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Good AI Copies, Great AI Steals
Why do we define plagiarism differently for writing vs. art?
Once, when I was on an author visit in a classroom of third graders, I asked the class to “copy the still life in front of you.” Only one problem: I forgot to explain what a “still life” was. So instead of drawing my carefully arranged bowl of fruit, one boy copied the very still, pear-shaped(?) girl sitting next to him.
By the time I caught him, he had already inked in her freckles, her ponytail, a rather fantastical rendering of her developing chest, and — most disturbingly — a cigarette drooping from her lips. Not a sleek Marlboro, mind you, but one of those stubby, half-smoked numbers that looked like it had been fished out of a gas-station parking lot. On paper, the girl looked less like a third grader and more like a cocktail waitress who had given up halfway through her third divorce. I couldn’t decide whether to take away his pencil or buy the poor kid a round.
This was, technically, my fault. I also told the class to “not just copy” and “draw more than what you see.” And with third graders, one vague set of instructions is all it takes before you’re an accomplice to softcore manga noir during snack time.
Still, the boy wasn’t wrong: artists learn by copying. You copy faces, landscapes, a Seurat dot or two…
