Is It Still My Work if AI Helped?

"How much of you is in the content you consume?

I've been thinking about this question a lot lately. When you watch your favorite YouTuber or read a compelling article, do you ever wonder how much AI shaped what you're experiencing? We've all seen those gotcha moments – a beloved writer reveals their viral post was actually AI-generated, usually to showcase how far the technology has come. But these reveals always left me wondering: if AI can write for us, do we still need to understand what makes writing good?

Here's the thing about AI – it's not the creative apocalypse many feared. For creators like me, it's more like a new tool in our workshop. At least, that's what they promised. But this new tool raises some thorny questions about authorship and authenticity. When I use AI to polish my work, where do I draw the line between enhancement and delegation?

I think about my journey as a writer. When I started blogging, I relied on friends and girlfriends as my editorial team – the perks of not having a newsroom behind you. They caught my grammar slip-ups and told me when my writing didn't flow. The only way forward was to write more, learn more, improve more. Then Grammarly entered my life, becoming my personal editor. I trusted it to catch those pesky comma splices and spelling mistakes. These were still my words, just tidied up. Small changes I approved, tweaks that felt natural to my voice. It was collaboration, not ghostwriting.

But AI is different, isn't it? When Claude or ChatGPT suggests rewrites, the line between collaboration and creation gets blurry. If AI makes this post more engaging, is it still mine? Just because my words formed the foundation, does that mean I can claim full credit?

I decided to experiment. My usual writing process involves drafting in IAWriter, running it through Grammarly, and traditionally getting feedback from my fiancée. This time, I'm letting Claude take her place as my first reader.

My fascination with generative AI started when ChatGPT went public. While tech leaders like Sam Altman preached from their silicon pulpits about AI's limitless potential, my MBA-trained skepticism kicked in. Every technology needs a clear use case, and AI's seemed clouded by hype. So I started experimenting, both at work and in my personal projects. As I bumped into AI's limitations, I began to understand its real role in creative work. MidJourney could translate my visual ideas into images (sort of), and Claude could brainstorm blog topics and review my writing. But I never asked it to rewrite my work completely. Call it professional pride.

And now here we are – a collaboration between human creativity and machine intelligence. How does it sound? I suspect my voice has been polished into something you might find in a glossy magazine feature. Less raw, more refined. But is that better? I asked my fiancée to compare the versions, and here's what she had to say: “I liked it, the use of AI made what you wrote more catchy and engaging. It also made the flow more seamless. Overall, those were your words. Just with makeup. Makeup is meant to enhance you, it’s still you at the end of the day.”