Speaking to Ars in the wake of the controversy, Rosenbaum says he “learned a lesson” and is “going to be much more suspicious” and “reticent to trust” AI outputs going forward.

But he also can’t tear himself away from the tools. Rather amazingly, Rosenbaum is not interested in going back to the AI-free research process he used to write previous books.

“The idea of taking X years off [from AI] while it sorts itself out, and going back to, like, Microsoft Word … it’s just not in my nature,” he told Ars. “[AI] is magical. Because it connects, it knits together ideas and gives you pathways to think about things that you’re not going to come up with on your own.”

It’s also magical in another way: Like J.R.R. Tolkien’s One Ring, AI convinces many of those who use it that they can control its power properly. But can they?