Is AI writing assistance ethical?

[Homer Potvin]

It's worth noting a certain German dictator has not yet been mentioned.

The night is still young.

 

[JLT]

The night is still young.

But I'm not going to name him.

This thread is intriguing me because we accept what amounts to AI help in so many other arts. Take music, for example. There aren't many pop groups now who don't use some sort of drum track or even melody lines that aren't computer-generated. Wrong vocals can be fixed. Harmonies can be suggested. We aren't particularly distressed about this, because they are all ways of helping the artist achieve the goal of matching what's in their head with what ends up on the recording.

Another thing, possible tangential. I have made a few reproductions of medieval furniture. Some of them have been made with the use of modern tools like power tools and drills and the like. Others I have made on a reproduction woodworking bench, using saws and mallets and planes that I have made myself. When asked why I go through the trouble of doing this, I reply that what I am really doing is trying to get as close to the mind-set of the medieval woodworker. I use a frame saw as he would have, presumably with the appreciation he felt for the labor involved in making that saw and adjusting its use to the particular wood I'm sawing. The tools dictate the speed and pacing of the work, which is as close as I can duplicate the medieval woodworker's experience with the wood. I'm more interested in the process than the product.

Of course, I don't sell the work, so its monetary value is irrelevant. Not so with the free-lance writer. If I were making that furniture for a living, as many of my friends do, I would be the first to use the drill press and the table saw and the jointer. If I were a free-lance writer for pay, I could see using something that would make my work more salable and efficient. If I wrote a piece on the medieval scribe, I would be using a computer and word-processing program, not parchment or a quill pen. (Although, come to think of it, I might indeed write a few pages that way just to see what it's like.)

 

[wearywanderer64]

But I'm not going to name him.

This thread is intriguing me because we accept what amounts to AI help in so many other arts. Take music, for example. There aren't many pop groups now who don't use some sort of drum track or even melody lines that aren't computer-generated. Wrong vocals can be fixed. Harmonies can be suggested. We aren't particularly distressed about this, because they are all ways of helping the artist achieve the goal of matching what's in their head with what ends up on the recording.

Another thing, possible tangential. I have made a few reproductions of medieval furniture. Some of them have been made with the use of modern tools like power tools and drills and the like. Others I have made on a reproduction woodworking bench, using saws and mallets and planes that I have made myself. When asked why I go through the trouble of doing this, I reply that what I am really doing is trying to get as close to the mind-set of the medieval woodworker. I use a frame saw as he would have, presumably with the appreciation he felt for the labor involved in making that saw and adjusting its use to the particular wood I'm sawing. The tools dictate the speed and pacing of the work, which is as close as I can duplicate the medieval woodworker's experience with the wood. I'm more interested in the process than the product.

Of course, I don't sell the work, so its monetary value is irrelevant. Not so with the free-lance writer. If I were making that furniture for a living, as many of my friends do, I would be the first to use the drill press and the table saw and the jointer. If I were a free-lance writer for pay, I could see using something that would make my work more salable and efficient. If I wrote a piece on the medieval scribe, I would be using a computer and word-processing program, not parchment or a quill pen. (Although, come to think of it, I might indeed write a few pages that way just to see what it's like.)

The pop music industry is a good example of enhancing music using, what I would consider to be AI. On a slightly different note, a lot of singers lip synch these days, so they are free to dance without disrupting the quality of the song.

 

[Naomasa298]

I don't know what anyone has against Charlemagne anyway. Grok says he loved AI.