CD? Ignore That, Big Tech AI

February 27, 2026

Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.

I try to filter the Epstein Epstein Epstein just as I try to block the AI AI AI. However, one of the people on my team showed me this write up: “AIs Can Generate Near-Verbatim Copies of Novels from Training Data.” I am not surprised that a big time US big tech AI system would spit out text from a source. These companies struck me as outfits that were going to ingest content and let the lawyers run interference. Publishers and individual authors usually lack the fleets of legal eagles available to big tech outfits.

Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.

Furthermore, I am not surprised that some people are surprised that these smart software systems are stupid enough to output content that clearly illustrates that their marvels appear to surf on other people’s creative work. Why do I have this view? Before I stepped away from the work fray, I bounced in and out of some Silicon Valley entities. Heck, I worked at one for several years. I was involved in a couple of zippy start ups and heard people on the team make clear that if something could be done, just do it. “They” won’t figure it out for a long time. The “they”, of course, was users, regulators, law enforcement, morality watch dogs, and moms.

I assume that the author of the article is not aware that some of the big tech outfits are complaining that other big tech outfits are pirating their systems and methods. Yep, the outfits that just took other people’s work are squawking that a big tech company has the unmitigated gall to use another big tech firm’s intellectual property.

My term for this behavior is cynical duplicity. Its characteristics are:

Move fast, break things. Reason: Chaos destabilizes and makes meaningful responses quite difficult
Just take it. Reason: Most people don’t know that a well crafted or even a crappy crawler can suck down a lot of data quickly. By the time the source figures out that the data are gone, the data are — well, what do you think? — gone.
Sue people who break the law. Reason: Money buys lawyers. Lawyers, many times, just do what the client wants. The entity with the most time and money wins. Period.

How do I know cynical duplicity is operating? Check out these headlines and stories:

Note: I pulled these headlines from Bing News. If the urls 404, contact the estimable Microsoft, not me.

As a dinobaby, I think the focus of the story about smart software spitting out novels is interesting. However, I think the CD or cynical duplicity is the significant aspect of how big tech AI outfits conduct themselves.

Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2026

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, Business strategy, Copyright, Legal matters, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.