Writing elements of a finitely generated field extension in terms of the generators

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I have a question that arose in the process of solving a different problem in Galois theory. That problem asked to show that if $\alpha_1, \dots, \alpha_n$ are the generators of an extension $K/F$, then any automorphism $\sigma$ of $K$ which fixes $F$ is uniquely determined by $\sigma(\alpha_1), \dots, \sigma(\alpha_n)$.

I originally thought this question would be easy because it seemed intuitively obvious from the minimality of $K$ as an extension that any element in $K$ could be written in terms of the generators. However, it isn't given that each of the $\alpha_i$ are algebraic, so writing an explicit expression for $k \in K$ in terms of the $\alpha_i$'s proved to be difficult.

Is must be possible to write any $k \in K$ in terms of the $\alpha_i$ because the $\sigma \in \mathrm{Aut}(K/F)$ are indeed determined by what they do on the generators (I proved this using induction and casework). Is there an easy way to see it, though?

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The sophisticated way of doing this is the following:

Take two automorphisms $\sigma, \tau$ of $K$, which fix $F$ and agree on $\{\alpha_1, \dotsc, \alpha_n\}$. The set $M := \{x \in K | \sigma(x)=\tau(x)\} \subset K$ is a field, which contains $F$ and all $\alpha_i$. By the definition (minimality of $K$ as you mentioned) of $K$, we obtain $K \subset M$, hence $\sigma = \tau$.