The author of this piece commits a common mistake: analyzing AI use as if communication is nothing more than an isolated transaction. Instead communication is usually a process of creating and maintaining a relationship of some kind with other people.
Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine if I handed you a $100 bill and asked you to examine it carefully. Is it real money? Perhaps you immediately suspect it is counterfeit, and subject it to stringent tests. Let’s say all the tests pass. Okay, given that it is indistinguishable from a legit $100 bill, is it therefore correct and ethical for me to spend this money?
You know the answer: “not necessarily.”
This is because spending money is about more than a series of steps in a transaction. It is based on certain premises that, if false, represent a hazard to the social contract by which we all live in peace and security.
It seems to me that many AI fanboys are arguing that as long as their money passes your scrutiny, it doesn’t matter if it was stolen or counterfeit. In some narrow sense, it really doesn’t matter. But narrow senses are not the only ones that matter.
When I read writing that you give me and present it as your work, I am getting to know you. I am learning how I can trust you. I am building a simulation of you in my mind that I use to anticipate your ideas and deeds. All that is disrupted and tainted by AI.
It’s not comparable to a grammar checker, because grammar is like clothing. When an editor modifies my grammar, this does not change my message or prevent me from getting across my ideas. But AI is capable of completely altering your ideas. How do you know it didn’t?
You can only know through careful proofreading. Did you proofread carefully? Whether you did or not: I don’t believe that people who want AI to write for them are the kind of people who carefully proofread what comes out of AI. And of course, if you ask AI to come up with ideas by itself, for all we know that is plagiarism— stolen words.
Therefore: if you use AI in your writing, you better hide that from me. And if I find out you are using, I will never trust you again.
Every day cashiers accept $100 bills on the basis that they pass the counterfeit tests, and every day society has failed to collapse from what you posit is a "hazard to the social contract"
Wow… that’s your counterargument?
First you are confusing the passing of a test with the actual non-occurrence of crime. My point is that passing a test for counterfeit money doesn’t make passing counterfeit bills legally or morally acceptable. Your point is what? That the tests on $100 bills always work, or when they don’t work that’s okay?
Surely you don’t mean that. I’m saying that I reject your AI-soaked fake work product even if I can’t see anything wrong with the work itself— because lying and stealing is not okay, but that’s what you are doing when you pass AI work off as your own thing.
Lots of criminals believe crime is no big deal. I am not trying to convince them, nor you, if bullshit is your creed.
Maybe this is clearer?
> Imagine if I handed you a $100 bill and asked you to examine it carefully. Is it real money? Perhaps you immediately suspect it is counterfeit, and subject it to stringent tests. Let’s say all the tests pass. Okay, given that it is indistinguishable from a legit $100 bill, is it therefore correct and ethical for me to spend this money?
This "hypothetical" happens thousands of times a day at any retail outlet that accepts cash" - the cashier is handed a $100 bill, they carefully inspect it, and if all the tests pass, they accept it as a legitimate bill.
A single additional $100 bill is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I have already accepted hundreds of them in my life time - why should I feel any ethical concerns about this?
So, yeah, when the tests don't work, that's okay? Or at least, it's not my problem. There's government agencies that deal with this, but the ethical issue is with the person making the bills and the obligation to act is on the government agencies. I have absolutely no obligation, and this is an established cornerstone of society.
Whatever supposed "hazard" you have in mind is one that society is already dealing with, on a regular basis, and... again: society has not collapsed simply because retail shops accept cash