For those panicking: And those not.

It frustrates me to see how much anything AI is targetted like witches in a witch hunt, especially among some parallel writing groups to this one.

I received an email that I felt was really helpful—and yet the claims seemed merely claims.

I asked the author for documentation so I could share that on this community. I hope this is helpful to everyone.

Maybe together we can help assuage the worries everyone has and pass on the facts to our author friends.

I. THE CLAIMS

(from an email by writing coach Joseph Michael)

1. Your Ideas Stay Your Ideas: When you interact with an AI like ChatGPT or Claude, it’s kind of like talking to a very smart... goldfish. It remembers your conversation while you’re chatting, but once the session ends, it forgets everything. It doesn’t store your ideas or share them with other users. Your brilliant plot twist about the detective who’s actually a time-traveling llama? Safe and sound in your wonderfully weird brain.
 

2. AI Doesn’t “Learn” from Your Conversations: These AI models aren’t constantly learning or updating themselves based on user interactions. Think of them more like very sophisticated parrots 🦜 with a fixed set of knowledge. They can mix and match that knowledge in creative ways, but they’re not adding your specific ideas to their database.
 

3. It’s All About Prompts, Not Storage: When you use an AI, you’re essentially giving it a prompt—kind of like a creative writing exercise. It generates responses based on its pre-existing training, not by pulling from a secret stash of user-submitted ideas. It’s more like a super-advanced autocomplete ✍️ than an idea-hoarding robot.
 

4. Your Unique Voice Is Still Yours: Remember, AI can’t replicate your unique voice, your personal experiences, or the specific way you weave ideas together. It might help you brainstorm or overcome writer’s block, but it can’t recreate the magic that makes your writing uniquely yours.
 

5. AI Ethics and Privacy: Reputable AI companies have strict ethics and privacy policies. They’re not in the business of stealing ideas—they’re trying to help creators, not replace them. It would be pretty bad for business if they went around plagiarizing everyone!
 

So, while I totally get the concern (and applaud your protective instincts over your creative babies), rest easy. Using AI tools is more like bouncing ideas off a really smart, slightly forgetful writing buddy 🤓 than spilling your secrets to the town gossip.
——

II. The Documentation

  • Your Ideas Stay Your Ideas:

    • OpenAI's Privacy Policy: OpenAI explicitly states that data submitted by users is not used to train their models unless the user opts in. This means your conversations aren't stored for model training purposes. You can read more about their policy here: OpenAI Privacy Policy.

    • Data Retention: For tools like ChatGPT, conversations are stored temporarily to provide context during the session but are not attributed to you or shared with others.

  • AI Doesn't "Learn" from Your Conversations:

    • Static Training Data: AI models like GPT-4 are trained on data up to a certain cutoff date (for GPT-4, it's September 2021). They do not continue learning from user interactions after deployment.

    • No Continuous Learning: OpenAI confirms that their models do not update or learn from individual user interactions in real-time. More details can be found here: How OpenAI's Models Work.

  • It's All About Prompts, Not Storage:

    • Generation vs. Retrieval: AI models generate responses based on patterns learned during training, not by retrieving or storing specific user inputs.

    • No Idea Hoarding: There's no mechanism for the AI to collect and redistribute your unique ideas to others. Again mentioned here How ChatGPT and our language models are developed

  • Your Unique Voice Is Still Yours:

    • AI Limitations: While AI can mimic styles based on its training data, it cannot replicate your personal experiences or the unique way you express your ideas.

    • Creative Control: You maintain full control over your creative process, using AI as a tool rather than a replacement.

  • AI Ethics and Privacy:

    • OpenAI's Commitment to Privacy: OpenAI is dedicated to user privacy and ethical AI use. They have strict policies to prevent misuse of data. Read more here: OpenAI's Data Usage Policies.

    • Anonymization and Security: Any data that is temporarily stored is anonymized and protected with robust security measures.