Part 1: The Moral and Legal Grey Area

This is Part 1 of a series by B.A. Bellec on using AI to edit his novel Cobalt Lungs. Start with the [Series Introduction].

Who actually created the book? Bellec works through ownership, training data, disclosure, job loss, and the environmental questions, and lands on an answer that stays honest about its own uncertainty.

If you came here hoping I would tell you whether AI is good or bad, I’m going to disappoint you.

I don’t know.

One of the reasons I struggled to write this article is that every answer seems to create a new question. In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to write this article first is that I am still wrestling with the question myself. I struggle with absolute positions on AI because I have seen practical benefits outside of writing. I have used AI in business settings to automate workflows and accelerate technical tasks that would otherwise require expensive consulting support. Doctors are exploring AI-assisted diagnosis. Researchers are using AI to analyze large data sets. None of those use cases automatically justify every use of AI, but they do remind me that this conversation is much larger than publishing.

Before writing Cobalt Lungs, I had already used AI professionally to solve business problems. The technology had already saved me and my employer significant amounts of time and money. When I eventually brought AI into my writing process, I wasn’t walking in blind. I had already seen both the strengths and weaknesses of the tool. The problem is that writing isn’t coding. It’s personal. It’s identity, and once AI enters that conversation, people understandably become uncomfortable. I became uncomfortable, too.

The first ethical question I had to answer was simple:

Who created this book?

The answer seems obvious to me. I created it. The characters were mine. The setting was mine. The science was mine. The outline was mine. Large portions of the early draft existed before AI ever entered the project.

Yet dismissing the role AI played would also feel dishonest:

• AI helped me brainstorm.
• AI helped me identify plot holes.
• AI helped me test endings.
• AI helped me refine prose.
• AI helped me challenge assumptions.

Those contributions are real. The question then becomes: at what point does assistance become authorship? I don’t think there is a universal answer. We already accept many forms of creative assistance. Editors shape manuscripts. Beta readers provide feedback. Writing groups critique scenes. Teachers influence technique. Authors read books that inspire them. Every creative work is built on a mountain of outside influence. The difference with AI is that the influence is compressed into a single tool. That makes it more visible, and visibility makes people nervous.

The second ethical concern is training data.

This is where the conversation becomes much more difficult. I cannot honestly tell you where every sentence that influenced an AI model originated. Neither can most users. That uncertainty bothers me. At the same time, I also cannot tell you where every idea that influenced me originated. I have spent decades reading books, watching movies, studying writing, listening to music, and learning from editors. Creativity is also built on absorbed information. The difference is that we generally understand how people acquire knowledge, while AI remains a black box to anyone outside the top developers, and even they often throw their hands up when asked about it. I think this concern deserves serious discussion. I do not think it can be dismissed. I understand why people are uncomfortable. AI models learned from enormous amounts of information, and there are ongoing debates about what material should have been included and whether creators were properly compensated. Those concerns are legitimate. I do not dismiss them.

At the same time, I also recognize that creativity has always been built on absorbed information. Every author is influenced by the books they read, the movies they watch, the conversations they have, and the teachers they learn from. We understand how people learn. AI learning is newer, less transparent, and therefore harder for many people to trust.

The third ethical question is disclosure. Should authors tell readers they used AI?

My answer is yes. Not because I believe AI-assisted work is inferior, but because transparency builds trust. Readers deserve to know how a book was created. In my case, I have chosen to discuss the process openly. Some readers may decide they dislike that decision. Others may find it fascinating. Both reactions are valid. There is no right or wrong answer. Disclosing my AI use will almost certainly impact my public image, but not disclosing would make me feel dishonest. I would rather deal with the PR than feel dishonest.

The final ethical question is one I suspect will define the next decade: who owns AI-assisted work?

The legal questions are easier for me than the ethical ones. Copyright law will eventually catch up. Governments, courts, and publishers will establish standards. Those rules may change several times over the next decade. I know I own my manuscript right now, and if anything changes in the legal system over the next decade, I will try my best to adhere to those standards. The ethical questions are harder because they are personal. They require each creator to decide where their comfort level exists. Just because something is legal does not automatically make it ethical. Likewise, just because something makes people uncomfortable does not automatically make it wrong. The line between authorship and assistance has always been murkier than most care to admit.

The closest comparison I can think of is the relationship between an author and an editor. Editors challenge ideas, identify weaknesses, suggest changes, and help shape a manuscript. Good editors often leave fingerprints on a project. They recommend books to read. Inspire you. Yet nobody argues that the editor owns the novel. The author remains responsible for every decision and every word that survives to publication.

Some people compare AI to a ghostwriter. Personally, I think that comparison breaks down quickly. A ghostwriter is typically hired to create content on behalf of someone else. In many cases, they are doing the actual writing. My experience with AI was different. AI rarely told me something I didn’t already know deep down. More often, it helped me explore possibilities faster. It gave me twenty doors to look through. I still had to decide which one to walk through.

My justification for getting over the ethics of ownership is that through my rework process, this becomes my idea, no matter what the source of the inspiration is. If I were to read The Martian and then write a scene in my book as an ode to Andy Weir, as long as I do it my way, that is okay, and most authors do something similar to this as they get inspiration to start projects and add scenes. If an author uses AI to brainstorm, are they still the author? What if they use it for editing? What if they use it for outlining? Where is the line? I don’t know. I suspect society is still figuring that out. What I do know is this: the version of Cobalt Lungs sitting on my computer today could not have been created without me. It also could not have been created in its current form without AI.

Both statements are true.

For some people, that answer will be uncomfortable. For me, it feels honest, and honesty is probably the best place to start a conversation this complicated.

What about job loss?

Many people are worried about their careers and whether AI is coming for them. I work on the frontline here. I see actual business cases for AI and automation use just about daily. I see the people we are hiring to fill vacancies. If someone young came to me today and asked me what they should do, I would say: “Find unique skills that are not automatable in the next 10 years.” Think of trades and hands-on tasks that need a human touch. AI is a long way away from doing those things. If that isn’t a fit for you, then I would say the next best thing is to embrace AI as a part of most jobs and learn how to work with it. Honestly, almost everyone uses software multiple times every day. Software is really just the early version of AI. Software automates specific tasks and workflows. That is essentially the same thing AI is doing, just AI is doing it on a bigger scale. Software was always going to keep getting better. As a writer, do you use Microsoft Word? Do you use the spellcheck feature? Have you ever used Grammarly? It is like spellcheck on steroids. These are software programs that are widely accepted as okay to use. I honestly feel GPT is just the next evolution. It went from handwritten, to typewriter, to computer, to software, to better software, and now we are at AI, which is super software.

The biggest problem AI is creating in the job market is probably the elimination of entry-level jobs, preventing college and university students from being able to apply their skills. It’s a tough world out there to try to break into an industry. Best advice I could give. Put AI skills on your resume by taking some courses outside the normal channels. Even just YouTube video tutorials are solid for learning the basics. Skills they are not teaching you in school because the curriculum is ten years out of date. That is going to help you apply your knowledge to areas where AI is weak, and companies are looking for exactly this in their current hiring process, trust me, I know better than most. If you are already in an industry feeling the pressure from AI, again, try to get on the right side of the line. Companies are not going to stop using AI unless the government intervenes, and I highly doubt that is coming.

Let’s get back to what this is all about. Art. If you are reading this, you are in the orbit of the arts community. Make art about these feelings. They are real. They are unique to you. No two people feel fear the same. That is what is special about them. Use that fear. Use the AI discovery process to make some art. It is exactly what I did over the last 5 years. I am not right or wrong. It is just what I did. I understand if others don’t do the same thing, but one of the best ways to comprehend something is to learn about it and then use it.

Oh josh. Now, here is the real kicker. Even if you get through the job loss fears, and the moral and legal grey area, and start to feel like you are learning, then you run into the environmental questions.

This is where emotions often run highest. AI requires significant computing power. Data centres consume electricity and water. Those impacts are real and deserve scrutiny. I hope technological improvements reduce those concerns over time. However, I sometimes wonder whether AI is being held to a different standard than other forms of technology. Streaming services, cloud storage, social media platforms, online gaming, cryptocurrency, and countless other digital services all require massive infrastructure. The question should not be whether AI has a footprint. It clearly does. The better question is whether the value it creates justifies the resources it consumes, and if we are holding the other massive tech players to the same standard. That answer will likely differ depending on who you ask. A writer may see value in a tool that helps them finish a manuscript. A doctor may see value in a tool that helps identify diseases faster. A business may see value in automation that eliminates repetitive work. A researcher may see value in accelerated analysis of large data sets. The technology itself is neither moral nor immoral. The use case matters. That is where I have landed after spending months working on Cobalt Lungs.

If you make your career as an online streamer and you have a fancy supercomputer turned on day and night to handle the gaming and streaming, plus a server to handle communication with your fans and reduce lag, not to mention nearly 24-7 social media on your phone or via a second or third monitor, do you think about the environmental impact you are having? Probably not. Is that better or worse than someone asking ChatGPT a business-related question once or twice a day? I don’t know, but I think the debate is being skewed heavily against AI without actually looking at all of modern society holistically. Each generation has become more and more tech-dependent, and it isn’t all bad. It is part of evolution and progress. Our lives are nothing like they were 100 years ago, and 100 years from now it will look totally different again.

AI is not a magic button. It is not a replacement for creativity. It is not a replacement for skill. It is not a replacement for judgment. It is a tool. Many have come before it. Many will come after it. Like every powerful tool, it can be used well or poorly. It can save time or waste time. It can create value or create noise. It can help people build meaningful things or help them produce endless amounts of forgettable content.

This conversation is important, and I suspect it will continue for years. I don’t claim to have all the answers. What I can offer is my experience. I used AI extensively while writing this novel. I wrestled with the implications. I questioned my choices. I justified some decisions and remained uncertain about others, and my overall analysis is that technology matters far less than the intent of the person using it, but even with all the learning I did, I still have the same research problem: every answer seems to create a new question.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B.A. Bellec is an award-winning Canadian novelist, songwriter, and music video producer whose work blends cinematic storytelling, emotional atmosphere, and deeply human science fiction. Drawing from an education in film and a multidisciplinary creative process that merges music, prose, and visual symbolism, his stories explore themes of survival, memory, grief, identity, and the search for meaning inside collapsing systems.

Known for emotionally immersive worlds, recurring symbolic imagery, and a style that balances intimate character work with large-scale thematic ambition, Bellec creates stories that feel less like traditional narratives and more like lived emotional experiences. His current project, Cobalt Lungs, expands beyond the page into a companion concept album, combining literary fiction, atmospheric worldbuilding, and music into a unified creative universe.

COBALT LUNGS

Station Eleven meets The Road with the psychological containment and systems tension of Silo.

A deadly airborne spore has transformed the world into a collapsing maze of quarantines, sealed cities, and desperate survivors struggling to adapt. In the ruins of Vancouver, musician Maddy fights to hold onto her humanity inside an overcrowded refugee shelter while scientist Ethan isolates himself nearby, deep underground in a self-sustaining silo where routine has replaced emotion. As society fractures and survival becomes increasingly brutal, the two are pulled toward each other in ways neither of them fully understands. Atmospheric, intimate, and emotionally charged, Cobalt Lungs is a post-apocalyptic story about isolation, survival, and the dangerous hope that can still burn at the end of the world.

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