Arabic English French Spanish

Controversy Over the Legality of Writing Press Articles Using AI

An opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal has reignited the debate regarding the boundaries of using artificial intelligence in content creation, after prominent American investor Stanley Druckenmiller revealed that he used AI tools to draft an article criticizing U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The controversy began after the article was published, when social media users noticed its style closely resembled texts generated by AI tools. Druckenmiller later confirmed that he indeed used AI tools to assist in writing, noting that he utilizes several tools, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, to help express and formulate his ideas.

The American investor emphasized that the ideas and positions expressed in the article are entirely his own, while The Wall Street Journal defended publishing the piece, considering that the use of AI does not automatically mean the content is not produced by its author.

The newspaper’s perspective is based on distinguishing between owning the idea and bearing responsibility for its content on the one hand, and using a technical tool to assist in formulation on the other. Accordingly, the newspaper did not view Druckenmiller's use of AI as conflicting with its editorial standards, as long as the article expresses his stance and he takes responsibility for it.

Limits of Use This issue goes beyond Druckenmiller’s personality and his dispute with the U.S. Treasury Secretary, raising a question that journalists and media institutions worldwide now face: When is artificial intelligence merely an assistive tool, and when does it become a partner in content production?

There is a clear distinction between using AI tools for proofreading, transcription, or organizing information, versus using them to prepare a complete text, or generate information and analyses, and then publishing them under the name of a journalist or writer without disclosing the nature of this usage.

With the expanding presence of AI in newsrooms, digital tools are now used across multiple stages of journalistic work, ranging from research, translation, and transcription to data analysis, drafting, and formulation assistance.

Conversely, concerns are growing regarding inaccurate information, hallucinated quotes, and the reproduction of published content without attribution, alongside the difficulty of knowing whether a text is purely human-generated or assisted by AI.

Thus, transparency has emerged as one of the most important governing principles for the use of these tools. Using AI does not inherently mean that media material is fake, or that a journalist has abandoned professional responsibility; however, the broader the role of AI in content production, the greater the importance of disclosure, human review, and editorial accountability.

Transparency Rules In the European Union, the transparency rules set out in Article 50 of the EU AI Act entered into application on August 2, 2026. These rules include requirements for informing users when they are interacting directly with AI systems, placing machine-readable markings on AI-generated or modified content, alongside specific requirements regarding deepfakes or manipulated content, and certain public interest text publications produced by AI without human review or editorial oversight.

These rules aim to reduce the risks of disinformation and manipulation, and enhance the public's ability to distinguish between human-generated content and content created or modified using AI.

Professional Debate Druckenmiller’s case was not the only instance to spark debate over the use of AI in writing and publishing.

This August, University of California, Berkeley mathematics professor Zvezdelina Stankova admitted to using AI to draft an opinion piece criticizing the academic standards of some students and university admission policies. She explained that AI helped edit the article, while affirming the extensive human effort that preceded its publication.

In another incident, The New York Times ended its relationship with freelance journalist Alex Preston after it was discovered that he used AI to draft a book review that contained sections strikingly similar to a previous review published by The Guardian. Preston acknowledged using an AI tool to prepare the draft and failing to spot the similarities prior to publication, while the newspaper deemed the incident a violation of its editorial standards.

These cases reveal that the issue is no longer just about whether AI can be used, but also concerns the limits of use, the necessity of human review, public disclosure, and responsibility for published content.

Expansion of the Phenomenon A recent study by Graphite showed that articles dominated by AI-generated content now account for about 50% of articles published online. According to the study, the proportion of articles classified as primarily AI-generated reached 49.9% in the first quarter of 2026, compared to 50.1% for human-written articles.

The study relied on a sample of approximately 55,400 English-language articles analyzed using three AI detection tools.

In another study, the Pew Research Center analyzed about 490,000 English-language web pages within the Common Crawl archive, concluding that roughly 10% of total pages in the July 2026 sample showed significant indicators of AI usage in writing or editing. This percentage rises to over a third when analyzing only pages published after the launch of ChatGPT.

A study by Ahrefs in April 2025, covering 900,000 new web pages, found that 74.2% of them contained some degree of AI-generated content. The study indicated that 2.5% of pages were classified as "pure AI," 25.8% as "pure human," while the largest share contained a blend of human and AI-generated content.

These figures, despite differing methodologies and measurement criteria, confirm that AI is no longer a marginal technology in content creation, but has become an increasingly prominent part of the digital and media production cycle.

Automated Content The most crucial issue facing media institutions is how to maintain public trust in an environment where AI can generate texts that often look identical to what a professional journalist or writer would produce.

The issue is not about rejecting technology, but rather about establishing clear rules ensuring that humans remain responsible for the content, and determining when disclosing the use of AI becomes a professional and ethical necessity.

As AI tools continue to evolve, media institutions will face a delicate equation: leveraging technological capabilities without compromising credibility, achieving speed without sacrificing accuracy, and innovating without undermining editorial responsibility.

Hence, Druckenmiller's article is not merely a passing event, but an indicator of a larger question imposing itself on the media industry: Who writes the content when a human writes with the machine's assistance, and who bears responsibility for it before the public?

Source: The Wall Street Journal report