Diffused Authorship
Diffused authorship names a condition in which production, selection, framing, and endorsement are split across human and system actors.
Working Definition
The term describes what happens when a finished artifact no longer makes it obvious who performed the decisive acts of judgment inside it. Text can be generated, reorganized, and polished without making responsibility legible.
Structural Expansion
Diffused authorship does not mean no one is responsible. It means responsibility becomes harder to infer from visible production alone, which is why institutions need stronger ways to surface framing, endorsement, and tradeoff.
Related Terms
Related Chapters
- authorship-after-visible-rupture
Referenced in this Inquiry
- The Author Is Now Diffused
Generative systems break the older assumption that production can still be traced back to a single originating consciousness.