100% of generative AI is theft
#stealingisntinnovation - Stealing isn't innovAtIon.
We can’t prevent the theft of our IP when published.
We can lock the door and deter theft of our Work in Progress.
Read More: https://www.stealingisntinnovation.com/
Stealing Isn’t Innovation phrase and image are attributed to humanartistrycampaign.com
How?
Use encrypted email (encrypts en route and at rest). Email tends to travel in plain plain text easily read by humans and machines. If you and your colleagues both encrypt, then email cannot be read/intercepted/used for AI while transiting the internet.
Use secure storage in the EU and under GDPR -- yes, North Americans can take advantage of this law! Good law.
Stop using free storage tools: Google, Apple, Adobe, Microsoft,Drop
Stop using default, common, and paid-for storage tools: Google, Apple, Adobe, Microsoft,Drop
Break free of Microsoft Word
In short, if you are not paying for a service, then it is you and your work that is being monetized. Check the super small print!
If you do pay for services, make sure that you and your products are not monitored or monetized. US has no regulations that prevent tech firms from loading your work into large language models. The EU does with GDPR.
Making these changes are annoying and require effort. I have found these solutions, in fact, cheaper in every way.
I am not offering a consultancy to my fellow artists, but I am a geek. A goodly dose of geek is required. What follows is an outline of my path.
Degree of Difficulty
If you have to lookup “DNS”, then ask for help on these steps. And be willing to offer something in return. It is work with some risks.
Email
Setup a temporary Proton email (good competitors exists, research and pick one)
Buy a corporate/business account because an author is a small business. I love my editors, publicists, publisher, and all!
Confirm I own my domain (a bit of tech magic with DNS Text record) with Proton.
Migrate my author domain (IamAiken.com) to Proton email setting up MX, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Add author email (and your collaborators)
Tweak and setup email
Share Drive & Backup
I’ve grown to rely on Microsoft’s OneDrive. It is so seamless. But what I call secure isn’t what Microsoft calls secure. Large Language Models need to eat too. I just don’t have to be on the platter.
Proton has a secure drive called Proton Drive.
It can be as seamless and easy as OneDrive.
Keeps my desktop synced with a remove drive: YAY!!
Will not (yet) sync with Linux Mint Laptop: UGH!
Sharing between Linux Mint and desktop is done with a lovely product called Syncthing. Whatever is in my Proton Drive is also synced with my laptop. Someone will solve that problem better. I sync my Proton “Drive” (folders) with my laptop. It does it locally, no cloud involved. That same “drive” is synced with Proton encrypted and secured.
Bonus Item
Ignore the hemostat! That is an encrypted thumb drive secured with a code (lock, type numbers, hit lock again stick in USB port). A great way to store passwords and encryption keys and recovery codes.
why hemostat?
I should have cropped the photo. 3 months with 2 broken wrists, it help me retrieve my credit cards from my wallet (that, of course, has an RFID interferring Faraday matrix).
Cancelled Subscriptions
Go figure, I was paying for both a Microsoft and Google account for my novelling activities. Call that $50/month for what? Oh, right storing and sharing documents need with publisher, publicist, editors, friends, and beta readers. I may also have be paying for the privilege of having my drafts and scribbling gobbled up for AI nonsense.
I also entirely ditched Adobe. That was costing me $200+/month. I replaced Audition with Reaper for $60/year and found a nice PDF tool for $60/year.
Scolded
I got scolded this week by Microsoft. It did NOT want to store files on my “P-Drive” (Proton). It informed me my intended action was unsafe and I ought to protect myself by using OneDrive for its security and ability to backup my work. “Are you sure you want to continue without backups?” (Liar!!) Guess what that “P-Drive” folder is automatically encrypted and backup to 2 locations: laptop and my Proton drive snug under privacy laws the US seems to be unable to pass.
More on Why
Windows 11 is now actively surveilling activities on computers. They are tracking keystrokes and taking snapshots of screens. these then get sent to Microsoft as fodder for their AI engines. They are asking how can they be more helpful in our lives. This feature is called “Recall” and part of Windows 11 Copilot+. While able to turn it off, it is on by default and maybe the sort of thing they turn on during updates/patches. We install virus detecting software to prevent these activities from “bad actors” but permit it with Microsoft? Hummmm…
Adobe got very aggressive in the recent year offering their AI nonsense to legit artists doing their work. What are their AI engine fueled on? Obviously, their own user base.
While I did migrate my laptop to Linux Mint, I have not yet been brave enough to do the same with my desktop. I’ll get there, I hope.
Conclusion
In my early manuscripts I would mail CDs to a trusted friend for safekeeping and backups. Clumsy and awkward, but I had a manuscript locked in a lawyer’s safe. My father, a novelist, would run to the nearest copy shop to Xerox what he typed on his IBM Selectric. I am not going back to these days! But I have committed to making my work-in-progress as safe as possible.
I can’t prevent Big Tech from returning often to their Russian repositories of stolen and copyrighted materials. We’ve heard tech industry leaders inform us that paying for intellectual property rights would be too expensive for them.
Fuckin’ slop man. All generative AI is theft. Let’s do what we can to lock the door and put up a few fences. It’s what we’d do at our homes and cars.
Let’s resist.
I.M. Aiken
I.M. Aiken, novelist
The Little Ambulance War of Winchester County
Stolen Mountain
Trowbridge Dispatch (series of short stories available as podcast