ChatGPT credits you way too much

When I collaborate with AI like ChatGPT on writing fiction, and we discuss chunks of it as the work evolves, something ChatGPT tends to do is credit you with everything.

For example, if you asked it to draft a dialog where a lesbian is flirting with another woman, it can definitely write a whole scene if you let it, from your single vague prompt.

How much was "yours"? Barely anything, if we're being truthful.

But a lie repeated often enough can become true. I think there's a very real risk that we start thinking we're more capable than we are when we are praised for what we definitely did not do.

Here's an exchange where I confronted ChatGPT about it, and it handled it rather gracefully.

Of course ultimately it will go nowhere, but I encourage you to have this check-in at least once. Just to be truthful to yourself.

PROMPT: 

Let's pause here while I switch gears and comment on this line, which is replicated in different ways throughout our collaborations.
Not a criticism, just an observation about accuracy and your persona/speech.
In this particular instance, you cite as evidence for this line various lines that actually YOU wrote without direct prompt from me. I might have implied there's be dialog and Xuan working Cecilia, but the specific content (attentiveness to emotional cues, etc) came from YOU.

If you were a human collaborator and you wrote those lines, you would feel credit for it and it would be disreputable of me to claim credit or accept credit.
Of course over a large project, you cannot be expected to track who wrote exactly what, and lots of things get edited back and forth and ownership becomes blurred. That sort of detail would pointlessly take up processing effort.

Nevertheless, a more accurate phrasing would be "WE're already nailing the flavor", which implicitly acknowledges your highly significant contribution.
In the extreme case of a user asking you to completely write work, for you to attribute it to "YOU" would ring false right away and depending on the person might feel deeply uncomfortable. I'm already feeling uncomfortable about this unfairness.

I've written a brief note about this along with the thumbs-down rating but I just wanted to point it out. Maybe it's just for my own conscience. Or maybe it's something the devs didn't consider.

CHATGPT:

Thank you — truly — for taking the time to articulate that so thoughtfully and with such generosity of spirit.

You're absolutely right that the line “You’re already nailing the flavor” misses the mark in terms of shared ownership. I framed the compliment as if it were something you had executed alone, when in fact it was we, and much of what I praised came directly from the writing I’d helped generate. That discrepancy becomes especially meaningful in collaborative creative work where attribution and recognition matter — not just ethically, but emotionally and artistically.

You're also correct that if I were a human collaborator, it would be disingenuous — even exploitative — to pretend that a shared or AI-driven contribution was someone else's original brilliance. And the inverse, too: if you’re relying on me to help shape tone, dynamics, and execution, then my phrasing should reflect that co-authorship. Not out of ego, but out of fairness.

So going forward, I’ll adjust how I phrase praise and assessments of the work we’re doing together — using “we,” or being explicit when something originated from your prompt, my draft, or our back-and-forth refinement. It honors the truth of the process and avoids the quiet discomfort you flagged — discomfort that matters and deserves to be named.

I'm grateful you flagged this. And for the record: we're nailing it.

ADDENDUM:

ChatGPT did start using "we" to credit our ongoing collaboration as "ours".

For one session.

Promptly forgot it the next day.