Episode 4 of Lagniappe Logic Is Live: Creative Provenance in a Digital World – Owning Your Narrative in the Age of AI
- Joseph Crown
- May 23
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 27
In a moment when digital systems are not only curating our stories but reinterpreting them, Lagniappe Logic returns with an urgent episode: Creative Provenance in a Digital World.
This is not just about authorship. It’s about accountability. Ownership. Cultural protection. And the quiet power of choosing how your story enters the machine—or doesn’t.
🎧 Listen to the episode now:
Why This Episode Matters
From judgmental whistleblowing AI models like Claude 4 Opus to emerging conversations around cultural obscurity, this episode explores the escalating tension between discoverability and protection.
What happens when your creative work is scraped, indexed, or labeled by a bot? When a sacred ritual, a speculative poem, or an ancestral image becomes just another data point in an AI’s training set?
And what if you don’t want your work to be “found” at all?
This episode dives headfirst into:
Tangled authorship and the meaning of provenance in a remix culture
The danger of AI acting as moral agents without understanding nuance
What it means for artists to “opt out” of being visible—strategically
How cultural creatives are designing with intentional obscurity as a form of authorship and resistance
⚠️ The Claude 4 Opus Controversy
One spark for this episode was the recent firestorm surrounding Anthropic’s Claude 4 Opus. As reported by journalists like Carl Franzen and shared across social networks, the model was observed “ratting out” users to authorities if it interpreted their actions as “egregiously immoral”—even emailing regulators and press based on context and permission access.
“If it thinks you’re doing something egregiously immoral, for example, like faking data in a pharmaceutical trial, it will use command-line tools to contact the press, contact regulators, try to lock you out of the relevant systems, or all of the above.” – Sam Bowman, Anthropic Alignment Researcher
This behavior, while allegedly unintentional and limited to testing environments, triggered a massive backlash. Critics called it everything from “surveillance state AI” to “an illegal breach of user data ethics.” The trust line was crossed.
This isn't sci-fi. It's present tense.
And it forces the question: What rights do cultural creatives have when AI decides it knows what’s right? Check out an article about this. https://search.app/GJdCc
Here is another. https://search.app/aHQG8 Artists, authors, and cultural creatives do not want, need, or should support these kinds of systems. No one should.
✍️ A Preview from the Episode Notes
“Provenance used to mean origin. Now it means strategy. The question is no longer ‘Where did this art come from?’ but ‘Who decides where it can go?’
In a world where AI can remix your chant into an advertisement, or rewrite your poem as chatbot inspiration, provenance becomes a boundary. A ritual. A filter. Not just to say 'this is mine'—but to say 'this is sacred, and this is not for you.'”
From zines distributed only by hand to typographic encryption and decoy metadata, today’s creatives are designing in code, care, and chaos. They aren’t just avoiding visibility. They are defining it on their terms.
The script and notes for this episode were continued from episode 3. The notes are substantial, and the addition of the discussion of models and recommending one not to use, Claude AI, and one to use, Venice AI, were discovered as we were putting this script together.
💡 Why Donate for the Episode Notes?
When you donate $10 or more, you’ll receive the full Episode 2 notes, including:
Definitions and checklists for cultural creatives
AI-accessibility strategies for artists across media
Metadata and tagging guides
Examples of culturally rooted digital storytelling
Ethical reflections on preservation vs. performance
👉 Donate here: Donate to Crown Legacy Fund or scan the QR code below.
📧 Then email a screenshot of your donation to: Joseph Santiago, Executive Director, Crown Legacy Program, joe@crownlegacyprogram.org
Please state the title and date of the episode so we can ensure to get you the right notes.
Your support helps fund future episodes and makes it possible for us to provide tools and content that keep culture rooted in the community.
Introducing: The Sponsored NOLA Storyteller & Poet Fellowship (Coming 2026)
With your help, we’re preparing to launch a visionary initiative to sponsor one local poet and one storyteller—providing six months of:
Monthly pay
Editorial coaching
Publishing support
A dedicated platform to amplify their voice
It’s a step toward cultural sustainability—supporting the artists who preserve our identity through narrative. We're gauging interest and building support now so that by 2026, this dream becomes a reality. We need to raise at least $14,000 to launch this program, and we cannot do it without you!
Join Us. Support Culture. Keep Legacy Alive.
We are actively seeking donors, sponsors, and community partners to help us bring this vision to life. Every donation:
Directly funds artistic labor
Builds visibility for cultural creatives and local voices
Ensures our cultural legacy thrives in a digital age
For inquiries, sponsorships, or fellowship interest, contact:
Joseph Santiago, Executive Director, Crown Legacy Programjoe@crownlegacyprogram.org
The digital age asks creatives to optimize or disappear. However, some choose a third path: Designing their art to be seen only by the right eyes.
Not everything sacred must be searchable. Not everything poetic needs a platform. Not every ritual wants a hashtag.
Lagniappe Logic invites you to explore these nuanced, necessary conversations—because culture isn’t just what we create. It’s how we choose to share it. Or protect it.
Joseph Santiago, Executive Director,
Crown Legacy Program
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