You can't copyright AI drivel. So don't publish AI drivel. - Josh Bernoff

A district court judge has confirmed a ruling by the US Copyright Office that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted. That’s yet another reason you should be using AI as a tool, not a text-generator.

The district court ruling applies to art, but will likely extend to text as well

As reported in The Verge:

In her decision, Judge Howell wrote that copyright has never been granted to work that was “absent any guiding human hand,” adding that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright.”

The artist who was seeking copyright on his AI-generated art will, of course, appeal. And it’s not clear what the final ruling will be, but for now, AI output isn’t eligible for copyright.

While Judge Howell’s ruling applies to graphics, the same reasoning is likely to apply to text. If you publish the raw output of an AI tool, you can’t copyright it.

People working with AI tools like ChatGPT know that crafting prompts requires both effort and skill. You can work with an AI to iteratively improve its output. But if all you do with that output is to publish it verbatim, you likely won’t be able to copyright it.

The level of effort or skill isn’t an issue. Imagine, for example, that you publish a list of the 100,000 most common words on the internet. Creating such a work and publishing it is a lot of effort, but it likely doesn’t qualify for copyright either.

What this means for you as a writer

Use AI to vet your arguments.

Use AI to summarize research for easier consumption.

Use it to help find grammatical errors.

AI is a great tool for authors. But it’s not a substitute for writing. As Cory Doctorow points out, all AI-generated text is in the public domain.

AI produces hack-level, predictable, inaccurate prose. No self-respecting writer should produce such drivel.

And now, since you won’t be able to copyright it, that’s one more reason not be be lazy enough not to write things yourself.

Write like a human. You owe it to yourself. And you owe it to your readers.