Helen Keller, in her autobiography, writes about an incident that for a long time left her “in doubt, anxiety and fear”. At the age of 11, she wrote a story titled “The Frost King”, believing it to be her original creation. However, it was later found that her story was closely similar, in thought and language, to a story written by another author. She was alleged of plagiarism. She writes “I have ever since been tortured by the fear that what I write is not my own”.

What is fascinating is that Helen, being deafblind, communicated primarily through touch. She could not remember reading the original story herself, in braille. So somebody must have “read” it to her, by spelling the words on her fingers.

Following the incident, Helen’s teacher, Miss Sullivan, with the assistance of Alexander Graham Bell, finds out that the original story must have been “read” to Helen, by a friend, 3-4 years earlier, in 1888, during a vacation. At that time, Helen had been “learning the spelling of strange words”, and stories did not have much meaning to her.

Later, Helen’s own analysis of her letters and writings revealed to her that her mind was saturated with the story and other ideas of the original author, Miss Canby.

The New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reminded me of this story.

I wonder what the lawsuit means in today’s ethical landscape. Occasionally, I come across articles on the internet that seem to be instances of intentional plagiarism. Between that and the mysteries of how our brains work, how can one tell what the original source of an idea is?