At the time, it didn’t appear to be controversial. A writer almost casually mentioned that she had drafted an outline with the assistance of a chatbot before turning it into her own work. The responses had accumulated in a matter of hours. It was referred to as cheating by some. Some referred to it as theft. Sounding genuinely deceived, one commenter questioned whether anything she had ever written was authentic. It’s difficult to ignore how rapidly the discussion became heated and how a minor admission evolved into something akin to a public trial.
The internet has a specific tone for those who acknowledge using AI. Often disguised as moral concern, it lies somewhere between disappointment and disgust. You begin to notice a pattern as you watch it develop over the previous 12 months. The question “Did A.I. write that?” has evolved into a form of insult directed at strangers whose sentences seem a bit too neat or who employ an excessive number of em dashes. Students, writers, illustrators, and even therapists have been victims. The accused often react in the same way that Olivia Dreizen Howell did when she was struck by it earlier this year: confused, mildly hurt, and abruptly doubting their own voice.
It’s interesting to note how uneven the outrage feels. A.I. is widely used. silently, each day, for codes, grocery lists, emails, and even eulogies. According to surveys, the rate of public confessions is much lower than the actual usage figures. However, publicly expressing this in the incorrect forum still invites a form of humiliation that has never been attracted by other tools. No one yells, “Did spellcheck write that?” When a writer uses Google, no one accuses them of fraud. Depending on who is holding the pen, the line appears to move wherever it is.
A portion of the anger is genuine and deserving of attention. Artists who witness their styles being appropriated, discarded, and resold by models they never consented to train have justifiable complaints that cannot be resolved by a productivity argument. The illustrator is not being dramatic when he refers to it as theft. The cheap, mass-produced filler that clogs podcasts, search results, and even scientific journals is another issue. For the past year, Internews researchers have been monitoring how people’s reliance on information ecosystems is being undermined by synthetic media. The backlash bears some of the weight of that serious issue.
However, the cultural response has developed into something more bizarre than a discussion of policy. It has started to look like a purity test. Recently, an MIT writing professor described two students whose stories he recognized right away as artificial intelligence (AI). When they did confess, they did so in an emotional, addictive manner. One claimed that the only reason she used it was because she was afraid of appearing foolish. That particular detail lingers. Before anyone spoke, the shame had already done its job.
With everything going on, there’s a feeling that the biggest outrage isn’t really related to technology. It has to do with identity, authorship, and the suspicion that something unseen is being contracted out. The ground beneath every byline begins to feel uncertain when writing can appear human without requiring human thought, as one commenter put it. Though it can’t quite put its finger on it, the anger might be aiming for that.
Like almost every disruptive tool before it, the stigma will likely lessen. Although trust is still fragile, Fast Company reported earlier this spring that resistance to A.I. in journalism is already lessening. Even so, the current situation feels strange; it’s half witch hunt, half reckoning, and it’s unclear who should feel guilty and who should feel free. One irate response at a time, people are poorly figuring it out in public. No one, not even the chatbots, can currently answer the question of whether the rules will ever settle.