There was a conversation on LinkedIn about AI use for writing. I can’t find it now, but it was interesting to say the least. It was a polite conversation, and most found some redeeming quality for using AI to write rather than full-on human writing, even when they disagreed on what was redeeming.

With nonfiction works, AI could probably collect information and regurgitate it. It is hard to imagine that it could determine a new view of the information, especially in STEM, and propose new theories as a human could do. Based on its reputation for generating false information, who knows how accurate AI “research” is?

As creative as I am, I cannot imagine AI writing fiction. Without the human experience of life and emotions, at this point in time I don’t see AI able to write the human dramas that readers crave. Now, if someone wants to produce books just for the sake of numbers, it is probably possible. I wouldn’t expect those books to be wholly original works.

Readers who read books like normal people breathe air are not going to get the substance they crave from reading AI-generated books. Writers who hone their skills in the craft produce works of quality with depth to feed that craving. One thing for certain, AI does not experience the emotions a writer has at the end of a productive writing session when everything comes together to advance the story into a well-crafted and entertaining piece.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Glenn Close said on the threat of AI in Hollywood, “I don’t want my image or voice to be reconstructed.” The AP reported that Paul McCartney urged the British government not to make changes to the copyright laws that would allow AI to rip off artists.

https://apnews.com/article/paul-mccartney-ai-copyright-warning-b260a4c6f0fdf732fb4994cdeb1710a4

This brings me back to my concern about AI and its programmers’ moral compass in regard to copyright infringement. The Rolling Stone headline on January 14, 2025, read “Zuckerberg Appeared to know META trained AI on PIRATED LIBRARY. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys for novelists Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey and comedian Sarah Silverman, who are pursuing a class-action suit against Meta for allegedly using their copyrighted work without permission. Employees at the tech giant had candid conversations about the potential for scandal that would arise from leveraging a risky resource: Library Genesis, or LibGen, a massive so-called ‘shadow library’ of free downloadable ebooks and PDFs that includes otherwise paywalled research and academic articles. In these exchanges, Meta’s engineers identified LibGen as ‘a dataset we know to be pirated,’ but indicated that CEO Mark Zuckerberg had approved its use for training the next iteration of its large language model, Llama.” (I copied and pasted some of the Rolling Stone text to make sure I got it right.) See the article here:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/ai-meta-pirated-library-zuckerberg-1235235394/

According to Yahoo Finance, AI-assisted works can get U.S. copyright with enough human creativity, says U.S. Copyright Office. The article continues with “that could help clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields.” Although fully AI-generated works will continue to be rejected (for now) for copyrights, I read the U.S. Copyright website and found it to be unclear on the percent of human contribution that would make a work copyright eligible. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-assisted-works-copyright-enough-170934254.html

The question that begs to be asked is whether the human writer who uses AI to write can verify that the AI contribution is free of copyright infringement on someone else’s work.

According to The New York Times, “Vatican Warns About the Risks of Artificial Intelligence.” We will probably hear more about this in the future.
Here is information on the war against stolen copyrighted materials to teach AI:

https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5529404/anthropic-settlement-authors-copyright-ai

Here is the follow up:

https://authorsguild.org/advocacy/artificial-intelligence/what-authors-need-to-know-about-the-anthropic-settlement/

And here is the latest development:

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/tilly-norwood-fully-ai-actor-blasted-actors-union-sag-aftra-devaluing-rcna234685?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

And here: https://writerbeware.blog/2025/09/26/bartz-v-anthropic-settlement-an-update-for-authors/

And finally: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/18/ai-authors-publishing-regulation
Let’s all get out our DVD box set of Battlestar Galactica. The Cylons are coming. I’m all for progress, especially in STEM. I am not seeing that the creators have their moral compass set to True North, and they excuse the imperfections that are glaringly obvious in themselves and their product.

The publishing industry is an ecosystem. Think back on times when humans introduced or removed a species (animal or plant) and the ecosystem slowly died. I think we need to cautiously embrace AI. It all comes down to humans’ moral compass. At Cactus Rain Publishing we do NOT accept works that include AI creations. Our writers are required to sign a legal document that they did not use AI to create their manuscript before a publishing contract is offered. Plain and simple, copyright infringement is theft.

(This blog post was written completely by a human; no AI.)