A Short Rant About AI and Intellectual Property Theft

Several people have contacted me recently about “missing” articles on this site. They say, “Here's a URL and why isn't the article there?”

The article isn't there because I didn't write it. Yet.

But the people contact me because the LLMs (Large Language Models) claim I have written these articles.

How did the LLMs do that? They scraped my site with all of my writing so they could predict the article exists. (LLMs are closer to prediction engines rather than AI, but I digress.)

I didn't give them permission to scrape my site and use the results in their product. That means these models have committed intellectual property theft.

Even with all my writing, I'm a small cog in the wheel of LLMs.

But here's the thing: if the LLMs can steal my intellectual property, what will they do about yours?

Product Development Implications

If you write and integrate words from LLMs, make sure you verify each and every “fact.” You might be as surprised as the people who get 404's on my site.

If you use LLMs to generate code, be very careful about the code you use in products you sell. Maybe working with these LLMs will help you learn to code, especially if it's a new language. But if you use that AI-generated code, do you have the right to sell it? Do you need to pay a royalty to the people whose code the LLM stole?

I don't know the answers to these questions. There is a ton of unsettled copyright law as I write this in June 2023. But if you want to incorporate AI into your writing, consider these ideas:

• If an AI gives you references, verify those references are real.
• Can you use the ideas in what the LLMs say to create your own content?
• Stay current with copyright issues. I'm leaving all the arguing to people with deep pockets for lawyers.

I'm watching and learning, so I can intelligently use AI in my business. AI in the form of LLMs is already changing how people search and create. And I already choose which suggestions I take in Grammarly, Google docs, and Word. (You should, too. Build and maintain your own voice in your writing. See Free Your Inner Nonfiction Writer.)

But just because the LLMs are changing our world does not mean they have the right to do so. Don't follow the LLMs and think it's okay to steal from other people. Use other people's words and art as inspiration, and then write your own words. Create your own art. You'll learn as you do so, and not have to worry about your intellectual property.