Whose work is this anyway?

Did you make that presentation? Who wrote those insights? Who did the analysis?

You did the work. You sat with it for four hours, you thought about what you wanted it to say, iterations, re-written sentences. You also asked Claude for help twice in the middle.

Now, is the work yours?

A couple of years back, the answer used to be very clear. You sat with the data findings, analysed them from different angles. Then you wrote the insights, actions based on those insights. You used a pen, Excel, calculators, a laptop, a keyboard, with many search tabs open in Chrome, and the work was yours the whole time. Never a question. The pen did not get credit. The search engine did not get credit. The colleague you bounced an idea off during the break might have gotten some. But the result was yours, because you were the one who decided what went into it and what stayed out.

That has not actually changed. What has changed is that the new thing in the room can think and write its thinking before you blink. So people feel they should mention it. Some do it out of honesty, and some feel nervous as if they cheated.

The question is not did you use AI.

Everyone is using AI, like they used PowerPoint, Excel, pen and paper, the calculator. The question now is, whose work is it? Who decided what stayed and what went? Who knew what good looked like for this piece? Would you have caught it if AI was wrong?

If you can answer these questions, the work is yours. The pen does not need credit. Neither does the model.

If these questions do not have an answer, then yes, the work was never yours. Then it was Claude doing the work, and you would have never caught it if it was wrong.