Posted by participant3 5 days ago
Web search seems divergent: the same keyword leads to many different kinds of results.
Gen AI seems convergent: different keywords that share the same semantics lead to the same results.
Arguably, convergence is a feature, not a bug. But on the macroscopic level, it is a self reinforcing loop and may lead to content degeneracy. I guess we always need the extraordinary human artists to give AI the fresh ideas. The question is the non-extraordinary artists might no longer have an easy path to become extraordinary. Same trap is happening to junior developers right now.
The argument here isn't "let's abolish copyright", the argument is "let's give OpenAI a free copyright infringement pass because they're innovative and cutting-edge or something".
Memes are pretty inherently derrivative. They were always someone elses work. The picard face palm meme was obviously taken from star trek. All your base is obviously from that video game. Repurposing someone else's work with new meaning is basically what a meme is. Why do we suddenly care now?
So there’s clearly some amount of random chance in there, but the trope is still very clear in the generated image, so it seems like you’re going to get an archetype.
Tons of historical documents have shown that inventions, mathematical proofs, and celestial observations were made by humans separated by continents and time. What that shows is that it is certainly possible for two persons to have the same exact or similar thought without ever having been influenced by the other.
I want to add, to give credit where credit is due, that this thought was conveyed to me in first grade by another 1st grader sitting with me at the lunch table. That was a day and conversation that I will never forget. 1972.