AI writing isn't cheating if you do it right
Why bother to write in the age of AI? This edition is an ever-evolving guide to thinking well in an age of AI, published as a collaboration between Musings on AI and The Message is the Medium
TL;DR: As AI makes content generation easier, the boundaries between original work, inspiration, and copying are becoming increasingly blurred. The key difference lies not in the tools we use, but in how we engage with them. Good business writing isn't about creating entirely new concepts, but about reshaping ideas for different contexts. The secret is maintaining "architectural control" while using AI to enhance your thinking process, recognizing that writing is as much about the journey as the final product.
The evolving nature of originality
What counts as plagiarism these days? It's an interesting question, and one that's becoming increasingly complex as AI tools make it easier than ever to generate and adapt content. The traditional boundaries between original work, inspiration, and copying are getting blurrier by the day.
Look at how innovation actually happens in various fields. Great chefs have always borrowed techniques and flavor combinations from other cuisines, adapting them to create something new. Scientists build directly on others' work - that's literally how progress happens. Even in fashion, designers have long practiced the art of taking existing elements and recombining them into fresh collections that somehow still feel distinctly "them."
Our relationship with borrowing and adaptation has always been complicated. Sometimes it's celebrated - fusion cuisine is now a respected culinary category, and scientific papers proudly build on cited predecessors. Other times it sparks heated debate, like discussions around cultural appropriation in cooking or fashion. These tensions reflect deeper questions about originality, attribution, and authenticity that we're still grappling with.
From copying to creation
When we use AI to help us write - whether it's a business report, a presentation, or even creative work - where exactly is the line? The answer isn't as simple as either "it's all plagiarism" or "anything goes." Just like with cooking or science or fashion, what matters isn't whether you used pre-existing ingredients, but how you combined them and what you added that made them uniquely yours.
The key difference often isn't in the tools we use, but in how we engage with them.
Think about the contrast between having a tutor who helps you develop your ideas versus paying someone to write your paper. In both cases, you're getting expert help, but the level of mental engagement - and therefore learning - is radically different. The same applies to AI: you can use it as a thought partner to help clarify and structure your ideas, or you can use it as a replacement for thinking altogether.
A skilled business writer isn't necessarily someone who creates entirely new concepts from scratch - they're someone who can take complex ideas and reshape them for different contexts and audiences.
Sometimes that means distilling a technical innovation into a compelling three-minute elevator pitch that lands that crucial follow-up meeting. Other times it's about transforming a successful approach from one industry into practical recommendations for another. Or maybe it's about taking a sprawling team discussion and crystallizing it into clear next steps, or turning detailed market research into a punchy executive summary that drives decision-making.
Maintaining control
So how do we maintain intellectual ownership of our work while taking advantage of AI's capabilities? It comes down to understanding that writing isn't just about the final product - it's about the thinking process that gets you there.
When you're first exploring ideas, AI can be like a particularly engaged conversation partner, asking questions that help you clarify your thinking. It might suggest connections you hadn't considered or help you articulate something that's clear in your head but fuzzy on paper. This is very different from simply asking AI to "write me a report about X" - just as having a thoughtful discussion with a colleague about your ideas is different from asking them to write something for you.
Later in the process, AI becomes more like a skilled editor. It can help restructure your thoughts for clarity, suggest different ways to phrase things, or adapt your content for different formats. But crucially, you're still the one deciding what works and what doesn't. You might reject suggestions that don't align with your voice or your intent, just as you would with a human editor.
The key is to maintain what software developers call "architectural control" - you're the one making the important decisions about structure, emphasis, and direction.
Think of it like pottery: using AI is similar to using a potter's wheel. The wheel doesn't make the pot for you - it's a tool that responds to your touch, amplifying your intentions and making certain techniques more feasible. No one would claim a pot wasn't made by the potter just because they used a wheel.
Just as each potter develops their own characteristic style even when using the same wheels and clay, what you produce using AI should feel uniquely yours. The AI might help you express yourself more fluidly or polish your phrasing, but the underlying vision and direction come from you. It's like writing on your best day - when the words flow naturally and you can express exactly what you mean - except you can access that state more reliably with AI as your tool.
Looking ahead
We're in the early stages of a profound shift in how we think about writing, originality, and the tools we use to express ourselves. Just as the pottery wheel didn't diminish the art of ceramics but opened new possibilities for creation, AI tools are expanding what's possible in writing and thinking - while still demanding skill and judgment in their use.
The value isn't always in being completely original. Sometimes it lies in recognizing patterns across different fields, adapting ideas for new contexts, or simply expressing established concepts more clearly for your specific audience. What matters is that you're fully engaged in the process, maintaining that light but decisive touch that makes the final product genuinely yours.
As these tools continue to evolve, we'll all need to keep learning and adapting. Some key questions to ask yourself when using AI in your writing:
Am I using this tool to enhance my thinking, or to avoid thinking?
Do I feel genuine ownership of the ideas and their expression?
Would I be confident explaining and defending these points in a conversation?
Does the final product reflect what I actually want to communicate?
The line between acceptable assistance and excessive automation will keep shifting. Rather than clinging to rigid definitions of originality or authenticity, we might do better to focus on the quality of our engagement with ideas and the effectiveness of our communication.
What matters is not just the tools we use, but how thoughtfully we use them to express what we truly want to say.
Bonus extras
How I wrote this
It started with a sprawling WhatsApp chat with my friend Robin, batting around ideas for the better part of a month. I fed the raw chat text into Claude and asked it to ‘help me write a blog post on the topic of AI and plagiarism’ - but to first ask me clarifying questions ‘more than you normally would’ before drafting. What followed was fascinating - first an hour of back-and-forth as Claude asked thoughtful questions that made me think harder and deeper, letting me muse aloud and follow tangents. Then we shifted to actual drafting, with Claude producing chunks of text while I gave detailed feedback, suggested new examples, and occasionally jumped in to write sections myself that Claude would then weave together. Working this way meant I could focus on what I love most – exploring ideas and concepts – with a partner to help shoulder the burden of turning those thoughts into polished prose.
So… a pro tip for using AI to help you write: Don't dive straight into drafting with AI - make it earn its keep by interrogating you first. The more you explore and think out loud in response to its questions, the better - those wandering trains of thought often lead to your best insights.
– Lynette
Connections and links
Explore this topic further in Cal Newport’s New Yorker article: What kind of writer is ChatGPT? Chatbots have been criticized as perfect plagiarism tools. The truth is more surprising. It’s also the source for the quote in the image I posted at the top.
There’s a lot of excitement about how a GPT could be trained on your style and be the perfect ghostwriter. A hilarious suggestion from OpenAI’s head of product involved asking ChatGPT to draw a picture of what it thinks you look like.
Needless to say, if the police released these pictures and asked for the public to turn us in, we would both be safe. Remember that how others see you is neither how you see yourself, or how you want to be seen. And a GPT that is trained on everything you do, is likely to miss 95% of both your aspirations and who you are.
“No man is a hero to his valet” as the proverb goes, because the valets saw both the aristocrats at their worst and knew all the things rather stale personalities did to make themselves see fancy. A GPT will only ever see you trying to figure things out, solve puzzles, work on frustrations. It won´t see you at your best: calm, looking out, inspired, sure of yourself, away from a keyboard. It’s up to you to make sure you self-consciously bring the parts of you the GPT can never know to the work, and perhaps one day the picture it has of you will be the one you also hope to see in the mirror each morning (even if you don’t always).
–Robin
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