The Novel Factory: Dumas and the Soul of Authorship

Language philosopher Bry Willis with the help of AI explores the evolving definition of authorship by comparing modern artificial intelligence with the historical collaboration between Alexandre Dumas and his assistant Auguste Maquet. The author argues that literary creation has long been a distributed process, yet the legal and cultural systems often insist on crediting a single human creator for the sake of market convenience. By examining how Maquet was denied co-authorship despite his substantial contributions, the text suggests that current objections to AI-assisted writing are less about the work performed and more about gatekeeping the title of author. Ultimately, the piece asserts that a writer who directs and takes responsibility for a text remains its true author, regardless of the tools or collaborators used. It challenges readers to establish consistent rules for attribution that apply to ghostwriters and editors as much as they do to language models. 👉 https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/would-alexandre-dumas-have-used-an