Undawntech: The Creative, Ethical, and Legal Considerations of Artificial Intelligence in the Creative Writing Field

There are different types of artificial intelligence. AI, ASI, ANI, AGI- the acronyms continue to be created in order to name the newest innovations in the software industry.  According to Merriam-Webster, artificial intelligence (AI) is: the capability of computer systems or algorithms to imitate intelligent human behavior.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/artificial%20intelligence

Another illustration is (Artificial) superintelligence (ASI), and it is defined as:an entity that surpasses humans in overall intelligence or in some particular measure of intelligence.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superintelligence

If you would like to read the technical aspects of what artificial narrow intelligence, artificial general intelligence, and artificial superintelligence are, then read this article by IBM: What is artificial superintelligence?

https://www.ibm.com/topics/artificial-superintelligence

For the creative mind, artificial intelligence, or AI, has its pros and cons. Drawbacks: some writing agents, publishers, and even story contests have distanced themselves from the AI revolution. These entities will not accept anything AI assisted or produced, so be sure to read the fine print before submitting your creative works. Advantages: AI can help elevate works for better understanding, assist writers with word and grammar choices, and reformat content for a wider appeal.

On the Authors Guild’s site, it has an article called, AI Best Practices for Authors, the uses, misuses, and abuses of AI are discussed. The site also frames the need for disclosure. As a matter of ethics, if a writer uses AI in their writing process, it is best to disclose this fact to their readers, editors, and publishers.

https://authorsguild.org/resource/ai-best-practices-for-authors

There are other angles to the use of artificial intelligence: the contracts writer’s sign. Are you comfortable that a corporation uses your copyrighted work to train their AI systems? Would you find that using your copyrighted content without compensation is beyond the legal jurisdiction for corporations?

What may be the most important part of the writing process is the contractual nature of AI. In the section, Preventing Your Publisher from Using Your Work in AI or using AI to Produce Aspects of Your Book, the writer gives contractual clause examples for authors to use.

“We have drafted a model clause that authors and agents can use in their negotiations that prohibit the use of an author’s work for training AI technologies without the author’s express permission. Many publishers are agreeing to this restriction, and we hope this will become the industry standard.

Keep in mind, however, that this clause is only intended to apply to the use of an author’s work to train AI, not to prohibit publishers from using AI to perform common tasks such as proofing, editing, or generating marketing copy. As expected, publishers are starting to explore using AI as a tool in the usual course of their operations, including editorial and marketing uses, so they may not agree to contractual language disclaiming AI use generally. Those types of internal, operational uses are very different from using the work to train AI that can create similar works or to license the work to an AI company to develop new AI models. The internal, operational uses of AI don’t raise the same concerns of authors’ works being used to create technologies capable of generating competing works.

We have recommended clauses in which publishers agree not to use AI to translate, produce cover art, or narrate an audiobook without the author’s permission. While we have heard that some publishers are rejecting an outright prohibiting of AI use to create translations, cover art, and audiobooks, publishers are sometimes granting authors a right of approval over the translator, design, and narrator of their book, which effectively gives authors control over rejecting AI translation and narration.”

Here is the model clause link: https://authorsguild.org/news/model-clause-prohibiting-ai-training.

The recommended clauses link: https://authorsguild.org/news/ag-introduces-new-publishing-agreement-clauses-concerning-ai.

How you use either or neither is up to the individual author. Artificial intelligence has skewed the creative writing field’s understanding of fair use, fair play, and fair market value forever. To protect copyrights from the AI revolution, the creative field will need to participate in the legislative process and pass laws. Additions to the already corporate copyright definitions will be difficult, especially in asserting individual and independent rights that counter mutlinationals’ demands for dominance. If creators of copyrighted content became a force within the industry, then changes to the current copyright laws could evolve to protect the weekend warrior writer to the mega publishing houses alike.

As writers, editors, and publishers embrace or reject the use of AI, professionals need to stay ahead of the curve creatively, ethically, and legally.

Undawntech: Corporate Terms of Service and Theft of Intellectual Property

Have you ever read the Terms of Service (ToS) for your social media accounts, or even for your Internet Service Provider (ISP)? You may be surprised by what is written there. Corporations are interested in their financial and legal bottom lines, and not protecting any of your rights.

As creators of art, film, poetry, podcasts, and writing, how can we be certain that when we sign up for an account with an online application or platform our best interests are being served? First, we must read the laborious legalese contained in the Terms of Service. The document outlines what the corporation deems allowable under its rule. The dry text gives insight into how little corporations value their customers. You are little more than fodder to pump up their stock prices. Your concerns and rights have no value to the monopolies called corporations.

In the bygone years since Standard Oil and Ma Bell, lawmakers in the United States have stripped regulations that kept corporations from becoming tyrants in the rebel yell of libertarian idealism. Regulations to maintain a level economic playing field have been sliced and diced for the Free Trade and no regulation crowd (see speeches by President Javier Milei of Argentina or underdog political candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy about their views on deregulation). These concepts in action have left consumers vulnerable and small businesses tittering on an uneven scale against the mega-corporate, multinational giants who believe that corporate governance is mightier than any nation’s Constitution or law.

A recent ToS change has created a problem for copyright holders on the platform Spodify. A user posted this response:

“Get rid of the audiobook T.O.S. changes that apply to rightholders of the works.

Rescind changes to your Terms of Service as the relate to the rightholders of audiobooks, most notably the effective grant of a “non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works “. Especially since it binds the rightful rightholders such that “Where applicable and to the extent permitted under applicable law, you also agree to waive, and not to enforce, any “moral rights” or equivalent rights, such as your right to object to derogatory treatment of such User Content. Nothing in these Terms prohibits any use of User Content by Spotify that may be taken without a license.”

This represents a clear attack on their lawful claim to their own intellectual property, and as such it is ridiculous and disgraceful that you would make such amendments to your Terms of Service.

Furthermore, it is cowardly to have done so quietly rather than with prominent preemptive announcement of such important changes.”

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Get-rid-of-the-audiobook-T-O-S-changes-that-apply-to/idi-p/5888834

What do you think? Should creators leave this platform? If you would like to keep your copyright intact, then the answer is a resounding: YES.

The problem is, that most users ignore a corporation’s Terms of Service. From either apathy or inability, corporations have seized power by user indifference to their legal rights. This has allowed corporations to use their users, instead of users using these platforms. The “good faith” clause no longer applies.

To see just how users disregard the Terms of Service document, a study was performed with a fake social media site called NameDrop. What the researchers discovered dismayed them. Here is what happened:

“Unbeknownst to the students, the terms of service contained two questionable clauses. The first said NameDrop may be required to share your data with the government, including the National Security Agency(NSA).

That clause is concerning when you really think about it, but it’s close enough to what you’d see in a real ToS. Twitter’s terms, for example, says “we also reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information as we reasonably believe is necessary to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request.

NameDrop’s second crazy clause should’ve stopped most users in their tracks—or at least clued them in that the service wasn’t real. The second clause said all users agree to give their “first-born child” to NameDrop. If the user didn’t have children yet, their first baby would still have to go to NameDrop until 2050.”

https://www.pcworld.com/article/415643/goodbye-firstborn-children-this-study-shows-how-wordy-terms-of-service-hurt-users.html

What the researchers found was that 74 percent of those who signed up for NameDrop did not read the policy. Less than two minutes were spent reading the TOS, while the full document took about 30 minutes. If the customers had read the legal document, then they would have seen that the social media site was fake.

And kept the rights to their firstborn child, anywho…

Most people who do read the ToS take less than one minute to do so, but if they did take that fifteen to thirty minutes of their time to safeguard their rights and privacy, probably would not sign up for such an account.

When something is free, YOU are the commodity that is being used to make someone wealthy at the expense of you, your rights, your privacy, and your mental health.

Expert reveals the ‘slot machine’ tricks Facebook uses to keep people addicted

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/expert-reveals-slot-machine-tricks-facebook-uses-keep-people-addicted-090211355.html

Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7364393/

As a creator, how do you intend to maintain your personal and legal sovereignty in the face of corporate governance? Is it time to push lawmakers in the direction of protecting our copyright against corporate power grabs?

Perhaps, creators should read the ToS for accounts on sites they use, outline the legal issues, and then demand a change to the laws for these platforms. Before we run to our local Congressional office, perhaps a walk down memory lane on how we got here will give us context to the situation:

47 U.S. Code § 230 – Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

Americans Finally Have Access to American Propaganda
The Smith-Mundt Moderization Act of 2012

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/americans-finally-have-access-american-propaganda/313305/

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 29, Section 3:

These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

If more people read the Terms of Service to our treaties, regulatory laws, and online accounts, then more people would understand what seems like a platform problem is really a ubiquitous issue of eroding rights, privacy, and property on an international scale rather than an endemic one.