@Manigarm This is an interesting point, and certainly correct.

It's also exactly how humans learn to become artists and writers - by studying, mimicking, and eventually adding to the existing body of work. We don't generally consider that theft, unless the copying is exact or deceptive.

Yet AI feels somehow different, much more like plagiarism. Perhaps it's that the ONLY input an ML system has is others' art, with no real-world human experience of its own to contribute.

@mattblaze @Manigarm I think photography is another useful reference--the photographer doesn't create the imagery they capture from nothing, but they choose what to photograph, tuning parameters of the camera (which they probably didn't build either), making tweaks to an image after the fact, etc.

We don't have as much trouble assigning a creator in those instances--are the AI designers like the camera makers? are the images input into the model like the made objects that appear in a photo?

@zalcarik @Manigarm Yes, I think photography is a good example. When I make a photograph (and I use the word "make" quite deliberately instead of "take"), I'm trying to produce art. We can argue about whether it's good art or bad, but there's no longer any serious question, here in the 21st century, done with intention, that photographs can be art.

Why is selecting the input and curating the output of an AI system any different?

@ShadSterling I think that's a common misconception, these AI models almost never work in a way analogous to that. To carry on the analogy about finding a photo spot (where "I" am acting like the AI now), it would be if I looked at the google image results to learn what the place looked like, then stepped over to a canvas and painted a picture of what I remembered.

A novel work is being created, but yes also one that is intrinsically derivative of the work of others.

@ShadSterling But that's pretty on par with what human artists need to do. Consider not the scenic photo spot, but instead something like a dragon--there's no real-world example an AI or human could draw from, they need to make reference to existing art.

I think that's all still mostly tangential to the issue of authorship and creative/artistic input. The AI/camera are backboxes, that take inputs and allow for creative input in turning those inputs to outputs.