When AI Is Writing, Who Is the Author?

The next-level artificial intelligence capabilities of ChatGPT, a chatbot released in late November by the research company OpenAI, have inspired many predictions, both drastic and ecstatic, for the end of essay writing, if not education as we know it. While some in higher education view ChatGPT as a learning tool to be leveraged and others consider it a threat to be addressed exclusively through prohibition and plagiarism detection, nearly all agree that the technology’s ability to simulate human thinking and writing is remarkable, if not uncanny, and therefore worthy of our immediate attention. Whether we like it or not, HAL 9000 has transferred to our campus this spring semester. The real question now is definitional: On what terms should educators interact with writing generated by machines? Though it has not received much notice, OpenAI proposes an answer that is usefully old-fashioned and worth pondering in our ongoing deliberations: we should interact as authors. In the many urgent discussions I have joined or observed in recent weeks about ChatGPT, I have been surprised to hear no mention of the fact that OpenAI has a Sharing & Publication Policy that not only could but should, inform educational responses to the use of AI assistance in writing and learning. The policy is buried on the company’s main site (under its Terms and Policies), not referenced where users access ChatGPT. And yet, in its publication policy, OpenAI clearly articulates that all content generated through the use of ChatGPT […] (sompong_tom/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

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