The Algorithmic Authenticity Paradox: Creativity, Imitation, Authorship, and Human Agency in the Age of Generative AI

Preprint, Version 1.9. This conceptual paper examines a paradox in contemporary judgments of creative authenticity: highly imitative human cultural production can retain presumptive legitimacy, while disclosure of generative-AI involvement can reduce perceived creativity, value, or authorship even when substantial human agency remains. The paper synthesizes research across creativity studies, psychology, human-AI collaboration, platform culture, authorship, labor, and generative AI. It develops the Algorithmic Authenticity Paradox, proposes an eight-dimensional Agency-Transformation Framework for evaluating human contribution in AI-assisted creative processes, advances the Generative Scarcity Shift hypothesis, and derives six falsifiable propositions for future empirical research. Rather than treating either human provenance or AI participation as sufficient evidence of creativity, the paper argues for evaluating intentionality, consequential agency, transformation, evaluation, selection, integration, contextualization, and responsibility. Author: Derek Rasor, Independent ResearcherVersion: 1.9Status: Preprint; not peer reviewed.