[lapcat]

> The crux of the argument is this paragraph. But swap out AI in that paragraph for "writers who have read the classical western canon" and suddenly you realize that no one has original ideas, and that the idea that somehow humans are uniquely capable of being the primary causes of their own thoughts and owe transitive credit (and royalties!) to the great authors of all time, or their estates, is madness.

I disagree. As a cinephile and bibliophile, I'm often astounded by the creativity of writers. I don't know where they get their inspiration. Sadly, I don't possess such creative inspiration myself, despite having read "the classical western canon". Much of the great work is actually autobiographical, taken from the writer's own life rather than derivative from previous work.

[ben_w]

I would argue that autobiographical content is no less derivative than reading a book or watching a film, then retelling it. Any creativity is in the difference, and only the difference.

[lapcat]

> Any creativity is in the difference, and only the difference.

I eagerly await your autobiographical film or novel.

[ben_w]

"I had a fairly standard upbringing.

Learned to read from the Commodore 64 user manual, Spock and Wesley Crusher as a role models. Summer holidays in Mousehole, first trip abroad was to meet my Uncle in Canberra, amongst other parts of Australia and Asia, where I totally failed to see Uluru or get beaten up by a kangaroo (though in fairness I was like nine and would have been mild and gross irresponsibility respectively on the part of my parents if they had in fact happened). Raised Catholic by an atheist father and a mother who filled the house with Hindu idols, Orthodox icons, healing crystals, and runic horoscope equipment. Saw my father suffer an epileptic fit at the kitchen table — what's now called 'tonic-clonic' but at the time we called it 'grand mal'.

You know, the usual."

(Can you guess what, if anything, is embellished?)

[lapcat]

Um... I think you're missing the point? Almost anyone could create autobiographical material that sucks. I'm sure LLMs could cobble together autobiographical material from sources that sucks too.

Truly creative writers are capable of producing material that's good, entertaining, interesting, moving. That's a rare talent, and it's not derivative.

[ben_w]

> I think you're missing the point

Ok, but nothing in your comment helps me change my mind about what you original point was, as that still looks like you asking "where do they get their inspiration? Autobiographical experience!" and me saying "being inspired by reality isn't any less copying than being inspired by existing canon".

> Truly creative writers are capable of producing material that's good, entertaining, interesting, moving. That's a rare talent, and it's not derivative.

I think we must be using the word "derivative" differently.

To me, Strata by Terry Pratchett is clearly derivative of Ringworld by Larry Niven. I'd say it's not just good, entertaining, interesting, but also that it's superior to the original… and yet, still derivative.

From what I've seen from ChatGPT-3.5, it… writes fiction like someone born in 1950 who was always disgusted by sex and violence and who now has mild Alzheimer's and gets confused what they're supposed to be writing about — that it's as good as it is, is of course miraculous, but even in this state it can be put in front of an editor and turned into something fun far faster than getting a really good human to do it nearly right the first time.

(Some people don't realise it's absolutely bad enough to need an editor, just search for reviews containing the string "As a large language model" for examples).

As an example of getting it right (IMO), the following link was mostly generated by AI, minimal editing by me for formatting, repeated prompting and plenty of cherry picking to make sure it kept to the fictional reality and didn't start veering into "this hypothetical creature" or "look what nonsense ye olde people used to believe in":

https://benwheatley.github.io/Fiction/Homo%20Capra/Homo_Capr...

-

Less important, but

> I'm sure LLMs could cobble together autobiographical material from sources that sucks too.

That would be a biography not an autobiography. And AI writing in general will remain so until some AI gets a long term memory and also embodied… although it might be the long term memories are autobiographical "writing" created as we sleep from our waking memories.

[lapcat]

> Ok, but nothing in your comment helps me change my mind about what you original point was, as that still looks like you asking "where do they get their inspiration? Autobiographical experience!" and me saying "being inspired by reality isn't any less copying than being inspired by existing canon".

The question is about royalties for writing. You seem to argue that writers don't deserve royalties because all writing is derivative, "a series of footnotes to Plato" as A. N. Whitehead put it. My argument is that good writing, indeed great writing, is not merely derivative, otherwise it wouldn't be interesting. Great writing is a rare talent, I might say divinely inspired if I believed in the divine, so I'll say genetically inspired instead. I think that writers need to be supported, protected, encouraged financially so that they can continue to exist and write great material for our benefit and enjoyment. The alternative is bleak: if writers are not supported via royalties, then the only financially viable "art" will inevitably be mass-produced, mass-marketed pablum. That's a depressing prospect.

Of course super-famous writers make a ton in royalties, but it's actually the other writers for whom royalties are crucial. In a lot of cases, royalties make the difference between survival and destitution.

> To me, Strata by Terry Pratchett is clearly derivative of Ringworld by Larry Niven. I'd say it's not just good, entertaining, interesting, but also that it's superior to the original… and yet, still derivative.

I haven't read Stata, but I thought Ringworld was overrated, so I'm inclined to believe that another work could be superior.

> That would be a biography not an autobiography.

I meant "faked" autobiographical writing. Writing in the autobiographical style. I'm sure you can ask OpenAI or whatever to write an autobiography. Hell, some actual "nonfiction" autobiographies are quite fake (and frequently ghostwritten).

[jack_pp]

Yeah, I've listened to tens of thousands of hours of music, especially Hip-Hop. Couldn't rhyme to save my life