[zamadatix]

The premise here was never art either, it was creating and making things meaningful, but that's okay because I'd rather talk about the topic than at each other but semantics on what each of us typed last comment. I think some "you"s which were meant as the general "a person" instead of "chefandy" may have been conflated too. The joys of plain text exchange :), I'll try to use alternative wording on that which is more clear.

In general, I disagree with the idea that because one guides the tool with words descriptively one is no longer able to lay a claim they create something themselves with it. That it can be a way to guide a commissioned artist does not direct whether using that method is always like just commissioning something. First, on the idea of guidance being a universal decider. If one used an intermediate person who could be a commissioned artist to draw a pointillism style piece by giving them 10,000 commands like "3 dot widths left dot again" the creation is clearly still there's despite being able to instead commission a pointillism piece instead. This is obviously an extreme example and clearly commissioning art is actually a thing at some level of command, but the idea is the existence of base commands with something that could take commissions isn't the decider of that. Moving further up abstraction to the second idea, the idea of descriptive things being a universal decider. If one instead says "left, no a little farther left, dot there" and the artist chooses a darker red have one has now lost any claim to creating the output? What if one drags a brightness slider down or tell "dumb" (i.e. non-"AI") software over voice "lower the brightness slider some" and it picks a value until the person is happy? It doesn't make sense the "dumb" slider software suddenly became an artist that made the painting nor does it make sense that using a tool which could make art on its own that way means high level commands like "move the cat slightly left" are proof the work is now commissioned as one didn't move the object themselves. Arguably even if one says the intermediate did become part of creation just on the basis their a "smart" tool it's still not clear why that means one must have no claim to have done any meaningful creation at all with sole claim going to the intermediate now.

Does this mean it's exactly the same as using a brush? No, absolutely not. Your example of someone with a Photoshop not being able to claim they are a dark room editor was a great example of this. Unlike a dark room editor, being an artist or, more generally, a meaningful creator isn't defined by which tools one has used and how one has used them. "Artist", while a varied definition, is surely a much more generic term about creating things than that. If one uses "AI" tools or even normal "dumb" applications like Photoshop one is definitely not a master painter but that doesn't tell us why one is not an artist. Does this mean any form of describing an image is meaningful creation of art? I don't think so, that's what "make me a painting" is supposed to describe. But, again, just because you can say "make me a painting" it does not mean the only thing the tool can do is create things itself. The question is and has been about when something is no longer your creation not whether the tool can also create things where the vast majority of the creation occurs in it. When it comes to whether using an AI tool is for crossing names out I think it is no different than saying your positions on the above. If one conclude along one persuasion it's so, if one concludes along another it's not. I don't think it therefore provides extra insight into what kind of creation is going on but I could well be wrong on that account.

As to whether I'm saying you should be able to claim credit for a book generated by ChatGPT prompts I wouldn't say it's essential to the points I'm making but I would say I would agree I think there are ways to use ChatGPT to do so. Somewhere between "the next letter is 't'..." and "write me a book" it goes from you creating a book to ChatGPT creating a book. I'd say the same for e.g. making a game, using stock engine templates doesn't mean you commissioned a game and you are no longer a game developer it means you can't claim that piece. At some point, just using everything out of the box leaves you with having created little to nothing though.

Using spelling and grammar checks is a great example, though maybe not as framed. I.e. it's not that "because professional writes use spelling and grammar checks" using any tool in any way is creating all the same it's an example of the idea when some part of the output didn't come from a direct, strictly controlled and intentional thought of the person it doesn't imply they no longer create the thing. I'd extend this to ChatGPT and say just because you have it spit out some words on how to word the next sentence doesn't mean the next sentence was no longer created by you at all. At some point though, the infamous "write me a book" style example, it must obviously stop being something you can claim as yours though. Like the art discussion, it's not a question of whether ChatGPT can be used by you to create a book (pop it in, ask for a spellcheck) or whether ChatGPT can write a book ("write me a book") rather at which point of relying on the tool makes the output creation more claimable by ChatGPT than by you.