Oliver Rees
← Thoughts
12 June 2026CreativityAI

Just extending the line

The usual complaint about AI is that it isn't really original. It just remixes what already exists. Here is Bob Dylan, in 2015, on his own songs:

These songs didn't come out of thin air. I didn't just make them up out of whole cloth... It all came out of traditional music: traditional folk music, traditional rock and roll, and traditional big-band swing. If you'd sung "John Henry" as many times as I did, you'd have written "How many roads must a man walk down?" too. All these songs are connected. I just opened up a different door in a different kind of way. I thought I was just extending the line.

Bob Dylan, MusiCares Person of the Year speech, 2015

He is describing himself the way we describe the machine. Maybe originality was always recombination, just with deeper source material, better taste, and the nerve to open a different door.