<p>We characterize and discuss the “dearth of the author”: a problem that emerges when AI-based creativity support tools (CSTs) allow their users to produce highly detailed output artifacts—such as lengthy written stories, or high-resolution pieces of visual art—from very small amounts of input (e.g., brief textual prompts). When small amounts of user input are extrapolated by a CST into a highly detailed output, the CST itself has to make many creative decisions that would otherwise fall to the user, disrupting the usual close relationship between input intentionality and output detail in the creative process and yielding output artifacts that contain much more of the tool’s than the user’s creative signature. Though users of such tools are often able to inject more intention into the output through the adoption of more sophisticated creative practices, these high-intentionality practices tend to be more effortful than the default modes of use of AI-based CSTs, and the use of such practices is not always immediately apparent in the output artifacts. We analyze the dearth of the author from an information-theoretic perspective, focusing on the informational ratio between intent and meaning in creative artifacts; examine implications of the dearth of the author, including homogenization of creative outputs and rhetorical confusion around the “soulfulness” or “soullessness” of art produced with AI assistance; and suggest strategies for mitigating the dearth of the author in future AI-based CSTs.</p>