On the Ownership of Thoughts

In recent days I have been at an impasse regarding the position of AI utilities in writing. There are many transparent cases, where useless content is formed from useless ideas, to produce useless articles, typically in pursuit of ad-revenue and engagement. Yet, I find myself increasingly tempted to utilize it for my own purposes.

Ultimately there is an abundance of ideas that are worth expressing, are fleshed out and detailed within my mind, that I lack the time to write to paper. Thus, it becomes increasingly tempting to simply compile the argument into a flow of bulletpoints and have a machine form the glue. But is such an output worth reading? Is an idea unworthy of an afternoon of proofreading worth another’s time? While many would say no, I am ultimately unsure.

AI writing has a tendency to be sufficient. Not beautiful, not particularly good, but sufficient. It is incredibly legible, if uninspired. In cases like technical documentation, this can even be of benefit. Content that would often be missing is made present, and it is clear. However, this is obviously a poor choice for a work of art, which intends to convey beauty and emotion. But what of the works in-between? What of a persuasive essay, whose argument is defined and clear by the writer? Is that glue important? What of the pathos that so often is key to persuasion?

As I consider these questions, there comes a deeper inquiry - to what extent are these works our own? To what extent are any of our works our own? An AI would not arrive at the same argument, conclusions, or line of thought as I provided it to output into a finished form, yet everything in between, of varying importance, is not. Yet even in a traditional work, we have many outside influences. When we ask someone to proofread, are we not losing some piece of our own thought, however small? If we take the time to edit, cross reference, verify our works, have outside influences not tangibly changed our work?

Even in instances where we write a direct flow of consciousness, without any external audit, a technique I am using in this very article, our thoughts are influenced by our current environment, whether physical or temporal. The prose and structure of this very piece is clearly different from many I have written in the past. I can immediately tell that prose and flow have been influenced by the beautiful Confessions of Saint Augustine of Hippo, which has consumed my recent reading leisure. Yet even in that instance, the original work of Augustine was written in Latin, so are these patterns more influenced by the translator, F.J. Sheed? Yet Sheed made a concerted effort to preserve the stylings of Augustine in his translation - to what extent is that style his own? Perhaps this influence is best described as an ancestral tree, and thus my immediate stylings are not simply influenced by two men.

Thus I ask myself in the rhetorical, to what extent are any of our works truly our own? Is the true essence of our own thoughts the commonality across various works, hidden within a shell of outside influences? Does that make a piece I write now somehow less my own than something written 10 years ago, where I has less influence to build upon? If these influences don’t matter, then does it actually matter whether a machine glues together my thoughts, which came to be authentically from experience and consideration?

Ultimately, I don’t think I have an answer to these questions. It may come as a disappointment, perhaps even a lack of resolve. Perhaps the true answer is somewhere in between, depending on the true intent and value of the work. I feel the question is worth asking, even if the answer remains unknown.

Originally published on Substack.