In Defense of Ethical AI Use: A Response |
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat recently published a thoughtful essay on her blog, Velveteen Rabbi, called “The words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart (or: why I refuse AI)”. She offers seven reasons she chooses not to use generative AI for sermons, Torah, poetry, or other creative writing. (Velveteen Rabbi)
Rachel is a friend and colleague, and I appreciate both the seriousness of her concerns and the care with which she makes the case. I agree with a great deal of what she raises. I reach a different conclusion about what those concerns ask of us.
So here is my response, point by point.
Full disclosure: I used AI in writing this piece. I used it to help me organize my thinking, sharpen arguments, and edit the prose. The ideas and judgments are mine, and I reviewed and revised the finished piece myself.
1. There’s value in the wrestle
Absolutely. Writing is often part of how we discover what we think. AI can short-circuit that process when someone asks it to produce finished thought on demand.
It can also take part in the wrestle. I use it to question me, help organize a messy set of ideas, challenge an argument, suggest structural possibilities, or tell me where something I have written is unclear. I remain engaged throughout that process.
For me, the important question is whether the writer is still doing the thinking.
2. This matters for neurodivergent writers
There is another dimension here that deserves attention.
Some people have no shortage of ideas and still struggle enormously with executive function: sequencing those ideas, organizing them, initiating a draft, holding the structure of a long piece in mind, or actually finishing it.
AI can provide scaffolding for those tasks.
That does not make the resulting thinking less theirs. The same is true of a human editor, writing coach, dictation software, speech-to-text, or other assistive tools.
I would be very cautious about defining authentic authorship according to how much unaided cognitive labor preceded the finished page. That definition can inadvertently privilege people whose brains happen to be well suited to conventional writing processes.
3. Solidarity with creators and training without consent
I take this objection seriously. There are real ethical problems in the history of how some generative models were trained, particularly around copyrighted work used without consent or compensation.
I’m less persuaded that an unethical element in the creation of a technology........