From Gutenberg’s printing press to generative AI: a dance between plagiarism and originality

For long periods, imitation was regarded as an integral part of learning and creative practice: what mattered was knowing one’s models and making effective use of them. Over time, however, the idea of the original work emerged, along with the notion of the individual author and the belief that ideas and formulations could belong to someone and therefore be stolen.

Over the centuries, the university has developed increasingly explicit rules governing what counts as one’s own work and what is borrowed. Yet the boundary has never been as clear-cut as we sometimes imagine: the same act may be described as imitation, inspiration, intertextuality, appropriation, or plagiarism, depending on the historical period and cultural context.

In this lecture, Sonja Bjelobaba traces how perceptions of plagiarism and originality have evolved from the invention of the printing press to the age of generative AI. The journey spans the emergence of copyright, the Romantic ideal of the original genius, the university’s emphasis on independent work, and the ways in which different technologies have shaped understandings of plagiarism. Along the way, it explores citation practices, copy-and-paste plagiarism, social media, and today’s AI-generated texts.