Current Generative Artificial Intelligence models have become incredibly close to the human level of linguistic and artistic excellence, defying our conception of artworks as uniquely human products, resulting in an authorship problem, i.e., whether artificial agents can be regarded as genuine authors of their products. This paper provides a definition of institutional authorship to evaluate this possibility, using John Searle’s Speech Act Theory and Theory of Institutions. To apply the definition, we focus on artistic cases, assuming the institutional theory of (...) art. According to the institutional authorship definition proposed, authorship is the product of an agent’s declarative acts in the context of relevant institutions granting the agent’s deontic powers for performing such acts. These acts depend on sincerity conditions encompassing intentional states, which bind the product with an agent. We conclude that artificial agents cannot satisfy the institutional definition of authorship due to their inability to be institutional agents, meaning they cannot be authors. (shrink)

This paper explores some features of the epistemic environment in social media and online communication. We argue that digital environments differ from offline ones in at least two ways: (a) online environments are thoroughly structured and programmed. Every action is defined and limited by the underlying code created by the system’s developers, providing the tools users need to navigate the online space. In contrast, offline environments are open to chance and unpredictability, allowing for events and actions that the system has (...) not predetermined; (b) every action is traced and used to evaluate levels of engagement with content and posts, with significant epistemic consequences. This creates a “dense” environment in which users are deeply entangled. In this regard, the concept of purely passive engagement is challenged, since activities such as just watching a video or reading a post can alter the epistemic landscape and promote specific content with which a person interacts. As a result, online social environments facilitate a variety of indirect communicative and epistemic activities across the network. Given this, the paper suggests that in such settings, attentional disengagement and avoidance should be considered a potential proactive way to modulate self-exposure. This strategy is aimed not only at protecting individuals from harmful content but also at actively shaping the information flow and knowledge structure within the environment. Managing one’s own attention can thus significantly influence how information is perceived and disseminated, essentially controlling the personal and collective epistemic environment. (shrink)