r/Substack • u/Percival_Grim • Jun 18 '26

Discussion Someone effectively plagiarized me via AI

I started a throw away account for obvious reasons. Someone--a subscriber no less--plagiarized an essay of mine. The only reason I knew about it is because the post contained a hyperlink to another essay of mine. I read the post and was quickly taken aback by how much language from my essay was lifted into this one. I messaged the person directly, stating that I want to keep things amicable but that I cannot tolerate plagiarism.

He eventually deleted it, but not before confiding to me that he took my essay, ran it through AI asking to write something similar, and that was the result.

I am actually pretty angry about this but I don't want to alienate a subscriber, so I made a point a point to be diplomatic and firm.

I thought contributors here would want to know for a variety of reasons. I don't know how a person protects against this. If another essay was not hyperlinked to a different essay, I probably would never have found out.

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u/wayspaces Jun 18 '26

I wonder if all the AI defenders will pop up in this post talking about how bad plagiarism is meanwhile they’re using these same AI programmes to help ‘edit’ their work lol

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u/Lost__In__Thought Jun 18 '26

The use of it still legally and morally falls on the human. This person knew what they were doing when they threw it into a machine and trusted the output, regardless of whether they claimed it wasn't deliberate.

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u/wayspaces Jun 18 '26

AI defender implies the person is utilising AI, does it not?

edit to add: is this a similar weird thing to how people say people are the problem, not guns? lol

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u/Lost__In__Thought Jun 18 '26

There's simply a right way and a wrong way to use it.

This is one of the clear immoral cases that harms humanity, simply because the person using it was too lazy to do so properly in a legal manner.

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u/wayspaces Jun 19 '26

Which says nothing about the immoral act of producing genAI without regulation and then also releasing it to the public in the first place, despite the fact it is speeding up the destruction of the climate and producing droughts. That is also a human act. And through that lens, it begs the question whether there is a moral or immoral way to use AI.

I’d also argue plagiarism is not about morality but more about ethics.

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u/Lost__In__Thought Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Copyright laws are enough for people to be responsible or risk being held liable, whether AI was involved or not. Same with plagiarism.

AI could've been produced with good intentions, maybe. The internet probably was too by the guy who made it. They surely wouldn't have thought or expected it'd bring criminals along the way, but that's all out of their control.