This morning a student asked me why, when they create something with the help of AI tools, it doesn’t quite feel as though the result is entirely theirs. I responded like this:
In answer to your question, I think the reason that the project doesn’t feel completely “yours” is that it is not completely yours. To a large extent, when you work with an AI, you are working with the many other people whose expertise has gone into training the AI. You never meet these people, and you don’t know who they are, but the output of the AI reflects their work in addition to your own work. So in a sense you are actually engaged in a collaboration with a very large number of anonymous collaborators. It’s definitely not the same as the experience of building something all on your own.
I’m a little surprised that everyone doesn’t already know this.