And why robots can’t do it right.
Art inspires art.
It doesn’t really matter what it is. The mere act of engaging with art will give you ideas. Books, poetry, painting, sculpture, film, fashion, theater, music, dance, crochet, whatever. All of it gives you an idea simply by engaging with it. Even a brief glance or listen will spark something.
Sometimes, that inspires an artist. It puts in you such a feeling to respond to it that you go home and sit down and give it a go.
Everyone’s first time making art results in a disappointment. It just isn’t as good in the world as it was in the mind. Sometimes that makes the inspiration fizzle out. Sometimes the embers are too hot to die.
If they burn hot, then you will come back. Again and again. You will refine your craft and become an artist.
So inspiration then faces a new question. Where does inspiration become theft? I will argue that it is binary. There is no fuzzy line. There is plagiarism and there is art. Nothing in between.
What’s the difference?
I read widely. I rad books of people who have broken in, the people who I hope to be some day soon. I read best sellers and barely sellers. Recently I’ve skewed towards nonfiction searching for ideas to put into my characters. I have a particular fondness for the classical world, when everyone who could write thought it was their duty to, so that we have books on exciting topics and banal ones.
I frequently go to art museums to see if the paintings stir something in me. Sometimes I come out with an idea. Sometimes I just enjoy a day in a museum. I listen to music constantly. Exploring what people have said in other times and languages.
I take all of this, all the art I love and all the art I can’t stand, and I throw it into the back of my mind. That place is a compost heap, where things breakdown and become unrecognizable. They sit there, bump into one another, and break down.
Importantly, I put them in with my own experiences. Conversations that I have, memories of really embarrassing things I said or did, waiting in lines. All the ordinary experience of life gets tossed back there.
Then, when I need an idea for a story or character, I go to the compost and take a shovel full. My inspirations are in there, but so too is myself.
That is the line. If you can take your inspiration and put a part of yourself into it, then it is art. We are all working in a tradition, a history. Look through the sands of time and you will see your forebearers doing the same. It all goes back to before we were men.
And that’s just fine. I often laugh at the people saying their story is an original. I don’t really believe in this mythical original story. In our culture, there are only two stories. The Iliad and The Odyssey.
That’s it. Boil it down and any story reduces to these two books. The difference is the artist. The part of themselves that they put in the story.
Sometimes a piece is in conversation with another. It can be combative or constructive. There is no need to dig deep into the compost because you want to write about the stuff right on top. But that’s fine too because you bring yourself into it. Parody is art too.
Plagiarism happens when you don’t. If I made a painting of swirling blue and called it ‘Night of Stars’ to imitate Van Gogh, I would be a hack. Plain and simple. That was how he saw the world. It’s not how I see it.
It is a mistake to believe that Art is the Idea. The spark of inspiration is someone else’s art. Not your art. Having an idea is easy. That’s the brain’s job. Its job is to tell stories when bored. To come up with ideas.
The art is the work. The random faults and imperfections made along the way. It’s the It’s the struggle to make something that matters.
Therein lies the problem of LLMs. First, they can’t put any part of themselves into anything. They have no experience, hopes, or dreams. Fear means nothing to them. Nor does joy. So any piece made with them is simply a falsehood.
And since LLMs are trained on the sum of human art without the permission of the artists, all they are is plagiarism robots. They can only imitate, never add. They appeal to the sort of people who want to skip corners. Pump out garbage and flood the market until no one can see art anymore. Consume, consume, consume, then masticate and spew it all back. There is no art in telling a machine to make your story for you. A machine trained to steal but in the wrong way. The Plagiarism Machine takes ideas and gives nothing back.
Ideas are not special. Every idea I’ve ever had has been had by someone else. I have a fantasy epic poem. Tolkien did that. I have a cozy fantasy where characters try to solve problems as they work through their trauma. Not unique.
The uniqueness comes because I wrote them. Not a machine. Every single word I put down on a page. My love for oddballs and history. The idiosyncratic way I write. It comes from everything I have seen.
In essence, it comes from me.
That is the only way to make anything new. Because all the ideas are old and have been thought before. But I have never had my say with them yet.
That is how to steal. From everyone, all the time. Steal, but always let the theft be marked with your calling card.
Thanks for reading, Michael
Michael Frutig 