What does it mean when we say something is derivative and lacks true creativity?

For many it is a notion all up in the gut. It’s an “I know it when I see it” kind of measure.

But then that definition is deeply unsatisfying for others.

Over on another blog I write a lot about creativity and the creative process, and as of this post I’ve written about two hundred mini-essays orbiting around Planet Creativity in service of exploring this vague and often ineffable notion of personal expression. Sometimes it gets philosophical. Sometimes it barks at the wailing siren of commercialization. Usually it nods knowingly to the audience. And always it boils down to turning a blend of skill, persistence, thought and vibe into a final product.

But creativity itself is hard to pin down.

How do we know that that art we made is genuinely unique?

That song I thought I composed? Am I really the first person in all of human history to string those notes together?

What effect does all the learning and practicing and consuming of every word in the whole of the genre-sphere of fiction have on that story I thought I wrote?

Derivative is the counterpoint to uniqueness. It postulates based on raw memory that the thing we are witnessing has come before, that the idea has been xeroxed or cloned or patch-worked together from something someone else has done before. Derivative is a has-been-done.

We know this is at least partly true of all AI. AI is a pattern matching engine that regurgitates data upon which it has been trained. It is derivative by design. That image you saw or the video you downloaded: it existed somewhere before, even if in a kind of component collection cobbled together like a Frankenstein monster. Those words are strung together based on statistical patterns from data polled of a vast collection of existing work. It’s a calculator of re-creation.

And yet, how is this different from how people learn and then create?

Is it a question of randomness? Is it a notion that our human experiences as corporeal beings wandering the surface of this planet have slurped up enough novelty that what we regurgitate from the tips of our pens or in paragraphs on a page are forged from some absolute opposite of derivativeness? Or is it something more biased towards what we want it to be because we think ourselves in possession of some brand of special ability?

I’m sure someone has pondered this question before me.