What are some ethical considerations of machine-generated content?What are some ethical considerations of machine-generated content?

 

Huiling Ding
Professor of English

AI-generated content, be it texts or artwork, introduces many ethical challenges related to authorship, copyright, creativity, plagiarism and labor practices. For instance, text-to-image AI generators like Midjourney and DALL-E 2 use images available in the public domain and/or images available online through Google search, Pinterest, and other image-sharing and art-shopping platforms as training data for their algorithms.

By supporting text-prompt-driven image creation, these AI generators then produce artwork that can imitate individual artists’ styles. In doing so, they compete with if not displace artists who have spent decades improving their craft. 

AI-assisted writing faces similar challenges in terms of transparency, explainability, plagiarism and authorship attribution. Using online texts as training data, AI writers such as GPT-3 can generate original summaries and syntheses based on existing content. 

Traditional writing classes are disrupted by these AI tools, which speed up and automate the process of online research and the summary and synthesis of reference materials. Students can easily copy and paste AI-generated content as their own written work without being caught by plagiarism-detecting tools such as Turnitin.

In other words, natural language generation tools such as GPT-3 transform how we detect and define plagiarism. That, in turn, calls for new research and adaptation from writing instructors and scholars. 

Outside the classroom, professional writers and businesses use AI content generators to create preliminary ideas, generate quick summaries of online publications, write stories and engage with customers in chatbot conversations.

While famous artists such as Greg Rutkowski may feel their rights infringed by AI art generators, other artists are using AI-generated art for inspiration. In the content generation marketplace, these AI tools can compete with writers and artists or can be used as human-augmenting tools to help writers and artists produce content more creatively, efficiently and collaboratively. 

From: https://chass.ncsu.edu/news/2023/03/27/how-is-ai-changing-how-we-write-and-create/

What are Gerunds?

 

Like the word grammar itself, the grammatical term gerund is often mentioned with a shudder. If you already understand all about gerunds, this post is not for you. If you’d like to review the concept, read on.

A gerund is a verbal. If you’ve read previous posts about present and past participles, you know that a verbal is one of the principal parts of the verb that retains some verb functions at the same time it is being used as a different part of speech.

A gerund is an -ing verb form used as a noun.

Like a verb, a gerund can take objects and be modified by adverbs and adverbial phrases, but its function in a sentence is to serve as a noun–a noun that ends in -ing.

What do nouns do? Nouns are used as the following parts of a sentence:

1. Subject
2. Direct Object
3. Subject Complement
4. Object of a Preposition

Anything a noun can do, a gerund can do–because a gerund is a noun. A gerund is a noun that ends in -ing. Gerunds may be used alone or as part of a phrase.

1. Gerund as the subject of a sentence
Reading is her favorite pastime. (Reading is a gerund used alone as the subject of the sentence.)

Studying English has its rewards. (Studying is a gerund that has a direct object, “English.” The gerund phrase functions as the subject of the verb “has.”)

Picnicking in the woods has its downside. (Picnicking is a gerund modified by a prepositional phrase, “in the woods.” The gerund phrase is the subject of the verb “has.”)

2. Gerund as a direct object
My Aunt Rose loves traveling. (Traveling is a gerund used alone as the direct object of the verb “loves.”)

After a week in the wild, we appreciate sleeping inside. (Sleeping is a gerund modified by the adverb “inside.” The gerund phrase is the direct object of the verb “appreciate.”

Farhad enjoys singing in the shower. (Singing is a gerund modified by a prepositional phrase, “in the shower.” The gerund phrase is the direct object of the verb “enjoys.”

3. Gerund as a subject complement
My cats’ favorite occupation is sleeping. (Sleeping is a gerund that completes the being verb “is.”

Jack’s daily exercise is running laps. (Running is a gerund that has a direct object, “laps.” The gerund phrase completes the being verb “is.”

Hester’s hobby is gardening on her rooftop. (Gardening is a gerund modified by a prepositional phrase, “on her rooftop.” The gerund phrase completes the being verb “is” and restates the subject.

4. Gerund as the object of a preposition
His parents punished him for stealing. (Stealing is a gerund functioning as the object of the preposition “for.”)

The search party rescued the child by climbing a cliff. (Climbing is a gerund that has a direct object, “cliff.” The gerund phrase functions as the object of the preposition “by.”

Falstaff attempts to flee by hiding in a laundry basket. (Hiding is a gerund that has a prepositional phrase, “in a laundry basket.” The gerund phrase “hiding in a laundry basket” is itself the object of a preposition: “by.”)

From: Daily Writing Tips