As an author, often I don't even remember where I got some fragment of an idea. The good stuff just gets embedded in my subconsciousness and turns into the way I think.

Should every HN comment I write include a full list of everything I've ever read? What about a commercial work like a book, should that include a list of everything I've read or heard in the past 35 years of my life? That's a lot of attribution to keep track of ...

edit: I guess my question is where does derivativity end and creativity begin?

I think you're applying the wrong standard. If you think your work has been clearly influenced by something, you might call that out in the acknowledgements of your work, for example.

What Stable Diffusion does is effectively say "it doesn't matter how this was made" for every single artifact it creates, providing neither attribution nor acknowledgement. This happens even when it's clearly been influenced by, and in some cases is directly copying, elements or a whole of a very small set of highly influential inputs.

If a human author did that, people would probably be upset, if not outright accuse them of plagiarism.

> No one is necessarily saying that you owe Van Gogh a cut.

But the controversy over Stable Diffusion is whether they owe the human artists a cut or not, right?

> What they _are_ saying is not to claim that you didn't train on Van Gogh

Stable Diffusion is definitely not claiming that it didn't train on human artists.

> But the controversy over Stable Diffusion is whether they owe the human artists a cut or not, right?

The controversy of Stable Diffusion is attribution. I could not care less about receiving a cut. Rather, I want my life's work in pushing particular style further than anyone has before to be recognized primarily so the next artist can trace the lineage and improve upon it.

> Stable Diffusion is definitely not claiming that it didn't train on human artists.

Stable diffusion claims that attribution is not important because "all artists copy each other".

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see human artists doing the form of attribution you're describing. When people post artwork online, or when artwork is displayed in museums, it's normal to credit the artist who did the work, but not the artists who inspired them. (Unless the artist is directly copying another artist's work, or drawing fanart of a character from another work.) Can you clarify what this kind of attribution looks like when human artists do it?

I can understand how you would be missing that context without being a professional artist yourself. 1. Art historians carefully note the chain of inspiration, mentorship, etc in their works through primary sources (books, wikipedia, documentaries). 2. Modern living artists purchase the art of, study the art of, and share the art of their inspirations.