short supply, and it has never posed a threat to high-quality writing, even though it has always existed in greater volume. Before now, though, it was largely treated as an annoyance. Authors ignored or avoided it (including, at times, looking down on those who self-published, but that’s a separate conversation).
As a writer who uses an LLM for developmental editing*, I’ve pondered why there seems to be such vehemence in its opposition. Ethics, rights, and quality aren’t minor issues — they’re very real and very important — but the emotionality of the reactions points to something more.
I suspect I know what that “something more” is: writers and non-writers alike expect writing to be hard. Anything that makes it easier is automatically suspect.
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