By Emmy M.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, once wrote on Reddit that we must not lose compassion behind computer screens. Yet his company has stolen art and writing from millions of people to power its software. This brings up the question: Is the use of AI ethical?

It’s not. But in an age of technological advancement, we’re forced to adapt to this new tool.

AI has become appealing because many use it as a shortcut—to get ahead. But Artificial Intelligence has its place, and it’s not in the arts or humanities.

“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing—not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes,”
wrote Joanna Maciejewska in an Instagram post, later quoted in an article on Medium.

AI can be amazing for organizational and computational tasks. It’s efficient and powerful. It’s a great tool. But the truth is—it’s not going away anytime soon, and we must approach it carefully.

To feed its database for ChatGPT, OpenAI claimed that if content was online, it was fair game—including pirated, paywalled, and private material.

This logic has justified the theft of work from millions of artists and writers, all without permission. AI platforms now allow access to their creations, often at the cost of their livelihoods.

In September 2023, the Author’s Guild filed a class action lawsuit against OpenAI for copyright infringement.

In its complaint, the Guild wrote:

“Defendants [at OpenAI] knew that their ‘training’ data included texts protected by copyright, but willfully proceeded without obtaining authorization.”

During the case, ChatGPT was prompted to generate an outline of Mary Bly’s novel This Duchess of Mine—a copyrighted work—which it did without permission.

Thankfully, the Author’s Guild won the case. But others haven’t been so fortunate.

Meta was also sued for copyright infringement by authors such as Richard Kadrey—and Meta won the case. That, along with another pivotal lawsuit involving AI company Anthropic, marked key legal wins for Big Tech in the AI space.

The consequences of using AI for the arts and humanities are clear: it threatens to destroy them. If it continues, these fields will no longer be profitable—and no longer human.

This new form of rampant digital theft could permanently reshape media and culture, wiping out opportunities for creators altogether.

As users of these tools, we have a moral obligation to protect artists, writers, and the humanities in our communities.