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"AI output is fundamentally derivative" By that definition, so is all human output. Musicians spend years studying and practicing other people's music before w

"AI output is fundamentally derivative" By that definition, so is all human output. Musicians spend years studying and practicing other people's music before writing their own, painters spend years trying to replicate techniques before mastering their own, programmers spend years reading other people's bugs before authoring their own. All expression of skill is ultimately derivative. Sometimes slightly, sometimes verbatim, sometimes outright plagiarism. This is why we reserve "derivative" for cases where the output has a similarities and obvious connection, and why we have a hard time dealing with it in practice - it's impossible to disallow a human from using past experiences in future works. We taught a pile of melted sand to think using principles of learning (very roughly) similar to ours, and now we get upset that it worked and they apply what they learnt because now only we are allowed to do that.

adrian_b 3y ago
All human output is much more derivative than the majority of "creators" dare to admit. Nevertheless, good human output always add something new and original to the elements that are derived from prior art. AI output consists entirely of derived elements, which only in the best case may happen to be mixed into a distinct combination from those already existing. Even when the combination is new, it is distinct only due to randomness, without an ability to select like a human, which from the possible random combinations is more suitable to achieve a purpose, or it is more beautiful, or it is better according to other such criteria that are not possible, at least yet, to be judged by a program.
- arghwhat 3y ago
  > Nevertheless, good human output always add something new and original to the elements that are derived from prior art. My personal opinion is that even the new and original elements are derivative. Once a creation derives from a sufficiently large number of sources - some unrelated, such as being inspired by music when painting - you consider it original and new, and once the space of experiences and current inputs you derive from grow sufficiently large and chaotic - including in particular that inputs and outputs become experiences, forming a feedback loop currently lacking in machine learning - you get what we consider "free thought" . That's at least the model I believe in. > Without an ability to select like a human, which from the possible random combinations is more suitable to achieve a purpose, or ... Untrained humans do not have this ability. It takes training to identify and categorize things. For example, my mother may appreciate a photo that most people would consider "good", but does not have the practice needed to either frame the scene herself or select the best framing to be deemed "good". At the same time, others might outright dislike the same picture - "good" is not exact in the first place. I see no reason to believe that our models could do this as well or better than us. If an LLM generates reasonable responses, it must already have applied a standard of "best fitting". It is just not a distinct step, just like how we are not manually filtering our thoughts as we say them.
  - arghwhat 3y ago
    *couldn't do this as well or better than us, of course.
slimrec77 3y ago
People act as if we are drowning in War and Peace level masterpieces that AI is going to displace. There is absolutely nothing going on culturally. "I am not into all this derivative AI crap. I like the creativity of humans. Do you want to go see Spiderman part 37 or Superman part 22 this weekend?" We are already a culture that has been displaced by completely uncreative, derivative art and useless gadget making for cash. Maybe someone you can even sell their useless gadget so they can afford to go to some other place and culture full time. AI is the only hope I have left for this culture.
- archagon 3y ago
  > There is absolutely nothing going on culturally. Old man yells at cloud.

adrian_b 3y ago

All human output is much more derivative than the majority of "creators" dare to admit. Nevertheless, good human output always add something new and original to the elements that are derived from prior art. AI output consists entirely of derived elements, which only in the best case may happen to be mixed into a distinct combination from those already existing. Even when the combination is new, it is distinct only due to randomness, without an ability to select like a human, which from the possible random combinations is more suitable to achieve a purpose, or it is more beautiful, or it is better according to other such criteria that are not possible, at least yet, to be judged by a program.

arghwhat 3y ago
> Nevertheless, good human output always add something new and original to the elements that are derived from prior art. My personal opinion is that even the new and original elements are derivative. Once a creation derives from a sufficiently large number of sources - some unrelated, such as being inspired by music when painting - you consider it original and new, and once the space of experiences and current inputs you derive from grow sufficiently large and chaotic - including in particular that inputs and outputs become experiences, forming a feedback loop currently lacking in machine learning - you get what we consider "free thought" . That's at least the model I believe in. > Without an ability to select like a human, which from the possible random combinations is more suitable to achieve a purpose, or ... Untrained humans do not have this ability. It takes training to identify and categorize things. For example, my mother may appreciate a photo that most people would consider "good", but does not have the practice needed to either frame the scene herself or select the best framing to be deemed "good". At the same time, others might outright dislike the same picture - "good" is not exact in the first place. I see no reason to believe that our models could do this as well or better than us. If an LLM generates reasonable responses, it must already have applied a standard of "best fitting". It is just not a distinct step, just like how we are not manually filtering our thoughts as we say them.
- arghwhat 3y ago
  *couldn't do this as well or better than us, of course.

slimrec77 3y ago

People act as if we are drowning in War and Peace level masterpieces that AI is going to displace. There is absolutely nothing going on culturally. "I am not into all this derivative AI crap. I like the creativity of humans. Do you want to go see Spiderman part 37 or Superman part 22 this weekend?" We are already a culture that has been displaced by completely uncreative, derivative art and useless gadget making for cash. Maybe someone you can even sell their useless gadget so they can afford to go to some other place and culture full time. AI is the only hope I have left for this culture.

archagon 3y ago
> There is absolutely nothing going on culturally. Old man yells at cloud.