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LiberalFartsMajor t1_jaa3cmc wrote

This is justified. A computer absolutely can not create original work. This is also the basis for my assertion that ChatGPT college essays are not "plagiarism."

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monkeedude1212 t1_jaa5gf5 wrote

> A computer absolutely can not create original work.

Why not?

Or rather, if a computer can't, what is the reason that a human could instead?

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TheeHeadAche t1_jab88er wrote

From the court ruling cited on this specific case:

> In cases where non-human authorship is claimed, appellate courts have found that copyright does not protect the alleged creations. For example, the Ninth Circuit held that a book containing words “‘authored’ by non-human spiritual beings” can only gain copyright protection if there is “human selection and arrangement of the revelations.” Urantia Found. v. Kristen Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 957–59 (9th Cir. 1997). The Urantia court held that “some element of human creativity must have occurred in order for the Book to be copyrightable” because “it is not creations of divine beings that the copyright laws were intended to protect.”

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gurenkagurenda t1_jabfzu8 wrote

To clarify, this is not a court ruling. They’re citing court rulings, but the US Copyright Office is part of the legislative branch, not the judicial branch.

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TheeHeadAche t1_jabg4ih wrote

Good clarification. I’ll edit to reflect this fact

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Ronny_Jotten t1_jacnjcg wrote

>> A computer absolutely can not create original work.

> Why not?

> Or rather, if a computer can't, what is the reason that a human could instead?

It's a question of the word "original". Water makes beautiful patterns in the sand below it, wind creates intricate patterns on the water. But we don't usually use the phrase "original work" to talk about things like that. Its meaning is related to the concept of invention, something that takes a will, a desire, imagination, intentional work, skill, and a process that involves being conscious of the aesthetics of what's being produced. I think that some animals are capable of it too, to some extent. But things produced by inanimate forces just don't fit into the category by that name. It doesn't mean they're not beautiful, and they have been the inspiration for countless artworks. But they're not called original artworks in themselves. There are different words for that.

On the other hand, people use tools and media to make art, and an artist using a computer can certainly create original work, if it involves the elements mentioned above. Also, processes of chance have been extremely important in the art of the past century. Much of the "output" of John Cage's work for example, is based on randomness. And I don't think the US Copyright Office is a particularly good judge of that. They might refuse to register a copyright on the music created, when musicians played notes that were produced by fish in a tank with a musical staff painted on it. Nevertheless, that piece is considered a very important and original work in the history of avant-garde art and music.

One of the best examples is artist Harold Cohen's AARON, a software project started in 1972, that produces physical paintings, spanning over four decades. The artist himself doesn't claim that the sofware is "creative", though the paintings have been displayed in many important galleries, and the overall work is considered very significant and influential in the history of art and AI. In 1994, Cohen asked: "If what AARON is making is not art, what is it exactly, and in what ways, other than its origin, does it differ from the 'real thing?' If it is not thinking, what exactly is it doing?"[1]

It comes down to the nature of the work. Someone who writes "an astronaut riding a horse"... it's so low-effort that it's difficult to call it original art, even though it's become somewhat iconic. But I don't think at all that its impossible to use AI image generators in a process that does produce original, creative art works, or at least, in a way that the deep and thoughtful investigation of the questions, as in Cohen's work, is clearly the original work of an artist.

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LiberalFartsMajor t1_jaa5z5s wrote

Because a human must take action for it to occur. A human must direct the AI to do a task so the human behind the instructions is the true creator.

Humans don't need to be told what to do to be creative, we can choose to do it of our own free will.

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monkeedude1212 t1_jaa76zi wrote

This seems like a real flimsy axiom to put the basis on.

Well I couldn't do anything without my parents having taken some action for me to exist, and they couldn't have done that without their parents, so is all original work actually belonging to the first semblance of life?

Or how about, my wife and I decided to buy a deck of cards for date night ideas, and one of the cards said that we should paint portraits of each other. Are the paintings original work of ours, or does that belong to the card creators who inspired us to do it?

If instructions are all that is required consider art not original work; then I really don't think we should give Michelangelo any credit for the Sistine Chapel. He was told to paint it by the Pope.

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Snoo52211 t1_jaa69zq wrote

That's narrow minded

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Snoo52211 t1_jaa6qh7 wrote

We don't even understand what "free will" is. So how can you say that it can't happen "artificially"? These conclusions are just wild guesses wrapped in a false certainty.

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FourAM t1_jabmib4 wrote

Sky daddy says rocks weren’t created in his image

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vgiz t1_jaab1br wrote

All art is derivative.

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skychasezone t1_jaadanh wrote

How did it start then?

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cantwejustbefiends t1_jaaf18y wrote

Stick figures on cave walls.

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vgiz t1_jaahuxq wrote

Cave wall - history’s primal gallery.

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Kromgar t1_jaaylq1 wrote

But first they saw stick figures in clouds because pareidolia

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skychasezone t1_jabgda0 wrote

but if all art is derivative where'd that come from? Can we say that only the cave drawings are truly unique?

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DCsh_ t1_jacgdmf wrote

A cave painting of a horse will have been made by someone who has seen a horse. Fundamentally information has to come from somewhere, yet often the expectation set on AI seems to be "it's derivative because it can only draw a horse due to having a horse in its training set".

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Quantum-traveler88 t1_jabvvi9 wrote

This is a fact which nobody can argue. Everything is a remix. There is never truly original art and never will be.

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Ronny_Jotten t1_jachoga wrote

Whenever someone says "this is a fact which nobody can argue", it almost always turns out to be arguable.

The idea that "there is nothing new under the sun" is itself a tired, old idea from the Bible. It represents an ancient view that everything in life and the world is just a cycle that repeats. It leaves no room for progress or innovation.

Original creativity is an essential ingredient in art. Maybe nothing is one hundred percent original, but it's still important to talk about whether, and to what extent, an artist's work brings something original to life. If something is one hundred percent a remix of old ideas, then it's not good art.

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ZhugeSimp t1_jaag9jr wrote

So if someone goes to a artschool, views art, or interacts with a creative property in any form, thier art is tainted by those preconceived works and therefore is not truly a creative work? All art is plagiarism but reconstructed and applied in small enough parts that you cannot tell it is.

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Kromgar t1_jaayqwi wrote

So... what the ai does?

Because it learns what a concept looks like and that's how it will generate an image from pure static. It doesn't have images saved inside the model it has knowledge of what something looks like and how to make that from static. Essentially it knows how to draw a thing but doesn't have images of the thing saved in its data.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90649913/the-unusual-creative-process-of-the-artist-behind-the-little-mermaid-and-beauty-and-the-beast

Aphantasia prevents the generation of mental images based on knowledge of what things look like, but it does not prevent that knowledge serving as the basis for an image made with pencil and paper. Keane can draw a picture of Ariel because he knows what humans (and fish) look like, and that information—plus the skills acquired through study and practice—steers his hand accordingly.


This is the best explanation i can think of for this.

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LiberalFartsMajor t1_jablgkv wrote

It doesn't matter if it creates it from something or from "nothing" the reason a computer can't be creative is that it lacks initiative, a person must direct it to create for it to happen.

No free will = no creativity

A person will always be the one responsible for the works existence because they will have to initiate it somehow.

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Ronny_Jotten t1_jacx0a6 wrote

No, because plagiarism is when you copy something verbatim, without creating your own authentic interpretation and expression. All art has elements of borrowing, but it's inventiveness, imagination, and some originality, that makes it art and not plagiarism.

The question is whether a machine is capable of inventiveness, imagination, originality, thinking, feeling, etc., or not, since those things have generally been acknowledged throughout history as being necessary elements of art. Wind and rain may carve patterns that are as beautiful as the most beautiful painting, but we don't call it art. Some people believe, or want to believe, that computers are capable of those things, and so we should call the patterns they produce, original, creative art. Others think that those things are not actually necessary, and we should call it art anyway. Personally, I think it's neither art nor plagiarism, but something else, that we don't have words for yet, and we're not sure how to deal with. It's a necessary discussion to work it out, but trying to fit dramatically new things into old categories is usually less successful than creating new categories.

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