A.I. and Disability Authorship: How Ableist Gatekeepers Can Politely Hop Off My Dick.

Dick Gariepy | Big Thinky Ouchey

AI is not the author of my pain. It is the scaffolding I built to make that pain legible

This Is How My Brain Works, Im Sorry You Don't Like It But Its The Only One I Have

Alt Text: A Discord message from user "Russo" dated June 4, 2025, at 5:11 PM, with a visible quote

What you’re looking at isn’t just mockery. It’s epistemic violence. Violence that targets how knowledge is expressed, who is allowed to be heard, and what forms of speech are granted legitimacy.

Let’s begin with the obvious: when someone writes, “who goes to the emergency room for depression?” they’re not just asking a question. They’re asserting a worldview. A worldview in which mental anguish is not real unless it bleeds. In which suicidal ideation is not urgent unless it’s accompanied by a method. In which the ER is reserved for the visible body, not the collapsing mind.

I wish I could chalk that comment up to good old-fashioned ignorance. That would’ve been cleaner. Easier to shrug off as garden-variety stupidity. But no, unfortunately for him, the man’s actually smart. Which makes his move about as natural as seeing a grandpa on a romantic dinner date with a beautiful young woman who could be his granddaughter.

What he pulled has a name: dismissive incomprehension. That’s the academic term for when someone with fragile opinions and no rhetorical spine pretends not to understand something, not because it’s unclear, but because conceding meaning would mean conceding ground. It’s the intellectual version of “Huh?” weaponized as sabotage (Cull, 2009). He performs confusion, not to clarify, but to cast me as the fool. The message to the room is clear: don’t bother engaging, this one’s incoherent.

Here’s why that’s funny. No one was taking me seriously in the first place. I’m just some internet rando with a blog and a trauma habit. But the fact that he thinks there’s still credibility here worth assassinating? That tells me everything I need to know, not about me, but about what this very clever man thinks of himself.

But this post isn’t about insecure old men on the internet. This post is about credibility. More specifically, how I have none of it, and how A.I. became my solution and my obstacle.

I guess this is my coming out to all my readers who didn't know (for some reason) that I use a generative text language model to assist me in getting the pixels on your screen to light up in just the right way so that my content appears before you for uptake. If you feel betrayed by the discovery that this blog is not 100% typed out by myself, then I want to say to you... "Sir, this is a Wendy's." Please stop expecting me to serve you a 5-star gourmet meal. I am not a professional writer, and you aren't paying me to make this, but if you'd like to hit the donate button 'cause, fuck, I'm poor.

Buy This Bald Boogerman A Meal

Some people think it's dishonest that I don't add a disclaimer on my work telling others that it was made with the help of A.I. I've been told it makes me look guilty, like I’m hiding something. But I don’t hide it either. When anyone asks me, “Hey, did you use A.I. to help you write that?” I have always answered openly and honestly. It's not the act of disclosure that I dislike, it’s the value judgments that prompted the question in the first place.

They called me a fraud, said I was plagiarizing, and shamed me for not being able to find the words on my own. They are right about the last part. I often can't find the words on my own, or at least not in a manner in which anyone would read. My posts are long, and I'm working on making them shorter, but if I didn't use A.I. to assist me with my writing, they would be twice the length they are now. I over-explain, I repeat ideas, my sentences run off, ideas seemingly come out of nowhere because that's how my brain just functions. My mind works like an iterative loop. I circle, I rewind, I start again from the beginning the moment something stops making sense. Sometimes I’m doing that three times in the span of a single sentence. That’s how I understand things. It’s not how most people like to read.

I anticipate the objection: that it’s inauthentic, and I should write only for myself. That I should value authenticity over intelligibility. And I want to be clear, I do write this for myself. I started this blog for my own reasons. But part of that reason was because I wanted to be understood. I wanted to be known.

All language, all communication is goal-oriented action. When I speak, when I type, when I write, when I gesture, I’m not doing so just because there are thoughts in my body that need to escape. We encode symbols with meaning and transmit that meaning because we are trying to have an effect in the world. When that goal is to be understood, it can’t be done in isolation. It requires a listener. Someone to know me. And I can’t accomplish that goal if no one can understand me or has the time or effort to engage with the thoughts as they come out of my mind.

I have this desire to be heard and a need to be understood, but I'm also acutely aware of how words not chosen carefully can be warped and weaponized against me. I have often said that my greatest fear in life, the one thing that will put me into a panic response and dissociate into the oblivion, is being misunderstood (after my fear of parasites, of course). The worst things to happen to me in my life happened because people took my words and warped them into meanings other than what I had intended to suit their own personal needs and motives. I once ended an email to a professor with the sign-off "I'll see you in class" as I was, at that moment, on my way to class where I was going to see them, and that phrase 'see you in class' was then used as evidence of harassment and intimidation and used to justify my constructive expulsion from the University of Calgary.

So I want to communicate, I want to be known, but the act of doing so is also terrifying to me. What if they don't understand? What if they misinterpret? What if they don't care to understand? What if it's more convenient for them to justify not helping me or denying me access? Because it's happened before. And I'm caught between these two tensions of wanting to communicate, but being terrified of doing so. It's hell.

The next objection I anticipate: that’s what editing is for. That’s great. Not particularly useful for me. This is how my thoughts happen. When I read my writing, it makes sense to me. I don’t know how others read things. I’ve never been anyone but me. I’ve learned my understanding is different, but it’s like asking me to translate into a language I can never learn. It is unfortunate that my way of thinking is so marginalized or difficult to be understood, because it’s also incredibly powerful.

My mind tends to wander. It circles back and restarts in the middle of a thought. It blends ideas from different areas without seeking approval. It may not be tidy or efficient, but it is creative. I don't think in separate arguments; I think in systems. And that's something I've come to take pride in.

I Don't Think Linearly, I Think In Systems

My thought process gives me an uncanny ability for systems thinking. This involves comprehending phenomena not as separate events or elements, but as parts of interconnected, dynamic systems. It's about recognizing patterns, relationships, and feedback loops instead of merely focusing on individual causes and effects.

Simply put: Traditional thinking asks “What happened?”, whereas systems thinking inquires “What forces caused this to occur, and how do they interact?”

The key aspects of systems thinking include:

• Interdependence: Every component impacts the entire system. A change in one part can create effects elsewhere.

• Feedback loops: Outputs serve as inputs. Effects return to influence the initial cause.

• Nonlinear causality: A minor input can result in significant outcomes.

• Emergence: The system as a whole can exhibit behaviors or properties that are not present in its individual parts.

• Context sensitivity: Meaning and function rely on the larger environment, not just the internal dynamics.

  
  

I often drove my professors and T.A.s crazy by frequently going “off topic,” introducing ideas and concepts from different branches of philosophy and applying them to the subject matter. I once received feedback on a paper stating that the connections between epistemic fluency (knowing without attending) and phenomenological embodiment (tool-use as transparency) were brilliant and exceeded what was expected from undergraduate students. However, I was also advised to stop doing this because they couldn’t grade it properly. The T.A. even had to outsource the gr ading of that paper because it wasn’t within their field of knowledge.

What others see as going off-topic, I see as systems cognition. It's my way of understanding the world. When you think like this, you don't just memorize theories, you bring them to life. You don't just know things, you test how they behave when reinterpreted, reimagined, repurposed. You don't work in a straight line, but you do create a map.

And no, it doesn't always make for easy reading. But it leads to deep insight. That's the tradeoff. That's the skill. And it's mine.

Why They’re Mad (And Why They’ll Never Know They’re Wrong)

When people come at me for using AI, I don’t flinch—I dive into loops, my brain spinning fast, thoughts crashing like waves trying to break free. Diagnostic loops. This is what it’s like in my head, the meaning pushing up, out, clawing for a signal to carry it.

They’re mad --->Why the fuck are they mad at me?--->Maybe they’re just assholes.--->Yeah, assholes, definitely.--->But that’s too easy--->why this intensity?--->Maybe they hate AI?--->Nah, people use AI all the time, no one’s screaming at them.--->So it’s me. Personal.--->They don’t hate AI--->they hate me.--->But they don’t even know me!--->Why hate me?--->Loudmouth faggot know-it-all on the internet, that’s why.--->But people love that about me, --->don’t they?--->Or maybe it’s just… preference?--->Cross-reference: --->They want “pure” writing,---> not AI shit.--->Like I prefer spaghetti over pizza.--->But do I hate pizza?--->No! --->Wrong.--->Preference doesn’t spit venom like that.--->They’re not just preferring--->they’re judging--->.What’s a preference anyway?--->It’s picking one thing over another, right?--->But I don’t start Reddit wars over pizza, don’t call it a culinary sin.--->So it’s not preference--->it’s something else.--->Something bigger.What…---> what is it?--->Reboot, try again.--->Preference means choice.--->Choice means judgment.--->Judgment means they’re measuring me against something.--->What’s the measure? --->The criteria?--->It’s the insults—plagiarizer, lazy, fraud!--->That’s their yardstick: originality, effort, some sacred authenticity.--->They think I’m cheating their holy rules, --->but it’s not about rules--->it’s about shutting me down.

And here’s the failure condition of the system: no matter how precisely I explain this, they won’t believe me. They’ve already marked my work as contaminated. The tool I use to be understood is the same tool that, in their eyes, makes me unintelligible.

It’s a sick kind of irony. I’m not dismissed because I have nothing of value to offer. I’m dismissed because I offer it in a format they don’t recognize. And now, for the first time in history, a technology exists that helps translate my thinking into the kind of output they do recognize. It happened within my lifetime. That should feel miraculous. Instead, it feels like another trap. Because now they say the tool does the thinking for me. That if I’m legible at all, it’s only because I’ve outsourced my mind. Again, they don’t engage with the content; I’m disqualified before the work begins.

That’s the bottom line. It’s not that my ideas lack value. It’s that I don’t perform that value in the way they’ve deemed acceptable. The issue isn’t merit. It’s mimicry. My value doesn’t arise from a body or mind that resembles theirs, so it doesn’t count. They can’t generate the kind of thinking I do. They can’t even recognize it as thinking. So they declare it invalid. Easier to say I’m cheating than to admit they’ve never been able to see me clearly.

And that’s where the misunderstanding hardens into epistemic injustice, when someone is denied credibility not on the basis of what they say, but on the basis of who they are, how they communicate, or the tools they use to be heard. In this framework, disability isn’t just a medical condition. It’s a credibility deficit. My mind, mediated by a machine, becomes suspect. Not because it’s incoherent, but because it doesn’t conform to their expectations of what a “legitimate” mind looks like.

To them, using A.I. means I’m not really thinking. I’m not really writing. I’m faking it. But here’s the truth: I’ve never been more precise, more deliberate, more me than I am with this tool. I’m not faking anything. I’m just using the only method I have that lets people hear me.

III. A.I. and Disability Authorship: The Mechanism Is Not the Mind

An A.I. model generates language by predicting what comes next. It does not understand what it produces. It does not possess memory, motive, or meaning. It arranges words by probability, not by truth.

This is not intelligence. 

The output of an A.I. model exists because someone told it what to do. The prompt is authored. The selection is authored. The refinement, the erasure, the final form, these are all human actions. The machine provides a pile of stones. I choose what becomes a wall, a window, or a tomb.

A language model functions like a Markov process: a model of change where each step or state depends only on the current state, not on the sequence of states that came before. Formally, this is the Markov property:

P(next state | current state, past states) = P(next state | current state)

Think of it like a memoryless system. What happens next depends only on where you are now, not how you got there.

The model doesn't track your suffering. It doesn’t know if the sentence ends in a confession or a joke. Its purpose is continuation. It completes. It doesn’t originate.

I do.

Markov processes are like those party guests who have no idea what's going on but pretend they do. They're all about the math and stats, but they don’t have a clue about the deeper meaning of life. Picture them as sophisticated probability distributions in disguise, trying to look all complex and mysterious. When a Markov model finishes your sentence, it's not dropping wisdom bombs or profound thoughts. Nope, it's more like it's rolling dice in a casino, betting on what word comes next based on past data.

Tools shape output. Authors shape tools.

A camera doesn’t take a photograph. The person behind the lens frames the shot, chooses the aperture, waits for the light to break. The camera records, but the photographer composes.

Writers who use A.I. do not surrender authorship. They externalize part of the drafting process. They remain responsible for intention, style, structure, and moral content.

The Copyright Office makes this distinction. Purely generated text without human creative input is unprotected. Text developed through prompt, revision, and curation is authorship.¹ Legal definitions require human agency. Philosophical accounts of authorship demand intention and accountability. A.I. fails both tests.

The machine isn't the Picasso, the machine isn't the Shakespeare, and it definitely isn't Bear Grylls of this process.

I am.

Kirchhoff and Kiverstein say my mind doesn’t stop at my skull. It spills out, grabs tools, makes them part of me. Notepads. Voice recorders. AI. These are like extra limbs for my brain, helping me think, survive, be. They call this a Markov blanket.

A Markov blanket is a concept in probability and statistics, especially in graphical models like Bayesian networks. It is a group of variables that contains all the information needed to predict the behaviour of a specific variable, isolating it from the influence of other variables.

Think of the Markov blanket as the boundary that includes all possible causes affecting your mental state. Human cognition depends on the rapid electrical discharges between neurons; the pattern and sequence of these discharges determine your cognitive experience. Traditionally, the mind's boundary was assumed to be confined strictly within the skull. But Markov blankets challenge this assumption, arguing that the mind is not a closed system. Our cognition is continuously influenced by stimuli from our environment, received through our senses, which alter neuronal firing patterns. Kirchhoff and Kiverstein contend that if we view the mind as this chain of cause-and-effect relationships, it becomes arbitrary to limit the boundaries of the mind to the physical brain alone. External stimuli that actively shape cognition must therefore also be considered part of the mind itself. The radical conclusion of this is that the human mind extends beyond the boundaries of our body and include things in our immediate environment.

For example, when you use your phone, it becomes part of your web by providing information and communication. Similarly, when you're with others, their words and actions influence your perspective and expand your web. This boundary is dynamic, constantly shifting with your experiences and interactions.

Why’s this matter? Because A.I.’s in my web. It’s not just a tool, it’s me, extended. Like a spider spinning silk to catch thoughts I can’t hold alone. My brain’s too fast, too fractured, trauma chewing up my focus. AI grabs the pieces, holds them still so I can build something, words, ideas, meaning. It’s not cheating; it’s how I stay in the game.

But people don’t get it. They think minds should be neat, locked in heads. They don’t see my web, my blanket, my mess. They don’t see how I need these tools to keep from drowning. Kirchhoff and Kiverstein get it, my mind’s not just in me. It’s in my phone, my AI, my fight to be heard. That’s my Markov blanket.

So when I use A.I. to help stabilize my language, to organize thoughts that come faster than syntax can handle, I’m not outsourcing my mind.

I’m extending it.

I’m not asking the machine to write for me. I’m using it the way someone might use a notebook, a mirror, a second set of hands. To hold the fragments in place while I build meaning.

Kirchhoff and Kiverstein argue that the mind includes anything that’s actively part of how you regulate yourself and make sense of the world². That’s the Markov blanket in action. And sometimes, for me, that blanket includes a predictive model.

The thoughts are mine. The decisions are mine. The risk... and the conseqiuences are mine.

The tool is just part of the system I use to stay coherent in a world that makes no room for my kind of fluency.

So no, the mind doesn’t stop at the skull. And neither does my authorship.

VII. This Is Not an Apology

There is no confession here. No attempt to justify the method. No bowing to conventions that were never built to include people like me.

This is not an admission of guilt. This is a declaration of authorship.

I have used A.I. to hold pieces of thought that were slipping through the cracks. I have used it when my nervous system could not regulate well enough to type freely. I have used it to generate possibilities so I could choose one instead of none. These are the facts. These are the tools. This is the work.

You will not find a disclaimer at the bottom of this post. There is nothing here to disclaim. The content came from me. The wounds, the pattern recognition, the citations, the structure, all mine. The software held a mirror to my mind and offered sentences. I chose what stayed. That is authorship.

Writers disclose sources when they borrow words. I am not borrowing. I am building. I am shaping phrases that emerge from years of being misread, misdiagnosed, and misquoted. I am taking fragments of distress and turning them into arguments. The work was not produced to impress. It was produced to survive scrutiny.

I do not owe transparency beyond this paragraph. I do not owe reassurance. The demand for disclosure is often a demand for submission, show us your process, show us your disability, show us the friction, prove you suffered enough to deserve this fluency.

That demand will remain unmet.

Writers with privilege are allowed mystique. People like me are required to explain themselves. I reject the imbalance. If you need to see the labor behind every paragraph in order to believe I wrote it, you are not engaged in critique. You are searching for a reason to disbelieve.

This is the voice of someone who has learned to protect their meaning with architecture. Not because they are hiding anything, but because precision is the only shield that has ever worked. The writing is sharp because the world is sharper.

I built this prose for impact, not approval.

The clarity you see here did not arrive clean. It was filtered through episodes of shutdown, through legal threats, through psychiatric holds, through unpaid bills and unread emails. Every line cost something.

And if that cost remains invisible to you, that is your failure of imagination, not mine.

This is not a plea for understanding. This is a claim of authority. I know what I’m saying. I know what it took to say it.

You are free to disbelieve. You are not entitled to devalue.

You are reading a piece shaped by the friction of disbelief and the precision of survival. If it cuts too cleanly for your expectations, sharpen your expectations.

The voice on this page belongs to me. The structure was deliberate. The pain was real.

And nothing here asks your permission.

---

Thick Thought Thumper DOUBLE WHAMMY

--> "DARVO ATTACK INCOMING!!" &  --> "Good Enough For Me"

Notes/citations

1. Gaile Pohlhaus Jr., “Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance,” Hypatia 27, no. 4 (2012): 715–735.

2. Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

3. U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Copyright Office, March 2023).

4. Michael Kirchhoff and Julian Kiverstein, “How to Determine the Boundaries of the Mind: A Markov Blanket Proposal,” in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of the Extended Mind, ed. Richard Menary (London: Routledge, 2020), 97–106.

5. Shelley L. Tremain, Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017).

6. José Medina, The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

7. Kelly Fritsch, Mara Mills, and Aimi Hamraie, “Crip Technoscience Manifesto,” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 5, no. 1 (2019).

8. Associated Press, “AP’s News Values and Principles,” Associated Press, 2023. https://www.ap.org/about/news-values-and-principles/.

9. Cull, Matthew J. “Dismissive Incomprehension: A Use of Purported Ignorance to Undermine Others.” Social Epistemology, vol. 33, no. 3, 2019, pp. 262–271. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2019.1625982.

A.I. and Disability AuthorshipWhy AI-Assisted Writing and Disability: Are Misunderstood