> “Autocompleting” Other People’s Work – OpenAI hired Tarun Gogineni in 2022 to lead its efforts to improve the writing quality of its models. Gogineni stated his “research mission” was to have GPT models write the “last two books of [Martin’s] A Song of Ice and Fire” series by “finishing it one day.” Gogineni even mused that he would “rest easy knowing that even if GRRM [George R. R. Martin] dies early, GPT-5 will autocomplete his series.”
I am still consistently astounded by how often the people working on this space seemingly have zero understanding of what art is, how it functions socially, or why it's important. They quite literally don't seem to comprehend the distinction between art and fan fiction. It's baffling. I'm really beginning to think courses in art history and literature need to be mandatory. We have failed legions of stem students when it comes to cultural education.
This is arguably just a form of arguing for "death of the author". When you release a creative work, in some form, that work is no longer just yours. The audience receives, experiences and interprets that work in their own way. While the author maintains some degree of "canonical" control over the work, once its in the open, the audience can (and does) do what they will.
We aren't exactly consistent with how we approach this either. For example, I agree that reading "GPT-5 will autocomplete [GRRM's] series" feels "wrong" in the same way that if Terry Pratchett's "Disc World" series was "continued" by some non-approved author that would also feel wrong.
But contrast that with something like Star Wars, when George Lucas dies, I don't think anyone is going to feel any strong discomfort with some random person writing new Star Wars stories, even if those stories use the canonical characters. I suppose Disney might have a problem with it, but as a society, I don't see very many people losing sleep over someone not licensed by the Disney corporation writing more Star Wars. Likewise Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry is long gone, and while Paramount has ownership of the IP, if someone wrote their own Star Trek stories, no one is going to feel like they don't "comprehend the distinction between art and fan fiction".
And for further contrast, consider IPs that are well and truly part of the public domain. Cthulhu was the work of one author but since his death the lore has been expanded by multitudes of people, and no one finds that distasteful or tone deaf. No one thinks the "Hades" or "God of War" series of games don't qualify for "art" because the characters and lore being written about were the works of dead authors and the new material is certainly not "authorized" by those authors or their descendants.
Obviously time and distance plays a part of this, but as a more contemporary example, I wonder how many people would lose sleep or feel any significant discomfort over unauthorized or even AI generated Harry Potter works, either now or post JK Rowling's death. At the very least, if this quote read that Gogineni would "rest easy knowing that even though JK Rowling has [lost the plot/is an awful person/pick your reason for disliking her or her later work], GPT-5 will autocomplete her series." would that make people as equally uncomfortable? In my estimation, I would guess it would fall somewhere between the GRRM version and something like new Star Wars material for most people.
I think part of it also depends on how much we have a signal that the author themselves has given up the farm.
For example, Harry Potter and Star Wars are clearly IPs in which the creator has zero qualms handing over the rights for all kinds of extensions of the universe, movies, tv shows, other books, plays, toys, amusement parks, etc.
This pretty easily removes these works from the sphere of art and more into the sphere of "pop culture".
In the GRRM case, we already have some extensions of the IP, tv shows, board games, video games. However, it's not nearly as severe as some others.
In either case, I still think anyone who thinks they can "complete" a series by an author doesn't fundamentally understand art. It's a logical impossibility. I'd feel just as uncomfortable with this proposition applied to JK as I do to GRRM. Authorial intent matters. Even if the author is "dead" once the work leaves their finger tips, art is not a perception of the natural world, it is a form of expression which makes the particular human being behind it essential to its constitution, for better or worse. Many people understand this intuitively. The death of the author is more about the fact that an author cannot control the interpretations that ensue once a work is published, it's not about the author somehow being totally fungible.
Even in cases in which works are "completed" by other parties (because the original author died and asked them to do it, for instance) the parties involved have a clear notion of trying their best to do it "as the author would have intended". This is impossible, but it speaks to the human understanding that the artist is in fact in some way an essential component of the art.
"Completing" a source work is way different than spinning up a derivative work, partly because the primary author is not involved, so the derivative is, definitionally, not an instance of their self-expression or understanding or framing of the world. It's a totally different thing.
As modernmech put it, a conception of art without the artist or humanities without the humans is basically just a fully commoditized conception of art. It is not art at that point. It is art reduced to goods and services.
voidhorse · · focus · HN ↗
I am still consistently astounded by how often the people working on this space seemingly have zero understanding of what art is, how it functions socially, or why it's important. They quite literally don't seem to comprehend the distinction between art and fan fiction. It's baffling. I'm really beginning to think courses in art history and literature need to be mandatory. We have failed legions of stem students when it comes to cultural education.
tpmoney · · focus · HN ↗
We aren't exactly consistent with how we approach this either. For example, I agree that reading "GPT-5 will autocomplete [GRRM's] series" feels "wrong" in the same way that if Terry Pratchett's "Disc World" series was "continued" by some non-approved author that would also feel wrong.
But contrast that with something like Star Wars, when George Lucas dies, I don't think anyone is going to feel any strong discomfort with some random person writing new Star Wars stories, even if those stories use the canonical characters. I suppose Disney might have a problem with it, but as a society, I don't see very many people losing sleep over someone not licensed by the Disney corporation writing more Star Wars. Likewise Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry is long gone, and while Paramount has ownership of the IP, if someone wrote their own Star Trek stories, no one is going to feel like they don't "comprehend the distinction between art and fan fiction".
And for further contrast, consider IPs that are well and truly part of the public domain. Cthulhu was the work of one author but since his death the lore has been expanded by multitudes of people, and no one finds that distasteful or tone deaf. No one thinks the "Hades" or "God of War" series of games don't qualify for "art" because the characters and lore being written about were the works of dead authors and the new material is certainly not "authorized" by those authors or their descendants.
Obviously time and distance plays a part of this, but as a more contemporary example, I wonder how many people would lose sleep or feel any significant discomfort over unauthorized or even AI generated Harry Potter works, either now or post JK Rowling's death. At the very least, if this quote read that Gogineni would "rest easy knowing that even though JK Rowling has [lost the plot/is an awful person/pick your reason for disliking her or her later work], GPT-5 will autocomplete her series." would that make people as equally uncomfortable? In my estimation, I would guess it would fall somewhere between the GRRM version and something like new Star Wars material for most people.
voidhorse · · focus · HN ↗
For example, Harry Potter and Star Wars are clearly IPs in which the creator has zero qualms handing over the rights for all kinds of extensions of the universe, movies, tv shows, other books, plays, toys, amusement parks, etc.
This pretty easily removes these works from the sphere of art and more into the sphere of "pop culture".
In the GRRM case, we already have some extensions of the IP, tv shows, board games, video games. However, it's not nearly as severe as some others.
In either case, I still think anyone who thinks they can "complete" a series by an author doesn't fundamentally understand art. It's a logical impossibility. I'd feel just as uncomfortable with this proposition applied to JK as I do to GRRM. Authorial intent matters. Even if the author is "dead" once the work leaves their finger tips, art is not a perception of the natural world, it is a form of expression which makes the particular human being behind it essential to its constitution, for better or worse. Many people understand this intuitively. The death of the author is more about the fact that an author cannot control the interpretations that ensue once a work is published, it's not about the author somehow being totally fungible.
Even in cases in which works are "completed" by other parties (because the original author died and asked them to do it, for instance) the parties involved have a clear notion of trying their best to do it "as the author would have intended". This is impossible, but it speaks to the human understanding that the artist is in fact in some way an essential component of the art.
"Completing" a source work is way different than spinning up a derivative work, partly because the primary author is not involved, so the derivative is, definitionally, not an instance of their self-expression or understanding or framing of the world. It's a totally different thing.
As modernmech put it, a conception of art without the artist or humanities without the humans is basically just a fully commoditized conception of art. It is not art at that point. It is art reduced to goods and services.