My precious, precious ideas!
For years (and even now), one of the ways a writer could expose themselves as a rank amateur was asking, “How can I keep people from stealing my ideas?” The answer, of course, was always in two parts: first, you can’t; and second, no one wants them anyway.
Ideas are cheap. Everybody has ideas. People who have never written and will never write have ideas. You probably had ten ideas this morning. They’re meaningless… unless you can turn them into something. The telling gives an idea its worth. That idea is a waste if you can’t tell a good story.
It occurred to me that we have a new version of this question, which concerns amateur writers who fear their writing will be used as training data for AI. As before, the answer comes in two parts: one, you can’t stop it if you put your stuff online, and two, it doesn’t matter anyway.
The internet is overflowing with amateur writing. Some of it is spectacular, and those writers will break through someday. Most of it is dross, and those writers will be forever unknown. AI has nothing to do with these outcomes, and never will. In some cases, AI is complimenting bad writing by scooping it up. But that writing was never exceptional, and the facts of that will never change.
Tell good stories, and you’ll find an audience despite what else happens in the world. Stop worrying about things that don’t matter.