Social media management/digital specialist Lori Lewis on the plagiarism implications of artificial intelligence.

I’m just going to cut to the chase.

There’s a man in our industry who is taking my work and passing it off as his.

The person who uncovered this shared this guy’s “playbook” with me.

And sure enough – he is.

I saw some of my signature lines like, “The less interested we appear to be in the audience, the less interested they will become in us,” as well as, “People want to feel a part of something, be that something.”

I mean you can Google what he’s passing off and find my work, those lines, in old or new articles.

And I don’t know what to do about this. Maybe there’s a legal route.

But after sitting on this for a couple of weeks, this is what I think is more alarming.

While this guy calls himself a “digital and social media guru” for a radio company; knowingly plagiarizing someone else’s work, I began to think about artificial intelligence (AI) and the people leaning on AI for (in my case) social media fundamentals.

I asked ChatGPT how it generates social media tips.

And it’s not just my strategic thinking around social media that will begin to shape others’ work with no attribution, any content not behind a paywall or subscription base will as well.

This is what “publicly available data” includes but is not limited to:

• Information on Public Websites (like InsideRadio.com) – content and information openly accessible on websites without a login or subscription required.
• Published literature – information found in books or articles publicly available.
• Publicly shared social media content – information shared on platforms with public visibility.

This whole idea of someone in our industry knowingly taking my words and strategic thinking and plagiarizing, or now with AI, random people out there in the world who will unknowingly begin using my (and others’) work is unnerving.

And here’s why:

The core issue with plagiarism, is said so well by business coach, Tommy Newberry:

“Strategic thinking is rare because it requires hard, sometimes uncomfortable work, you’re stretching. It’s also lonely.”

Thinking is hard.

You don’t just wake up and know your stuff.

The best in their craft put the hours in, we second-guess ourselves, we fight intrusive thoughts, we plow through insecurities, and faith sometimes is all we have.

So, what do we do about where this might be going?

Do we start putting our work behind paywalls?

ChatGPT said it does not have the capability or access to retrieve content from proprietary websites, subscription-based services, or databases.

This is so new I have no answers yet, but “copy and paste” boy has me thinking:

Does it mean we have to get used to this happening?

Does it mean copyrighting every single thing and hiring attorneys every single time?

As Fred Jacobs and I talked this over, we both have new sympathy for the writers who went on strike for months. They had many motivations – better pay and other benefits. But at the heart of their concerns was protection for their work from AI bots, taking their writing and using it as the basis for creating other stuff.

It’s something all of us who are content creators should be cognizant of. Technology will simply make it easier to not just steal work but to repurpose it.

But to the guy who “appropriated” my philosophies – the DNA I’ve spent nearly two decades honing and crafting – my message is this:

I’m flattered you like my stuff. Either credit me appropriately or come up with your own material.

Lori Lewis is the founder of Lori Lewis Media, a social media management, marketing, and monetization firm. A former air talent and programmer, Lewis has held social media and digital management positions at Cumulus Media/Westwood One, Jacobs Media and Midwest Communications. Reach her at [email protected].

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