When does generative AI interfere? If you look at the problems and conflicts in creative work, the following situations are at the forefront – with copyright as the punchline.
1. Subjectivity. AI is not an author and not a sender. Anyone who writes about their own experiences, events and insights should write in a human way. A machine smell disturbs authenticity.
2. Relationships. AI does not nourish what happens between people. Anyone who seeks and wants to strengthen the connection to the addressee or audience should let their own warmth flow in. Statistical language intelligence makes your own messages grow cold.
3. Language or visual art. Even more powerful and long-lasting than AI is human language with its infinite possibilities. Anyone who wants and is able to achieve linguistic individuality rightly puts AI aside.
4. Proof of performance. If the text is also supposed to show: I can do this!, then AI is a deceptive tool. Because now it is no longer possible to recognize from the output what comes from the human and what comes from the machine. If a skill is to be assessed, AI is out of place.
5. Sustainability. Language skills are lost sooner or later through mere evaluation and selection – for individuals as well as in teams. Authors with weak language skills can compensate with AI, but they will be caught up by everyone who can use AI and overtaken by those who can do it without AI as well.
6. Avoiding shortcuts. Anyone who starts with AI will use more and more AI – because it is so convenient. Control and responsibility – in journalism: attitude – are not enough. If you want to understand and take responsibility for all AI suggestions, efficiency and quality gains quickly melt away.
7. Copyright. Human creativity only leads to a protected object if authorship exists through expression, selection and arrangement. Text professionals and publishers will be careful not to forgo the ©.
Cautionary points 1 to 6 concern the trust and responsibility of professional authors and organizations. They have no direct legal significance. But note number 7 gets to the heart of the matter: Are you still in business? Anyone who neglects copyright when using AI no longer publishes assets