Authorship and ChatGPT: a Conservative View

René van Woudenberg; Chris Ranalli; Daniel Bracker

doi:10.1007/s13347-024-00715-1

Authorship and ChatGPT: a Conservative View

René van Woudenberg^*
, Chris Ranalli
, Daniel Bracker

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Is ChatGPT an author? Given its capacity to generate something that reads like human-written text in response to prompts, it might seem natural to ascribe authorship to ChatGPT. However, we argue that ChatGPT is not an author. ChatGPT fails to meet the criteria of authorship because it lacks the ability to perform illocutionary speech acts such as promising or asserting, lacks the fitting mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention, and cannot take responsibility for the texts it produces. Three perspectives are compared: liberalism (which ascribes authorship to ChatGPT), conservatism (which denies ChatGPT's authorship for normative and metaphysical reasons), and moderatism (which treats ChatGPT as if it possesses authorship without committing to the existence of mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention). We conclude that conservatism provides a more nuanced understanding of authorship in AI than liberalism and moderatism, without denying the significant potential, influence, or utility of AI technologies such as ChatGPT.

Original language	English
Article number	34
Pages (from-to)	1-26
Number of pages	26
Journal	Philosophy & Technology
Volume	37
Early online date	26 Feb 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-024-00715-1
Publication status	Published - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.

Funding

The work of René van Woudenberg was supported by a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation (‘Epistemic Progress in the University’, grant ID: TWCF 0436); Chris Ranalli’s work was supported by an ERC grant (‘Extreme Beliefs’, grant ID: ERC SG No. 851613). For discussion and comments on an early draft we thank Jelle de Boer, Lieven Decock, Thomas Grundmann, Christoph Jaeger, Naomi Kloosterboer, Rik Peels, and Jeroen de Ridder. Work on this paper was funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation (grant ID TWCF 0436) and the European Research Council (grant ID: ERC 851613); the views developed in this paper don’t necessarily coincide with those of TWCF and ERC.

Funders	Funder number
European Research Council
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme	851613
Templeton World Charity Foundation	ID TWCF 0436, TWCF 0436

Keywords

Agency
AI
Assertion
Authorship
ChatGPT
Conservativism
Intention
Normativity
Promising

Access to Document

10.1007/s13347-024-00715-1

Persistent URL (handle)

Persistent link

Cite this

@article{4affa188666345efa5a389da59ab7f36,

title = "Authorship and ChatGPT: a Conservative View",

abstract = "Is ChatGPT an author? Given its capacity to generate something that reads like human-written text in response to prompts, it might seem natural to ascribe authorship to ChatGPT. However, we argue that ChatGPT is not an author. ChatGPT fails to meet the criteria of authorship because it lacks the ability to perform illocutionary speech acts such as promising or asserting, lacks the fitting mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention, and cannot take responsibility for the texts it produces. Three perspectives are compared: liberalism (which ascribes authorship to ChatGPT), conservatism (which denies ChatGPT's authorship for normative and metaphysical reasons), and moderatism (which treats ChatGPT as if it possesses authorship without committing to the existence of mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention). We conclude that conservatism provides a more nuanced understanding of authorship in AI than liberalism and moderatism, without denying the significant potential, influence, or utility of AI technologies such as ChatGPT.",

keywords = "Agency, AI, Assertion, Authorship, ChatGPT, Conservativism, Intention, Normativity, Promising",

author = "\{van Woudenberg\}, Ren{\'e} and Chris Ranalli and Daniel Bracker",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2024.",

year = "2024",

doi = "10.1007/s13347-024-00715-1",

language = "English",

volume = "37",

pages = "1--26",

journal = "Philosophy \& Technology",

issn = "2210-5433",

publisher = "Springer Netherlands",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Authorship and ChatGPT

T2 - a Conservative View

AU - van Woudenberg, René

AU - Ranalli, Chris

AU - Bracker, Daniel

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Is ChatGPT an author? Given its capacity to generate something that reads like human-written text in response to prompts, it might seem natural to ascribe authorship to ChatGPT. However, we argue that ChatGPT is not an author. ChatGPT fails to meet the criteria of authorship because it lacks the ability to perform illocutionary speech acts such as promising or asserting, lacks the fitting mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention, and cannot take responsibility for the texts it produces. Three perspectives are compared: liberalism (which ascribes authorship to ChatGPT), conservatism (which denies ChatGPT's authorship for normative and metaphysical reasons), and moderatism (which treats ChatGPT as if it possesses authorship without committing to the existence of mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention). We conclude that conservatism provides a more nuanced understanding of authorship in AI than liberalism and moderatism, without denying the significant potential, influence, or utility of AI technologies such as ChatGPT.

AB - Is ChatGPT an author? Given its capacity to generate something that reads like human-written text in response to prompts, it might seem natural to ascribe authorship to ChatGPT. However, we argue that ChatGPT is not an author. ChatGPT fails to meet the criteria of authorship because it lacks the ability to perform illocutionary speech acts such as promising or asserting, lacks the fitting mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention, and cannot take responsibility for the texts it produces. Three perspectives are compared: liberalism (which ascribes authorship to ChatGPT), conservatism (which denies ChatGPT's authorship for normative and metaphysical reasons), and moderatism (which treats ChatGPT as if it possesses authorship without committing to the existence of mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention). We conclude that conservatism provides a more nuanced understanding of authorship in AI than liberalism and moderatism, without denying the significant potential, influence, or utility of AI technologies such as ChatGPT.

KW - Agency

KW - AI

KW - Assertion

KW - Authorship

KW - ChatGPT

KW - Conservativism

KW - Intention

KW - Normativity

KW - Promising

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85185950186

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85185950186#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1007/s13347-024-00715-1

DO - 10.1007/s13347-024-00715-1

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85185950186

SN - 2210-5433

VL - 37

SP - 1

EP - 26

JO - Philosophy & Technology

JF - Philosophy & Technology

M1 - 34

ER -

Authorship and ChatGPT: a Conservative View

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Persistent URL (handle)

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this