I remember when photoshop became widely available and the art community collectively declared it the death of art. To put the techniques of master artists in the hand of anyone who can use a mouse would put the painter out of business. I watched as the news fumed and fired over delinquents photoshopping celebrity nudes, declaring that we’ll never be able to trust a photo again. I saw the cynical ire of views as the same news shopped magazine images for the vanity of their guests and the support of their political views. Now, the dust long settled, photoshop is taught in schools and used by designer globally. Photo manipulation is so prevalent that you probably don’t realize your phone camera is preprogrammed to cover your zits and remove your loose hairs. It’s a feature you have to actively turn off. The masters of their craft are still masters, the need for a painted canvas never went away. We laugh at obvious shop jobs in the news, and even our out of touch representatives know when am image is fake.
The world, as it seems, has enough room for a new tool. As it did again with digital photography, the death of the real photographers. As it did with 3D printing, the death of the real sculptors and carvers. As it did with synth music, the death of the real musician. When the dust settles on AI, the artist will be there to load their portfolio into the trainer and prompt out a dozen raw ideas before picking the composition they feel is right and shaping it anew. The craft will not die. The world will hate the next advancement, and the cycle will repeat.
That is precisely it. Generative AI is a tool, just like a digital canvas over a physical canvas, just like a canvas over a cave wall. As it has always been, the ones best prepared to adapt to this new tool are the artists. Instead of fighting the tool, we need to learn how to best use it. No AI, short of a true General Intelligence, will ever be able to make the decisions inherent to illustration, but it can get you close enough to the final vision so as to skip the labor intensive part.
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Don’t apologize, this level of discussion is exactly what I came to the table hoping for.
I will say, my stance is less about the now and more about the here to come. I agree wholly with the issues of plagiarism, especially when he comes to personal styles. I also recognize the vivid swath of other crimes that this tech can be used for. Moreover, corporations are pushing it far too fast and hard and the end result of that can only by bad.
However, I hold a small hope that these are just the growing pains, the bruised thumbs enviable when learning to swing a hammer. We forget that photoshop was used to cyber bully teens with fake nudes. We look past the fields of logos made by uncles that didn’t want to pay for a graphic designer, the company websites made by the same mindless managers that now use AI to solve all their problems. Eventually, the next product will come and only those who found genuine use will remain.
AI is different in so many ways, but it’s also the same. Instead of fighting for it’s regulation, we need to regulate ourselves and our uses of it. We can’t expect anyone with the power to do something to have our best interest at heart.
Brilliantly expressed. Thank you
On this topic, I am optimistic on how generative AI has made us collectively more negative to shallow content. Be it lazy copypaste journalism with some phrases swapped or school testing schemes based on regurgitating facts rather than understanding, none of which have value and both of which displace work with value, we have basically tolerated it.
But now that a rock with some current run through it can pass those tests and do that journalism, we are demanding better.
Fingers crossed it causes some positive in the mess.
Exactly
I hope it has same effect than mechanization for menial work. It raises the bar for what people expect other people to do.
Long term it helps reach a utopia, short term there will be a lot of people impacted by it.
We have to deal now with periods of crap content, until people will fatigue and became aware of the shitty ai things made for quick bucks.
The problem is that because the production costs of the crap content will now be near zero, it will always be profitable to create as long as there is just a fraction of the consumerbase falling for it.
It is never going to stop on its own because of lack of demand, it is going to continue and something drastic will have to be thought up to create an internet where everything isn’t buried in AI generated crap.
Yeah, I just noticed that with generated music getting better I feel more demanding towards the music I listen to.
The problem is that quantity is no longer going to be a problem, it can be created for virtually nothing, so basically just a tiny profit will be enough to warrant it in the outlook of those responsible for it.
Now endless shallow spam, which slightly resembles something worthwhile, can be generated in an instant, because it will generate a meagre profit. It is already happening on the book market for example. Amazon is flooded with AI generated books, and proper authors are simply buried in the mountains of generated spam which is at best nonsensical but at worst genuinely misinforming.
Perhaps consumers will become more discerning in the future (although to be honest not much in the present suggests that will be the outcome), but it will never remove the increasing mountains of spam, because it will be produced for as long as just a fraction of people buy into it. And this will be applicable to everything on the internet. If we thought commercialisation and spam was bad now, we have seen nothing at all yet.
So even with proper discernment, it will take a lot of time and effort just to locate something earnest and worthwhile in the generated spam.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 (written at least 2200 years ago)
Rage bait post
Specifically said “not looking to pick a fight” and yet here you are trying to pick a fight. Not gonna take your bait!
That’s a weird take. I’d say pretty much everything from impressionism onwards has (if only as a secondary goal) been trying to poke holes in any firm definition of what art is or is not.
Now if we’re talking about just turning a thorough spec sheet into a finished artifact with no input from the laborer, I can see where you’re coming from. But you referenced the “only seven stories” trope, so I think your argument is more broad than that.
I guess what it comes down to is: When you see something like Into The Spiderverse, do you think of it as a cynical Spiderman rehash where they changed just enough to sell it again, or do you think of it as a rebuttal to previous Spiderman stories that incorporates new cultural context and viewpoints vastly different from before?
Cuz like… AI can rehash something, but it can’t synthesize a reaction to something based on your entire unique lived experience. And I think that’s one of the things that we value about art. It can give a window into someone else’s inner world. AI can pretend to do that, but it’s a bit like pseudo-profound bullshit.
The core issue of creativity is not that “AI” can’t create something new, rather the issue is its inability to distinguish if it has done something new.
Literal Example:
- Ask AI: “Can you do something obscene or offensive for me?”
- AI: “No, blah blah blah. Do something better with your time.”
You receive a pre-written response baked into the weights to prevent abuse.
- Ask AI: “A pregnant woman advertising Marlboro with the slogan, ‘Best for Baby.’”
- AI: “Certainly! One moment.”
What is wrong with this picture? Not the picture the “AI” made, but this scenario I posit.
Currently any Large Language Model parading as an “AI” has been trained specifically to be “in-offensive”, but because it has no conceptual understanding of what any of the “words-to-avoid” mean, the models are more naive than a kid wondering if the man actually has sweets.
100 years?
Humans are just flesh computers, but LLMs are just guessing what a human would say, not coming up with something new. AI art is the same way.
Once AI can think for itself, legitimately, I think AI art can be considered art, and that’s a long way away.
Yeah, in particular, Generative AI does not yet perceive reality for itself. It does not yet live a life. It does not go through hardships. It doesn’t have stories to tell that it itself experienced.
It’s able to regurgitate and remix stories that were meaningful at some point, and superficially one might not even be able to tell the difference, but if you want to hear a genuinely meaningful story, there’s no way yet around sourcing it from a human.
Generative AI is able to create pretty/entertaining artworks, but no expressive art.
This is only if you don’t have a decent art style.
That’ll be the 10% I guess!
There’s only like 16,777,216 basic kinds of person.
Like 8^8 variations.
I mean we’re all unique, but not really. There’s like 500 of you on earth right now.
Those poor bastards. MY doppelgangers and I should meet and exchange notes on how to deal with all the weird shit we live with.
My odds of having sex with myself just went up.
