It's new territory, not really just a tool nor just a box of things. I didn't want to overcomplicate my message so I went with asserting the box extreme as it puts the fuller range of legal options on the table.
I do think in it's current state it should lean more towards box than tool.
A tool typically doesn't create things on its own in a way that is hard to control. You need to use tools under your control. So I see the pain they feel to get specific results as in support of my claim that this is not simply a closed case classification as a tool that bears no responsibility.
If it is sharing responsibility with the user for the output, then I consider that a relationship and the output a transaction.
This protects users just as much as it limits their freedom of use. We don't control these models, and we should want protection against things it may create or hallucinate given our lack of control
I agree that prompt engineering is an art, but imo that gets you as far as claiming the prompt itself as art - not the output from the model given that prompt.
I hear the distinction you are trying to make. I think it's been argued before but I don't remember where. Something like "if you use our tool you must credit us - we are part author." That attempt wasn't successful enough to leave much of a mark on me :-)
I don't know that the arguments you use are the right ones. Being "under control" has little place in the definition of a tool or medium. Many are valued specifically because they are not under control - with an output too complex to have been under control. Splashing, color mixing, watercolor, impasto, some kinds of paint brushes, lens flare or daylight and weather in photography, rain patterns, all the way to ...
"Generative art" which has been around a long time before LLMs and is hard to control, IMO, because the primitives are not humanly intuitive, or add up quickly past what we can intuit. Much of generative art is a matter of trial and error while holding a highly unstable process by the tail. The human artist is responsible for selection and taste but the richness of the output is often entirely the "work" of the process chosen. - Sharing responsibility if you will but the question of who is the author is not really argued anymore. AI generative art seems well in the continuation of that.
It's also possible previous Generative Art was not sufficiently problematic enough to be thoroughly analyzed.
Something feels different about AI than other Generative uncontrolled processes like the ones you mentioned. Can't quite put a description to it yet.
My other reply to you goes into detail on the core of where my thoughts are coming from. I agree that giving credit to the entity you got the model from also feels weak.
There is just a certain mix of deliberate intention, uncontrolled process, and expected outcomes involved here that also feels weak to classify as just using tooling
I do think in it's current state it should lean more towards box than tool.
A tool typically doesn't create things on its own in a way that is hard to control. You need to use tools under your control. So I see the pain they feel to get specific results as in support of my claim that this is not simply a closed case classification as a tool that bears no responsibility.
If it is sharing responsibility with the user for the output, then I consider that a relationship and the output a transaction.
This protects users just as much as it limits their freedom of use. We don't control these models, and we should want protection against things it may create or hallucinate given our lack of control
I agree that prompt engineering is an art, but imo that gets you as far as claiming the prompt itself as art - not the output from the model given that prompt.