A.I. has exploded, and there is no sign of things slowing down. I feel like businesses and individuals started learning how to really use it in 2025, and in 2026 we're going to start seeing that translate into job losses. This is all just in "generative A.I.", the tools that create new content based on old content. (I'm not getting into the whole ball of wax about evolving AI superintelligence, which scares the shit out of me.)

The two big twin issues about generative AI are:
1) What are the legal issues of who owns this content?
2) What are the ethics of all of this?

Right now, it seems to be the Wild West, and it's hard to find a consensus on things.


Ethics Of A.I. - Copyrights

Generative AI’s legality and copyright are complex, centering on human authorship for output protection. The US Copyright Office says AI outputs need significant human creative control to be copyrighted, disallowing pure AI work; so, at least, total AI content doesn't get a copyright.

But the use of previously copyrighted, human-authored material for AI training data is sparking infringement lawsuits. OpenAI, Meta, and pretty much all generative AI platforms are accused of using copyrighted content. There are new regulations like the EU AI Act requiring transparency, with different countries taking varied stances.

Is the legality of all this slowing anybody down in using AI to create "new" art? Not really.

That's the legal side, which is as clear as mud. Apart from that, what about the ethics of all of this? And also, is what AI is spitting out for art opening up some actual innovative stuff or just A.I. "slop"?


When A.I. Copies A.I.?

In these early days of AI content, they've been scraping all previous software code, writing, art, and music that they can get their hands on. So, AI has been integrating the work of humans.

But what about now? AI is ingesting art that has been at least partially created by AI. What happens when A.I. copies A.I.? Does everything just get worse, like when you make a photocopy of a photocopy?

Without fresh data, human creativity, and intentional tuning, you end up with a loop of diminishing returns-an echo chamber of machine-made sameness. Hopefully, as humans are just using AI as a tool but ultimately putting a human touch on these hybrid creations, this will be a positive creative iteration instead of degrading copies-of-copies or increased A.I. slop.


Quick Look At A.I. Ethics

Let's take at least a quick peek at the mechanics and ethics of A.I. in a few fields that are close to my heart.

AI For Writing - Only a human can be an author and take responsibility for the integrity, accuracy, and originality of the work. AI cannot be an author or co-author. Humans need to be fully accountable for any errors, biases, or harmful content produced by the AI tool. So we're counting on these human users to be ethical. Great.

It feels like AI can ethically be used for grammar checks, refining sentence structure, and things like that. Good old "Clippy" in Microsoft Word was already doing things like that.

AI can do summarizing and research, provided the human still engages with the source material and verifies accuracy. How often does that happen?

So now what? Are authors just becoming glorified AI curators and editors?

For Software Code - Are the issues above for writing all the same for software code? Software code IS intellectual property. But is this the same as writing? In software there are coding standards. If I had AI write all the code to handle user logins in a React site, am I really ripping anybody up or just basically getting a template.

A copyright protects the specific creative expression of the work-the unique sequence of words in a novel, or the specific lines of human-readable source code. It does not, however, protect the underlying ideas, functional concepts, or algorithms, just as the general plot idea of a story cannot be copyrighted.

It's not hard for AI to copy existing source code and just cosmetically change enough actual lines of code to avoid copyright violation while preserving the functionality of the code.

AI For Music - As with all other fields and A.I., everybody says it's supposed to be a "tool" or is there to "augment". Do you think that's how everybody is using it?

It's still the Wild West for legality. Popular music with lyrics and music are two separate things involved and two things with different models that AI can rip off. Musicians and lyricists have copyrights. How will they be protected?


Music So Far

AI-generated music has already succeeded on the charts. Do you know about Breaking Rust, the completely fake AI country "artist"? "He" has hit #1 on Country singles charts with "Walk The Walk" and has a fake computer-generated cowboy-looking image.

It's an interesting concept in a lab to see if 100% AI can work, and I think the jury is in: It CAN work. But it creeps the hell out of me.

There are a ton of tools out there right now to make you some AI music. Go to one of the sites, use a simple interface, provide text prompts or select moods, genres, and desired instrumentation from drop-down menus or tags, and voila - you have a credible song. It's weird.

Maybe they're not the best songs. Is AI art good? With AI screenwriting, it seems like it's up to the task of writing a Lifetime movie script, but nothing like Goodfellas. Or at least yet.

It's so early in the generative AI game that it's hard to tell if humans are going to be able to hold their own.


Will It Put Musicians/Composers Out Of Business

At least when it comes to sourcing film and TV underscore, I would be shocked if production companies don't go with AI-created music for their projects. Hollywood has been asking everyone to do way more for much less over the past 20 years. You'd better believe they have no qualms about letting AI supply adequate background music instantaneously when it comes at the end of a production schedule.

The music business was already overcrowded with aspiring artists even before AI entered the picture. Every musician has a hard time standing out amongst all of the noise and choices out there. Now, toss in AI's ability to dwarf the amount of human output, and what are the chances for human writers?


Me Personally

I've been using AI to stand up code, and honestly, it's kind of amazing. I can make somebody a great website in a couple of hours. Sure, my institutional knowledge is helpful to finish it off, but AI cuts the grunt time down by about 70%.

Yes, I use AI to help write blog posts. I've even used them for the background facts for a few paragraphs in this one. I put all of this in my own voice. But if I spit out an unedited 100% AI article, would you even know or care?

And in music, I haven't relied much on AI. I really still fancy myself as an artist. And I like to think that's irreplaceable in the long run. But on one 1 or 2 previous occasions, I've used drum loop software for drum tracks. Those are recorded by human drummers who licensed those loops and got paid legitimately for them.

In hip-hop and mainstream pop, artists have been sampling for decades. That's just as ethically slippery as using AI as the basis of your music.

What's the difference between those adjustable loops or sampling and me asking AI to do the same thing? I honestly don't know.

There are so many questions and it's so early for generative AI. Yikes.