By Ande Jacobson

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the use of AI, ghostwriters, and editors, and what authorship really means. Having written a book myself, I know the kind of effort that goes into such an endeavor, even when you know the material extremely well. Getting the wording right, making sure that your ideas come across the way you intend, and even the aesthetics of the prose are all of concern. Writing an essay requires a similar amount of polish as well, although it’s significantly shorter and quicker to write compared to a book. One could even apply the same considerations to something as mundane as an email or a personal letter. All that said, what exactly is authorship? Are you technically an author if you use a ghostwriter to write your manuscript for you, or are you committing a type of fraud by taking credit for something that you didn’t actually do? Is the manuscript still your work if an editor changes it, or is that a matter of degree? Continue reading →