Kate Compton’s idea of the “10,000 Bowls of Oatmeal” problem describes the difference between mathematical uniqueness and perceptual uniqueness, and in my opinion, how our human perception of aesthetics and uniqueness is completely subjective.
Humans identifies objects by their key characteristics, for example, a bird by a feathered egg-laying animal that walks on two legs; and we differentiate different types of birds by what we consider to be their significant characteristics: their color, their size, their beak shape, etc. We do not identify them via their smell, or that one of them have an extra feather on its tail(though that maybe significant to birds) — these details are not what we look for when we perceive a bird. Hence, only changes on the significant characteristics ends up influencing our perception, and contributing to the perceptual uniqueness.
Thus as the article’s proposed creative process for procedural art suggests, it’s important to identify these key characteristics of whatever you’re trying to generate, and know your audience’s expectations. The article also touches on how associations and context could contribute to the authentic-ness of the object, and that reminds me of the Bouba/kiki effect, where our associations of shapes/sounds/color/etc is constantly affecting our perception of the world– and we should use them to our advantage when creating work.