Like the other commenter, I would be genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on that fundamental difference.
I am by no means an AI expert, but my impressions is that AI sill needs to process each book and incorporate the new knowledge into its existing knowledge. Which at least from a surface level sounds a lot like what I do when I read a new book.
The fact that each AI is effectively a non-sapient slave of a person or corporation really doesn’t change my opinion.
Have you ever had a reason to read much in a new or developing sub-genre? As a fan of LitRPG, a genre that virtually didn’t exist 10 years ago, I can tell you with some certainty that everything is a derivative work of something. It is amazing how as soon as one author pulls in and idea from another genre, the next 30 novels that come out will have some variation of the same idea, and the 300 that follow it will each have variations of those.
Thank you for the response. I am not sure I agree with your exact stance, but you make several compelling points along the way.
Using the Fair Use doctrine is definitely a good way to narrow down where the dividing line is. I think we can easily agree that making a GRRM specific AI to make derivative, non-parody, commercial works would definitely be on the wrong side of the line.
When I was picturing the bots, I was picturing something more along the lines of AI bots that had consumed all human literary works, or at the very least all modern English literary works.
ChatGPT write me a short story where the Main Character is a Magical Golem that follows the Three Laws of Isaac Asimov. It should be written in the style of a Greek Tragedy but set in Feudal Japan. The Main Character should be able to gain in magical power until he eventually attempts to break into the Heavens. There should be gods trying to interfere in his ascension but not in ways the MC cannot resolve. Base the gods off of archetypes from Norse Mythology, but name them after characters from GRRM’s game of thrones based on similar personality types.
Such a work would both be wholly derivative and yet wholly unique. Despite swiping GRRM’s unique names this work should be perfectly fine in my mind. Edit: Even if it was commercialized.