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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19287 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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In this case the prompt is the real human creation and should ideally be posted before the picture.

Why wouldn't the result of the AI generation also be the human creation? Saying that the prompt is the "real human creation" is analogous to claiming that "waving a brush in front of you is the real human creation" in a painting, the painting is just the artifact that results from the paint, brush, and canvas atoms interacting with each other as a consequence of that waving. It'd certainly be cool if we got to see that with every painting, though.

The prompt is where the creative decisionmaking is, as the poster above said. And no, the waving of the brush would be the analogy for the movements of fingers on the keyboard while typing the prompt.

And waving the brush is where the creative decisionmaking is in painting, which is why it's analogous to the prompt (waving the brush would be analogous to the movements for the fingers when we're talking about typing out a poem or essay or somesuch). The painting is merely an artifact that remains as the result of that creative decisionmaking. And that artifact is what people generally consider the actual creative work or "art," not the decisionmaking itself.

waving the brush would be analogous to the movements for the fingers when we're talking about typing out a poem or essay or somesuch

I disagree, it applies just as well to typing the prompt. Why wouldn't it be? Both are processes that aren't really legible if you watch them without witnessing the result, with the result as its output.

Ultimately, what the AI outputs based on that result just doesn't interest me, empirically. It works as pure visual illustration/stimulation, sure. Art isn't really about that for me.

I disagree, it applies just as well to typing the prompt. Why wouldn't it be? Both are processes that aren't really legible if you watch them without witnessing the result, with the result as its output.

Because the text prompt isn't the actual result, unlike in the case of a poem. It's merely a conduit by which the final result is created, transferring the human's creative decisions to the final artifact. Most accurately, the waving of the hand would be analogous to the finger movements AND the prompt, as ephemeral things that exist momentarily in order to transfer the human's intents to the final piece.

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