The question of authorship, especially in the realm of new technology, programming, and art, has become a fairly complicated one, and one that I am still not entirely sure of my stance on. In the context of programming computer generated visuals and images my base stance/understanding has revolved around the idea that: if one writes a program, hacks a technology, or re-contextualizes a preexisting object/tool/etc to create something, then authorship goes to the creator/hacker/re-contextualizer of the program due to the choices (or unintentional findings) made, which forms the “art”.
This topic of authorship is however much further complicated when looked at in the context of new cameras discussed in The Camera, Transformed by the Vidion Machine. In this new world of the removed capture button, and cameras and programs with their own agency, I think that place in which “art” occurs, is transferred to the relationship between the subjects interaction with the lens/capture, rather than in the moment of capture itself.
When the camera holds the agency the subject becomes something between an actor and someone unintentionally walking through a photo being taken. In the context of the actor, there is space for agency in the new interaction that they present in front of the lens, however in the case of the passerby the lack of agency removes them from a context that I might consider to be art: they may appear in the photo, but have no hold over authorship.