[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).

[ben_w]

> You seem to argue that writers don't deserve royalties because all writing is derivative

You're interpreting my words rather creatively there.

And by creatively, I mean "wrong".

I'm being more inclusive, not exclusive, for where the work is done.

To take a different tack: it makes sense for many authors to go to a publisher and have a back-and-forth with an editor and end up with only 10% of the gross sales, and this implies that 90% of the value isn't really coming from the author (in most cases and almost all the famous authors are exceptional).

> 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.

I think we already live in such a world: as you agree, most authors cannot sustain themselves from just the writing, only rare exceptions like JK Rowling and Stephen King. As the rest only barely make do, I assert that this demonstrates they are forced to do exactly what you decry.

(There's a lot of free stories distributed on reddit etc., some even have patreon set up. I don't think that makes a difference either way).

[lapcat]

> it makes sense for many authors to go to a publisher and have a back-and-forth with an editor and end up with only 10% of the gross sales, and this implies that 90% of the value isn't really coming from the author

I'm not arguing for any kind of philosophical "labor theory of value". My point is very practical: writers need royalties. Yes it sucks for the writers that they only get 10-20% of the sales, but it's infinitely better than 0%!

> as you agree, most authors cannot sustain themselves from just the writing, only rare exceptions like JK Rowling and Stephen King.

I don't agree with that and didn't say it. In fact it's empirically false. I said that in the hypothetical scenario with no royalties, most authors wouldn't be able to sustain themselves. In the real world, there are a lot of professional writers other than Rowling and King who make a decent, good, or even great living.

The reason that the film writers and actors are going on strike is that streaming and AI are an existential threat to them. But it can't be an existential threat if they don't exist in the first place. Professional writers and actors do exist aside from the super rich and famous ones (who are striking more in solidarity than from personal fear). Of course show business is very difficult to get into; nonetheless, it's a lucrative industry supporting countless professionals. And most of them need their royalties, because they don't get the giant unfront checks that the big stars do.