(And if we could actually remember several million books, we might have a clearer idea of when a new text does actually stretch the outer boundary of the possibility space.)
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I’m not sure if we have a useful definition of originality (/innovation/creativity/etc.) to work with wrt art-making that has any bearing here. I’m sitting in a bar right now, hearing The Specials. I know I love this recording, but it’s not because it is original.
It is probably innovative in some sense, but not a very strong sense. It’s creative, but only in the way that anyone making anything specific exercises creativity. All of that sounds like I’m saying it’s not very good as art, but I am 100% not saying that.
I imagine I could hear a thing made by an AI and like it as much as I like this Specials song, but I can definitely confirm that I have not had that experience. I have thoughts about why that is, and some people might dismiss them as “magical,” but I don’t think that is it.
Also, goodness knows, I know artists who use machine learning as a tool in making art. And some of it is great! (Some of it isn’t, but that’s the way of all things). But notably, the machine bit of that art is incidental. It’s technical.
I can’t really imagine why AI would change my strong feeling that The Specials should be compensated despite not making a thing that is specifically at the outer bounds of creativity/innovation. Or why I would not see it as a real loss that fewer people can be so compensated now.
I think I agree with you, though given how much time and energy has gone into defining what should count as an ownable arrangement of words, I think it would still be quite difficult to do this. I also wonder whether we'd (say we) value innovation as much in a different context. "Originality" was +
something people began to cite to gain copyright, but they wanted it because they wanted to be compensated for their labour or for tying up capital (and to own property that had proven valuable). Those conditions seem to matter here.
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Neat thought experiment! Lots to think about.
But knowledge also counts. The sheer *breadth* of LLMs is a place where they are already superhuman and may be opening new perspectives.