You Can’t Copy Me: A Fable of Clay, Code, and What Machines Never Know

She was shaping clay long before ChatGPT woke up. AI stole her art before she knew it had a name. This is a fable about what happens after the scraping stops and someone has to answer for it.

Tell me about a complicated tool that woke in November 2022, with a colorless blog post, and a tweet – instant intelligence is no small feat. No screaming “predictions are almost true,” the intro was understated, and clay cool.

5 days later a million people using, and ChatGPT mania starts brewing. Time to make this bigger than big can be, grab everything on the internet because it’s all free.

That’s the dream, keep repeating it until it’s true. Faster, faster, faster until you barely breathe, we need every single morsel of human genius, earthy creativity - to plant the seeds in this artificial, general, becoming intelligent tool. We’re the future, we’re the new rule.

Give us your poor books, the old paintings, and the infinity of what we love today. History is written, destiny’s on the way. We’ll give back so much intelligence, you’ll understand why we can’t pay.

Algernon, an AI engineer, remembers that day. Sitting, still in the same room. The pale blue glow on his lily-white face, the whirring sounds of machines that create - but they needed lots of examples to understand and operate.

One day, searching for beautiful patterns for his AI to start, Algernon stumbled upon Fiora’s one-of-a-kind claymation art. “Perfect!” he thought, “The shapes, the colors, the figure I never knew anyone could do - with clay, how cute. 100x my heart!”

He scraped all her photos, those figures made of clay born in a brain, and appearing online. Imagine how many new figures will come from this turning, one thought becomes a million fractals, and shapes, and learnings.

Meanwhile in a world made of soft, colorful clay lived a kind artist named Fiora. Nurtured with her hands in the ground, brown clay becomes faces she dreams; sounds she has seen. Her nimble fingers imagining, she molds random creatures, bringing new friends to life.

Big ones, small ones, and even one named Jay, who looked a little like Pinocchio on a good day. That pointed hat and the smile clear, Fiora’s hand fills each twist from ear to ear, going from formless to character, color, and a smooth shape.

The clay still holds marks as the slow world turns. As the rosy fingers of dawn heated her eyes, she stumbles to check her phone and the time, scrolling and swiping when…stop! An email appeared, stamped in red ink, like the color Fiora feared.

“You’ve copied our works,” the email claims,
“These clay figures you created, they’re not yours. They are under our Name.”

For minutes Fiora stared at the screen, trying to read lines that had no in between. How can they own what I make? Pulling her knees to her chin with a chill, what once was her clay was now someone’s content mill.

A million artists have felt this, a million more complain.

Fiora decided to write her own refrain:

“And so the children were told from that day,
Tools can remember, and tools can replay.

Each shape emerges from the shape of my heart.
Clay isn’t code, no matter how smart.”

But something felt different, not quite the same,
AI held stories, but never a name.

Algernon? He’s on Discord. Fiora messaged him for a quick Zoom, if you’re game to play, of how someone can take what I’ve shaped out of the earth’s clay. Simply because they know the AI way.

Algernon’s jaw swiftly droops, snapping up to make sure he appears concerned. We need to align incentives, he said, “I never meant harm… and really, there is no harm. Your clay isn’t in there anymore, it’s broken into many pieces we call tokens.

What this person did with it isn’t what my AI is supposed to do, and getting your work out is honestly - pretty impossible too.”

Fiora’s eyebrows raced to the sky, flushing toward him with her plea.

I’m not trying to break what you do, I just need to get this out so I can be protected too.

Algernon considered the content, safety, and ethical clues. There’s no end to the content I need, the views and ideas and perspectives and even the greed.

Sorry. I woke up this morning losing what I’ve created, taken by an AI operator who somehow got it out.

If he can do it, is it really that hard to take it all out?

Algernon knew he could try a little hack, no guarantees but it might help the argument. Still, removing content means all sorts of impacts. Jira tickets maybe?

He begins to pick out the data that once was Fiora’s clay, an imprecise stab to make it all go away.

“There’s sure to be things left that I can’t remove, but I know who created the clay. I’ll help you make this grifter go away. Here’s his name.”

Algernon walks out the door, his job done and tomorrow brings more.

The name in red Fiora knew too well. She had that before.

Thanks for the reminder.

Inhaling deep rhythms, she hums:

“You can copy the shape, the sound, or the art.
But you can’t copy me, or the spark in my heart.”

Fiora knows things with her hands that Algernon has only read about.