On Co-Formative Creation

On Co-Formative Creation articulates a clear, responsibility-centered account of authorship in an age of mediated creative tools. It argues that mediation—whether through instruments, assistants, or contemporary generative systems—does not dilute authorship but clarifies its structure. Authorship is located not in mechanical production, but in direction, understanding, judgment, and responsibility. The text introduces the concept of the auctor: the human who initiates, steers, selects, and stands behind the meaning of a work, even when its articulation is partially generated through external tools. Against popular confusions about AI “co-authors,” the work distinguishes co-formation from co-authorship: tools generate possibilities, but they do not understand, endorse, or assume responsibility. The human alone integrates meaning and bears accountability. The text also presents the Auctor’s Clause, a suggested convention for transparent method disclosure when clarity is the aim, while preserving the original clause for historical continuity. OC-FC ultimately provides a principled framework for mediated creativity, arguing that tools expand articulation but never replace human responsibility. It offers creators, scholars, and institutions a vocabulary and ethical posture suited to an augmented creative era.