I was browsing LinkedIn, and came across a post in which the writer asks an important question. If you give an LLM a sentence and it provides you with paragraphs of text, and you keep doing that until you have a book, did you write the book?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His suggestion is that, because you provided the prompts, the ideas are yours and so the book is yours. Without you, the book wouldn’t exist. It’s a compelling argument, but it’s wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you give an LLM a sentence and it expands it into a paragraph, you are definitely not the author. You’re a plagiarist. All you’ve done is the AI equivalent of typing in a sentence to a search engine, and copying the text from the result. Even if you then reword those paragraphs, that’s just disguised plagiarism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, if you wrote multiple notes, ideas and phrases and used an LLM to condense them down into more concise sentences, then it would be reasonable to say you were the author. The LLM has helped you speed up a task you could have done yourself, but all the content is yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe it’s not as accomplished as being a true author – you’re relying on the LLM to do an important part of the writing task – but by using the LLM as a condenser, all you’re copying is writing styles and not content. A lot of what we write is based on patterns we’ve seen elsewhere, and great writers study these patterns and emulate them. Artists do the same. This is a very different thing to copying actual content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s also where many arguments about LLMs fall down. They fail to separate the emulation of technique from the reproduction of content. One is learning; the other is plagiarism. We have different words for these things for a reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, if you use an LLM to condense, you’re emulating, not plaguarising. However, what you won’t have is your own voice. The book won’t have your unique style, because essentially you haven’t developed one. This will make it less unique and probably less interesting, but it will be your book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same is true for all uses of an LLM. If you put less in than you get out, what you’re doing is copying other people’s work. In some fields that’s okay. In software, there’s a long mutually accepted precedent of copying code segments from other people. In many others, it’s definitely not okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In writing fiction or creating art you can sail close to the wind. “Inspired by” can be perfectly fine if you then add something new to the genre by doing it. “Directly copied from” is not so acceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In writing non-fiction books, or academic papers, it’s very unacceptable. Every copied concept, no matter how brief, has to be accompanied by a citation or you risk your career. One accusation of plagiarism can be damning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, the message is clear. If you get more out than you put in, it’s not you doing the work. If you put in more than you get out, it’s reasonable to claim credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The real questions are: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the purpose is purely functional, and the aim is to get to a result quickly so you can progress to the next stage, then LLMs are a great way to achieve that. Much of what we do at work fits into that category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the purpose is more than that; if the work matters to you and you want your name to be associated with it in the long term, then maybe skip the LLM and do it yourself. You’ll gain three things that really matter. Pride in a job well done, recognition you deserve, and experience that will serve you well in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Choose wisely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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