I write because it holds my feet to the fire, making me articulate my thoughts and observations no matter how uncomfortable they make me. I write to find truth and flaws in my thinking, as well as revealing the pain and beauty of my feelings. This does not change with the use of AI tools.
Like everyone else, I have been playing with ChatGPT. I took a raw first draft, which had already been called “depressing” by a random reader from a Coursera class, and asked ChatGPT to rewrite it in the style of my blog. The result was probably an improvement.
First draft:
In the beginning, Hulder Astrid avoided Human Hal. His perfume stank, and his clothes were baggy. Not out of neglect or poverty, but by choice. And yet it wasn't stylish. It wasn't until he made a good dinner that she let herself be tricked into wanting the life he offered.
ChatGPT rewrite based on my blog style:
At first, Hulder Astrid steered clear of Human Hal, with his pungent scent and ill-fitting clothes. Not out of neglect or poverty, but rather by choice, and his fashion sense certainly wasn't doing him any favors. However, his culinary skills proved to be a powerful lure, and she found herself drawn to the life he offered.
Not terrible, right? I'm not sure it's better, but it's still authentically in my style, I believe.
I then asked ChatGPT:
If Julia Gandrud wrote the first version, and ChatGPT rewrote it in the style of her blog (JuliaLikesFrogs), then who has copyright on the ChatGPT rewrite that is written in Julia Gandrud's blog style?
ChatGPT answer:
The copyright for the rewritten passage would still belong to Julia Gandrud, as it is a derivative work based on her original text. While the style may have been influenced by Julia Gandrud's writing, the content and expression of the rewritten passage were created by the AI language model and are based on the original text. Therefore, any copyright ownership or intellectual property rights associated with the rewritten passage would still belong to Julia Gandrud.
I asked it to “Regenerate” to look for discrepencies in its answer:
The ChatGPT rewrite that is written in Julia Gandrud's blog style would still be considered a derivative work based on the original version authored by Julia Gandrud. Therefore, the copyright for the rewritten text would be owned by Julia Gandrud, as the original author of the source material.
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My conclusion is that I got an edit from an editor who understands and recognizes my voice, because I have the ability to train it in a second with more than a decade of my own blog posts. So I am using nonfiction me to edit fiction me. I love it.
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Also, here's a gratuitous photo of my cat to feed the AI overlords:
