this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Values change. Images used to be difficult and time consuming to create, thus they had value. They are trivial to create now, so it becomes worthless. That's progress. Yet instead of using that new superpower to create bigger projects and doing something still valuable with it, all the artists do is complain.
You obviously don't realize that it didn't. That's prompts generated by AI put into another AI. There was no human telling it what to draw. The only instruction was to draw something original and than draw something different for the next image.
I don't do any of that, I just acknowledge their superior and constantly improving performance. The thing doesn't need to be self aware to put all the artists, and the other humans, out of a job if it can work 1000x faster than them.
Also AI will get awareness and volition real soon anyway, ETA for AGI is around 5 years, at the current pace I wouldn't even be surprised if it arrives sooner. Human exceptionalism has the tendency to not age very well these days.
They don't. See, it would be way easier to lake you Luddites seriously if you at least had any clue what you were talking about. But the whole art world seem to be stuck playing make-believe, just repeating the same nonsense that they heard from other people talking about AI instead just trying it for themselves.
Most of that AI stuff is publicly available, lots of it is free, and some can be run on your own PC. Just go and play with it to get a realistic idea of what it is and isn't capable of. And most important of all: Think about the future. People always talk like issues with current AI systems are some fundamental limit of AI, when in reality most of those problems will be gone within six months.
Also it's just bind boggling how people ignore everything AI can do, just to focus on some minuscule detail it still gets wrong. The fact that it can't draw hands is not terribly surprising (hard structure to figure out from low res 2D images), meanwhile the fact that it can draw basically everything else, way faster and often better than almost any human, is rather mind boggling, yet somehow ignored.
CEOs are target for AI replacement just like everybody else. And AI that pays its own bills and runs on some rented cloud computing won't be far off either. Either way, you don't even have to go into doomsday scenarios with evil AI, the fact that AI will outcompete humans at most tasks alone ist enough to drastically reshape the world. If it's ethically trained Open Source AI or some cooperate run thing really doesn't matter, since either way, the changes will be huge.
Well, we are already way closer to that spooky scifi future than you'd think.
And you mean to tell me they decided to do it themselves? No, we both know that's not what happened. That setup was arranged by people. You come with accusations of cluelessness and luddism only to say the exact same thing with different words.
You'd rather burst into wild speculation while acting superior rather than acknowledging matters as they are.
Who do you think are making the calls to replace people? Do you seriously believe that executives, who hold the highest power, will decide to replace themselves? They might as well use AIs just fine and reap all the benefits while doing none of the effort. Like many CEOs already do with their human subordinates.
As impressive as AIs might be and become, while you get lost on sci-fi fantasies you are losing sight of who is going to decide what they will be used for and how that will affect regular people.
Hell, we are already have a glimpse of how that's going to play out. Most of the internet is molded by algorithms that, however inscrutable they may be, are directed to serve the interests of wealthy business owners. Some decades ago people dreamed of systems that would recommend things for you before you even knew that you wanted it, but some didn't expect that it would be used to manipulate and advertise to us.
This is why keeping human interest in mind is of the utmost important.
You think oil paintings lost all worth when photography and printing and digital painting came about? That art isn't worth it if it's not expressed through the biggest and newest means?
That is what you think progress is? Human expression and passion being treated like trash because it's not as optimal? What a dreary mindset.
If not to enable people to dedicate themselves to what they love, what is even the worth of technological advancement?
Don't get mistaken. I love technology, I just can't get excited about people being crushed by technology that is getting harnessed in the most cynical, greedy way. But you? You just seem to be eagerly praying for the day you will be turned into a paperclip, for "value".
No human told them what to draw and you can let it keep drawing just by itself forever and generate original images. By your logic no AI can ever do anything by itself just because a human pressed the power button on the computer once. That's nonsensical.
The shareholder will demand it when it becomes clear that an AI would do a better job.
When was the last time the average person bought an oil painting? I can't even remember the last time I saw one.
Once upon a time aluminium worth was as much as gold. Then we figured out how to refine it for cheap and we build our Coke cans out of it now. Values change. Nobody is going to pay hundreds of dollars for an image that AI can generate better in 10sec. Just as nobody is paying monks to copy books anymore, we have printers for that. The whole idea of a static image is starting to feel bizarre once you played around with AI for a while.
The progress here isn't replacing the artist, but that replacing the artists allows you to build bigger and better things. The artists that used to draw a single image, now has the power to draw the whole rest of the comic book just by themselves. The filmmaker that used to make a little 10min short can now to the full 2h movie. And the guy that had their head full of ideas, but no skill to draw, can now produce compelling images as well. The bar has been raised and it will keep raising.
I simply don't pretend that we ever cared about the artists in the first place. Most of the great artists of the past died poor. Their images and fame came much later, long after their death. Today we watch movies and have little to no idea who or how they were created. We care about if the movie entertained us. Not the process of its creation or the hundreds of names scrolling by in the credits. Once AI keeps making movies that will entertain us, we'll watch them.
People that are passionate about creating something manually, can still do as they please, they just can't expect other to pay for it, when there are cheaper and better alternatives around.
Tired of your disingenuous responses. By your definition a die is intelligent because "you didn't tell it what number to roll". Stop playing dumb about that AI. I know you understood it.
Humans, again.
Trying to make big claims based on your own indifference towards art and artists only convinces me you are the last person I'd want an opinion about it. There's a lot of discussion to be made about what makes art "better". It's not just making it bigger and longer.
This just sounds weirdly cultish.
Your whole argument is nothing more than unfounded human exceptionalism. AI can't do stuff because it is not human. Yet you fail to show any significant difference between AI and human. Look at the history of art. Humans just follow patterns and copy other artists too. You don't see new trends emerge from nothing, it's all just a slow evolution. Or go over to https://www.artstation.com/, half the stuff on their is just fan art, celebrities or generic sci-fi/fantasy/military stuff that can be replicated by AI in a couple of seconds. Where is that magical human originality?
You compare the best of the best that billions of human have managed to produce over hundreds of years with what AI farted out in 10sec and than complain that AI isn't up to par, completely missing that about 99.9999% of those humans would be completely useless in producing high quality art.
Human deciding to hand control over to AI is not humans being in control. That's humans losing control.
Well, for a lot of art it is. Short movies being short. Comic books being black&white. Indie games using pixel art. None of that is because the people making those things want that, it's because doing it bigger and better is outside the time/budget that they can afford. AI art makes things possible that used to be impossible on a small budget. I welcome that.