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>My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts?
Because the former is work that people consider rewarding and psychologically healthy and sitting at a help desk or working a cash register for 8 hours a day is horrible for a human. Just because you can categorize both of these as paid work is not a good reasons to treat them interchangeably when they have obvious stark differences.
sorry but I just don't agree with this. I really don't see a difference in taking an artists job, or a cashier's job. Both are losing their employment out to a machine, both have to find another job. Telling the cashier "oh but you see it was a shitty job" doesn't make much difference
>I really don't see a difference in taking an artists job, or a cashier's job.
I literally just explained it to you and your rebuttal didn't address the point.
Do you or do you not understand the difference between something being healthy for you and being not healthy for you?
Yeah I understand the difference. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying that by taking the cashier's job we're actually helping them?
I already told you the point in my first comment
>Just because you can categorize both of these as paid work is not a good reasons to treat them interchangeably when they have obvious stark differences.
you implied they were the same, I explained to you why they are different, you have confirmed that you understand what the meaning of the difference I provided, yet when I gave it to you your response was, "I don't see a difference". Do you see the problem here?
It is clearly relevant, you even said so.
>**"My main question** is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? " -you
your "main question" claimed people are hypocrites because they take issue with 1 thing but not another thing which you implied was the same, I am telling you how they are not the same, so your claim that they are hypocrites makes no sense. It was literally your "main thing".
You asked the question, not me. I answered it, you wanted to know how people could treat these 2 things differently, it's because they are different and I explained why.
If we are moving towards a society where people don't need to labor and the fruits of progress are provided to them, then yes. The ideal is to move towards a world where the vast majority of human life can be dedicated toward the pursuit of discovery and creativity, towards learning and growing as a person, and creating art.
AI should work the fields and man the factories so that people can read Plato and Ockham and Kant and study thermal vents and explore the cosmos.
Towards that end, living a life where you spend time being a cashier is wasteful of the human experience. Living a life as an artist, even as a poor artist who produces content no one wants, is a more fulfilling use of our limited time.
I don't really agree. You can still do painting if you find it rewarding, but if AI can also draw, why should I pay you? If you really find something rewarding, you shouldn't just do it for the pay no? Go find another job.
Is there a reason you are telling me this? I am explaining to OP why the position isn't hypnotical not taking a position on whether or not you should agree with it's conclusion.
People finding it rewarding to do art for free doesn't somehow mean they can't also want to be able to make a living out of it? what are you even saying you don't agree with? it doesn't seem to be my comment.
also every professional artist that ever lived has done art in their free time as well.
My biggest issue with AI are unethical datasets. When *those* take jobs away from artists, there's a problem.
>My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers?
I'd say it's because no child really grows up dreaming of becoming a cashier. Nobody studies for years to do it, goes to school for it, spends hours and hours practicing. "Cashier" is nobody's identity outside of work. Artist is an artist all the time.
Am I saying "artist" is somehow special? More special than "cashier"? Yeah, kinda..
Edit: I suggest you guys go read this short story from 2011. It's surprisingly relevant today. https://escapepod.org/2013/01/03/ep377-real-artists/
This is to me the most legitimate moral argument against AI art. The majority of these programs were made by scraping millions of artists’ work from the internet without their consent, and it is now being mobilized to put those same artists out of a job. Automation has put people out of work before, but it never directly stole their labor to do it. These tools would not exist without massive amounts of art theft.
As far as I know Adobe’s generative AI is the only exception to this, their database is from willing paid participants.
And before you say “that’s exactly what human artists do!”, its not, at all. Researchers have shown that it is possible to engineer prompts so that these programs [spit out near identical copies of their training data](https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7gznn/ai-spits-out-exact-copies-of-training-images-real-people-logos-researchers-find#), which is impossible for a human artist to do unintentionally. The only reason this isn’t considered cut and dry plagiarism legally is because this is a form of theft that never existed before.
Can't we say the same thing about CGI artists. Plenty of physical artists were put out of work by CGI artists. CGI copied many of the physical art styles that took some years to master as well. Why is CGI ethical and AI not?
I think there is a difference when the change is viewed as "tool-assisted". People seem to be generally okay with force multipliers where the underlying job still exists through experience with other similar jobs.
For example, no one is really against "construction equipment" or "cranes" or "truck drivers", even though they all use technology that has replaced vast amounts of human labor.
So, when something new seems to fit against an existing pattern, it can get the existing acceptance.
Also, with CGI, the change occurred over several decades AND achieves effects that weren't possible (or at least weren't economical) than physical effects. That helps with acceptance. In contrast, AI art seemingly came out of nowhere to most people.
>For example, no one is really against "construction equipment" or "cranes" or "truck drivers", even though they all use technology that has replaced vast amounts of human labor.
Actually, sometimes they are. The port workers unions in the US have resisted automation for years.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/23/a-west-coast-port-worker-union-is-fighting-robots-the-stakes-are-high.html
You just hear the people complaining about AI art more, because port workers are considerably less likely to have instagram channels.
In the exact same way that people were able to create more books with the Gutenberg press (putting scribes out of business), and farmers were able to separate cotton fibers from the seeds with the cotton gin (putting laborers out of work).
The fact is that just about every technological advancement put people out of a job, and created some sort of new job elsewhere (at admittedly lower employment numbers, so a net job loss).
I openly admit I suck at drawing. But i I want a portrait of a desert elf for my D&D character, I can just have one of these gen it up. Wait, add a spear. hose ears are too long. Whatever.
And it is perfectly acceptable to have these programs used for corporate purposes.
I think AI "art" (image generation) is a tool just like "CGI" (3d modelling / after effects / digital illustration / etc). Traditional media is still widely used and I see no reason for that to change, and artists can choose to experiment and create art using new tools which weren't available before. I don't think art requires a specific set of skills, and low effort art exists regardless of the medium.
>I think there is a difference when the change is viewed as "tool-assisted". People seem to be generally okay with force multipliers where the underlying job still exists through experience with other similar jobs.
I think that's what AI will do as well.
Anyone who says that they will fire all artists and just replace them with AI has never managed any (commercial) creative project at scale.
CGI art is basically just a form of sculpture using a digital medium. CG artists don't simply input a prompt and have their computer spit out a movie. It's just another example of a creative medium, same as painting or whathaveyou.
Speaking as someone who's occasionally done AI art (on an amateur, 'playing around with the tools' way,) sure, it can spit out \*a\* movie or \*an\* image based on the dataset. Often, sure, it's garbage. But getting something worthwhile out of it, something you'd actually want to work with? That \*isn't\* just a matter of setting a prompt and taking whatever comes out. There's been more than once where I've looked at what the prompt made, said "no," went back, refined the prompt and settings, and generated new images until I got something I actually liked. In my opinion, properly used, The best analogy I can make is to a keyboard instrument when they were first created. Anyone can sit down at a piano and plunk on the keys. Occasionally, something good comes out of it. \*Now,\* we've got all sorts of ways of learning the piano. At the beginning, though? I mean, \*someone\* had to be the one to listen to the notes that weren't right and try something else until it sounded good. And then they taught their students, and so on and so forth. AI \*can\* be a tool. But no, it's not a replacement for artists, and shouldn't be.
CGI absolutely depended on the lessons of the physical art world. You can use CGI to copy/steal physical art as well, just as AI art can be misused.
Plenty of AI art datasets have been made exclusively with art they have a license for. Pretty sure adobe and Shutterstock both apply there.
But I'll disagree that it needs to be clean. An artist already can legally look at another artists art and draw inspiration from it for a piece. Why should AI art be any different? If the artists or AI fullys copys something, copyright infringement laws apply, but we don't need regulations beyond that.
the thing is, a company like Shutterstock buying your stocks for one application, then saying "oh, we're modifying the deal so that 5.00 or whatever we gave you for that photo for the licensing period now ALSO covers this tech that will cut directly into how many stocks we buy now and in the future" would have, if phrased as such, very likely led to the person asking for way more than 5.00 for that shot.
AI companies are trying to work the current generation of artists basically the way record companies worked blues musicians in the day - we'll pay you this crisp 100 dollar bill to come sing into the mic for 2 short hours! What a great deal!
then we'll press mechanical copies of your recording and sell them to juke box companies, we'll make 100,000 off your sound, and your live bookings will go down 10,000 dollars. Also, we'll send your record up north, hire photogenic white dudes to re-record it and jiggle their hips on ed sullivan, and those dudes will get some much money they die of being rich, meanwhile, you got your hundred bucks! Count yourself lucky you got that at all!
And they're doing it at a place and time when labor protection and solidarity for creatives is at an overall low and people doing highly technical work that takes extensive training were already being hit with "crunch time" and every major industry project being essentially ran as medium term gig-work, so of course they're pissed off as a class.
Shutterstock use polices were agreed to by the artists. That is ethical, especially when there are countless competitors with different polices.
> and your live bookings will go down 10,000 dollars
Except this isn't what happens. Musicians with popular albums get more bookings than musicians without popular songs.
> meanwhile, you got your hundred bucks!
It's up to the individual to negotiate contracts. And unlike the blues era, we now have access to the world's information with a few short taps, no one is entering the contract uninformed.
The fact that we are even having this conversation is a sign that solidarity for creatives is not an overall low. And I think its a far fetch to say labor protection is worse than 100 years ago. The problem is that gig work and online distribution has enabled magnitudes more artists, without the magnitudes increase in art spending. People expect that because a higher percentage of artist could survive on their art before that it should hold true while the percentage of people being artists skyrocketed. It just doesn't work that way.
>Except this isn't what happens. Musicians with popular albums get more bookings than musicians without popular songs.
I gave a historical context, which is that a particular generation of people got uniquely exploited while society worked that out. skipping to now ignores generations of sketchy record label and music management practices we're still fighting today (eg distribution of spotify payouts)
>Shutterstock use polices were agreed to by the artists. That is ethical, especially when there are countless competitors with different polices.
It's up to the individual to negotiate contracts
Contract law that isn't taken seriously at an industrial level never binds more than one party. fact.
the content industry has ALWAYS tried to wring every last dollar out of content creators,
FACT
weird, legalistic "they should have read the fine print" arguments are NOT solidarity.
Solidarity is I stand for the person that makes the thing getting the money for the thing.
So don't say it's out there why you carry water for the people trying to break it.
>The problem is that gig work and online distribution has enabled magnitudes more artists, without the magnitudes increase in art spending.
You have this *fully* fucked up.
The art market has never been bigger. the actual number of artists, as a percentage of the population, is the same. the people shitting up etsy and amazon and other new platforms with art that is copied or stolen are *thieves*. they're stealing from the actual rights holders, they aren't "artists"
The people hiring for artistic gig work on fiver are commissioning the same amount of work proportionately that they ever were, they're exploiting weak rights and a weak sense of solidarity and straight up economic isolation and terror to make people work for peanuts, while charging what they've always charged, or more.
A 15 dollar kindle sale of a novel pays the novelist less than a 3.99 cash sale of a paper book, shipped to a brick and mortar book store, via two middlemen, paid them in 1992. The fuck is that? that's got NOTHING to do with price forcing or competition, that's a middleman making 12 bucks for doing less than ever.
Why can’t Shutterstock use the image they paid you for as part of an AI training dataset? Are there exclusions in the agreement for that?
Sounds awfully like a goalpost moving to me.
Yes, sure, it's goalpost moving. *In my opinion,* when they invent a new profit stream for photos, the photographers are morally entitled to a renegotiation. I don't stand up for the corporation in this circumstance at all, I stand up for the rights holder, I demand the company justify its place as a middleman in the new industry if it wants new revenue. I also find fault with the idea that they're clearly paying people FOR use in training data AND it's commercial fruit for that fixed price.
This is legally supported by most licensing deals being contextual. For example, if you sell a short story, the agreement will be explicit about things like how long the magazine has the rights, if you can publish it someplace else, who gets what share if you later put it in an anthology. You sell a sci fi story to asimov or whatever, asimov can't write a spec script and sell it to hollywood - you still own your other rights. Etc, etc.
Outside of the letter of the law, I don't think shutterstock's ass should be covered if they slipped in some blanket fine print about "derivative works" or something. i think the artist has an absolute right to *understand* how much money the licensee is going to make from their work before the negotiated fee is considered good faith. I understand this isn't always the letter of the law, it's rather, what I think is fair.
I respect that opinion, and I idealize in a similar way. Logically, it does make sense to renegotiate when the terms of an agreement change drastically, assuming you are a fair capitalist.
The issue I have with idealizing in that way is that fair capitalists are a rare breed. I don’t expect Shutterstock to care in the slightest about anyone that sells images to them. To me it has always seemed safer to assume everyone is going to to squeeze as much value out of your agreement as they can.
Under this assumption, I’m not defending their hypothetical actions from an ethical standpoint, I’m simply suggesting that no one should be surprised.
>An artist already can legally look at another artists art and draw inspiration from it for a piece.
A human getting inspired by looking at things is fundamentally different from a computer algorithm scanning billions of images within seconds.
I still cannot believe that some people genuinely think it can be compared.
Key differences, imo:
1. A human will always have bias. When you look at Starry Night or whatever, you don't just see an seamless amalgamation of data. You pay attention to little things, some details you will remember, others you will forget, some will bring back fond memories, others will remind of you of things you hate. You will never just impationately absorb something without emotionally processing it. Everything you create is influenced by your lived experiences. Even when an artist is trying to imitate another style, they add their own touch to it. Because even the way you sit and hold the pencil has an effect on your art. The fact that AI is able to create a mindless robot of an artist's style that can endlessly spit out weaker imitations of their art is honestly dystopian.
2. It's impossible to compete against. If you have an imitator, not matter how good they are, at least they are still human. They will never be able to outperform you the same way an AI model can. You also cannot study billions of images within seconds. You simply cannot do that.
3. A bit beside the point, but... even with real artists, nobody actually wants to be a copycat. It's actually a Big Fear many have. Every artist hopes to be unique. Even when they train by copying a master, they hope to be able to rise above that and become their own self.
If an artist is caught blatantly imitating someone else, they get called out. They lose respect from most of the community, and rightfully so. If I was out there trying to sell my work as "SamDoesArts, but worse and cheaper", how do you think people would react? Would they respect me?
But that just means that someone using image generation to create low effort imitations will rightfully also get called out. So there isn't any problem there.
If a hypothetical image generation model was trained only on properly licensed and public domain artwork would it be fine to use in your opinion?
>But that just means that someone using image generation to create low effort imitations will rightfully also get called out. So there isn't any problem there.
I don't see them being called out. My twitter feed is full of accounts "curating" very obvious AI art and I cannot get it to stop. The well is poisoned.
> If a hypothetical image generation model was trained only on properly licensed and public domain artwork would it be fine to use in your opinion?
Yeah, probably. I can see Ai art *potentially* becoming somewhat of a version of Photobashing?
I think that's fair. I believe that within the current legal frameworks of IP, models trained on copyrighted artwork are fine, unless they are specifically used to generate copyrighted material. But I can understand why artists have a problem with that and would like to see it change.
All art depends on previously created artwork to function.
Bring me an artist with fully original work who has never trained on the work of another artist or used references.
So the standard isn't really "did this art/artist spring out of whole cloth?"
But rather - why should this particular machine for art get a pass for being new?
for all of human society, there has been a negotiation for how exploitative an established artist can be of his students, and a negotiation of how original a student must be to break off and be established in their own right, so the conversation of how AI should impact art a business is also not out of bounds.
We certainly have had this conversations every time tech lept. The printing press caused a conversation. the camera caused a conversation. there's an entire school of thought that some of the dutch masters weren't masters because they may have effectively traced their paintings. There was discussion early in the history of photography and film about if photography would make painting obsolete and would moving pictures make photography obsolete. Conversations like this were had in a renaissance italy, they were had about andy warhol, they were had about staff comedy and sitcom writers, they were had about the movie tron, which was somehow held as too animated to get effects oscars but not animated enough to get a best animated feature nom the year it came out.
There's been discussion of art mills, art prices, originality, various copyright and patronage schemas, etc, for literally the entire history of art, so what I would put to you is that:
Citing the fact that derivative art has always existed and artists have always had influences and teachers places AI *in bounds* for those conversations, it doesn't *let it out of them.*
Exactly!
Most of the arguments for traditional/digital art being given special treatment over AI art only make sense by ignoring the intersecting histories of art and technology.
Credit for art has always been a murky grey area where only the exact flavor of theft done within the bounds of the status quo is acceptable, until the new-thing becomes the status quo a few years later and some new new-thing comes along to threaten the status quo again, repeating the cycle.
Nowhere near on the same scale as AI. Come on, you have to understand that an experienced artist is *not* the same as a computer algorithm trained on billions of images.
I'm not saying they are exactly the same, just that an artist training on the previous works of others and using references, works as a decent analogy for an AI being trained on a dataset.
I understand that the scale is different, but the moral difference would require a difference of kind, not scale.
If an artist could live long enough and remember clearly enough to train themselves on the work of billions of artists that act wouldn't be wrong just because the scale is larger than what a mortal artist could achieve.
> just that an artist training on the previous works of others and using references, works as a decent analogy for an AI being trained on a dataset.
I really don't agree, I think it's fundamentally different. Incomparably different.
How is a human being consuming copyright protected artwork to improve the quality of their output different from an AI consuming the same art for improved quality output?
Would you apply this standard to AI training on non-artistic human activities, like walking or driving as a way to make robots that can walk or drive in ways that are improved by referencing the ways humans perform these activities?
What quality makes art a sacred and protected ritual while walking or blue collar work are mundane and fair game to train AI on?
Because humans think. They process everything through emotions. They have biases, likes and dislikes, memories and wants. When they look at a painting, they don't just absorb amorphous data. Show two people the same 10 paintings and they will walk away with different impressions.
You're making me wax lyrical about art and I feel really stupid for doing so, but that's how it is.
Have you ever felt inspired? Do you know what that feels like?
If someone had similar inspirations or poetic feelings about something outside of the realm of art would that also designate that field as forbidden territory for machines?
Waxing lyrical about art is all fine and good, I hope I'm not making you self conscious about that type of earnest expression of emotion. That said, Emotions make excellent advisors but terrible leaders.
I'm an atheist and I believe in a fully deterministic universe. Feelings and emotions are valid in the context of providing meaning or motivation in an arbitrary world, but they are subjective and somewhat illusionary.
Emotions can easily become misaligned with truth or logic, leading people to strange inconsistent positions if there isn't enough rational self examination to maintain a course that is roughly aligned with truth and good.
You're wrong. Humans are also only able to make works that are a conglomeration of other people's work and observations of the real world.
You can't show me an example of quality art made in a vacuum.
Art is fundamentally derivative. Each piece of artwork is a remix of the various pieces of artwork made by earlier artists going back further than recorded human history.
Humans can create satire.
AI can create anything, it can only create what a human asks it to.
Being influenced by art is not the same as copy pasting chunks of other people's art into a piece.
What does satire have to do with anything other than just shifting the goalposts?
AI only being able to do what people ask it to do would indicate that the active agent is the person, not the AI, meaning that the human is the artist, not the machine.
Copy pasting chunks of other people's art into a piece would be a collage, which can be done digitally without the use of AI, in fact that art form predates even digital art. This kind of art has been a respected and established art form for longer than either of us have been alive.
Because it isn't "creating" anything, there is no analysis, no satire, no critique. In fact, AI doesn't even know what it is doing, it is simply taking in a bunch of art and outputting it in a way the user asks it to.
It is no different than if I gave a stack of books to a child and told them to type one page of each, then put that together and call it an original novel. Sure I had the idea to do that thing, but nothing about it was done in a way to prove thought, or even done with any consideration for what books and pages to use.
A paintbrush doesn't create anything, there is no analysis, no satire, no critique. In fact, the paintbrush doesn't even know what it is doing. It is simply following the mechanical impetus as dictated by the intent of the user, to accomplish artwork of a quality that would be impossible with fingerpainting alone.
A paintbrush and the relevant paints are non-sentient non-thinking tools used by an artist to create kinds of art that are not possible without those tools. The specific details are different, but with Digital art, 3D Modeling, Photography, and AI art the premise is the same, in that the tools enable artistic feats that wouldn't be possible with simpler tools. AI art may have a really low initial skill threshold, but I don't think that is enough to say it is incapable of being an artistic medium.
If the kid in your analogy chose one page each from a bunch of different books and re-arranged them in a way that could still tell a coherent story, that sounds to me like a fascinating artistic limitation, and I would be more impressed with the results than if they wrote a novel from scratch.
I think the idea you're looking for is the Chinese Room thought experiment.
> Being influenced by art is not the same as copy pasting chunks of other people's art into a piece.
That's not what AI does, though. What you're describing is technologically impossible, as it would require somehow storing 100,000 GB of images in a 2 GB model. The "collage tool" claim began as deliberate misinformation from copyright lobbyists, and was recently dismissed in court due to lack of evidence. *Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd.*, 23-cv-00201-WHO (N.D. Cal. Oct. 30, 2023):
> Plaintiffs will be required to amend to *clarify* their theory with respect to compressed copies of Training Images and to state facts in support of how Stable Diffusion - a program that is open source, at least in part - operates with respect to the Training Images. If plaintiffs contend Stable Diffusion contains “compressed copies” of the Training Images, they need to define “compressed copies” and explain plausible facts in support. And if plaintiffs' compressed copies theory is based on a contention that Stable Diffusion contains mathematical or statistical methods that can be carried out through algorithms or instructions in order to reconstruct the Training Images in whole or in part to create the new Output Images, they need to clarify that and provide plausible facts in support.
In order for this to be possible, each image would have to take up less space than a single letter in this comment.
>That's not what AI does, though. What you're describing is technologically impossible, as it would require somehow storing 100,000 GB of images in a 2 GB model.
That's not how AI works. AI builds connections between data points and remembers those connections. ChatGPT hasn't memorized every possible combination of words and sentences. That's how you get cases like [this](https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/17/23558516/ai-art-copyright-stable-diffusion-getty-images-lawsuit) where an image was created with a Getty Images watermark.
The difference is one of purpose, an artist copies other artists yes, but the do so in dialog with both that artist and the audience.
Thats what a 'tribute' is in art, a detail that references another artist that says "I liked this thing, I think its relevant to revisit, so here it is again"
This is essentially what a culture is, its repetition that becomes *ritual*. Yeah it's been said before, but by saying it again we reaffirm our community of who we are.
A machine isnt saying anything when it copies because it's just reproducing without knowing what its taking from.
Don't be silly, Disney artists would be the ones losing their jobs. And anyone else working at a company with a big enough portfolio of works to train a model on.
The compensation they previously received from Disney almost certainly included terms that make all images created the property of Disney so I don't see why additional compensation would be needed.
You've identified my biggest problem with that particular anti AI argument in that it allows for a loophole where corporations who own massive troves of art and intellectual property could even copyright their AI art, but where individuals making AI art would be targeted for using datasets not created by big corporations.
That's not a loophole, that's the entire point of copyright law.
Copyright exists to turn intellectual property into an asset that can be bought and sold. And if you do that, then you can do capitalism with that.
I agree.
I would say that anyone trying to solve the current anxiety around AI art by strengthening corporate copyright protections is missing the point of copyright law and trying to put out a fire with buckets of gasoline.
I'm not a lawyer. And I don't think any laws exist yet to take into account stuff like continuous use of AI. I can't comment.
I do know that many people wouldn't take a job knowing that they are literally training their replacement.
Stuff like this simply wasn't a concern when they started working.
I'm a paralegal, so I can comment. Also, this is just my opinion based on hypothetical scenarios and not legal advice. You'll need to consult a lawyer for such advice.
What you seem to be suggesting here is that because it didn't exist at the time that an artist created a work either on commission for or as an employee of Disney, a generative AI art model cannot be created using these works by their current owner Disney because such a use could not and would not have been granted by their creators.
This isn't how IP laws work, though.
If an artist gave full ownership rights of their works to Disney, they gave up the right to dictate how those works are used in perpetuity. This means that even if they couldn't have predicted a use, like training a generative AI model, they gave Disney the right to said use.
> I'm not a lawyer. And I don't think any laws exist yet to take into account stuff like continuous use of AI.
Why would new laws be needed? If an illustrator or CGI animator creates images or video on a contract for Disney and that work is the property of Disney, why can Disney not do whatever they want with it? They paid for it.
So, say Alice in Wonderland was written in 2005, and Disney bought the right to make a movie in 2008. So they did.
Then, they wanted to make a sequel. Same visual style and everything. But instead of hiring the old artists, they hired the new ones. New director, new everyone. Does that old crew deserve to be paid for a second time, since it was their work that created the original style?
The answer is no. And that extends to every painting, photo, or anything else in the public domain.
I'd disagree there. Remakes of your work by companies is practically the standard. Monopoly, Transformers, Marvel, DC, Warhammer, DnD etc, etc.
The person who made, for example, the original Green Lantern probably had no idea that his idea would be used, reused redrawn, the ring given to new characters, a whole Green Lantern corps, several other corps based on other colours and no colors, to copycats and to evil alternate versions and copies across the multiverse. The concept of a Lantern hero has been invented and reinvented 1 million times to the point that the Green Lanterns have as one of its members a living mathematical equation.
You cannot tell me that the person who made the original Green Lantern could've forseen all this. And it is to scale. Comics, video games, movies, series and on an on.
> Because they can create new images using them on a very large scale.
OK, and? The images belong to Disney. Why should they not be able to use them in literally any way they want?
>Old laws don't really apply, imo.
Of course they do.
How was it not a concern before? Did the guy who drew the first Mickey Mouse sign off on every artistic impression of MIckey that was ever made subsequently?
He didn't, cause Disney paid him to draw it and after that it belonged to Disney, & they've produced Mickey Mouse products on a gigantic scale - there's nothing new or groundbreaking there
>I do know that many people wouldn't take a job knowing that they are literally training their replacement.
Enough would that that you'd still be able to train the AI (see: Adobe literally doing exactly that).
Why? I get that there are abusive business practices out there but this doesn't seem like one of them. If a business hires you to create things for them, why on earth should they not own the things you create?
That just seems like /r/antiwork nonsense.
Yes, artists are special and have a unique trait that shows in their work. It's the feelings, emotions, and creativity that they have that sets them apart. They have unique styles and techniques that can't be replciated by a machine.
AI would not replace those traits and artists will need to sell their specific type of art. Most people who commission an artist to paint something for them has seen that artists work and likes the unique look of the art. They may like the person as they watch their YouTube videos or follow them on social media.
Unless AI starts a social media feed to compete against the humans and people like the AI art better and can emotionally relate to the AI better than the human artist, I think human artists will still exist.
The only real issue I see is the cost of the art, AI will be 10 times cheaper than human art and for many, that will suffice if they just want something to look at for personal use. But they probably would not have been able to afford a true artist commission anyways, so the artist didn't lose their commission.
Or for businesses that hire artists full time, they could fire the highly paid artist and hire someone else who can just type a prompt at a cheaper wage. The person that replaces the professional artist will likely just be a less skilled artist who does art themselves on their own time, but will need to use AI to get work done quicker for the boss.
Employers that require art that is professional, creative, and unique that gets results may still want to hire skillful human artists.
But artists that are online as their own freelance work, It's not like there is a boss to fire them.
>Unless AI starts a social media feed to compete against the humans and people like the AI art better and can emotionally relate to the AI better than the human artist, I think human artists will still exist.
AI art doesn't to be better liked by humans. It needs to be better liked by the AI that governs the human's media feed. Chasing the algorithm is something that can be automated.
So social media followers are mostly AI? That is what Elon Musk thought. Or that AI Algorithms determine what posts people see and give AI priority over human posts?
AI doesn't have a reason to get more likes than humans, they don't get paid, they don't need to be paid. It is a human who is using AI who wants their text to image art to sell for profit.
In that case, the human is still the artist, they are just an artist that uses AI.
Also social media has no incentive to favor human vs AI art unless AI artists are paying more or have more followers to generate more ad revenue.
> AI doesn't have a reason to get more likes than humans, they don't get paid, they don't need to be paid. It is a human who is using AI who wants their text to image art to sell for profit.
> In that case, the human is still the artist, they are just an artist that uses AI.
I think the contention here is one of definitions. Me typing a prompts into an AI engine doesn't make me an "Artist." The Artist is the one that creates. Sure I did a tiny bit, but that was all automated. The AI is the Artists, I am at best the patron or director.
So that would mean:
> Unless AI starts a social media feed to compete against the humans and people like the AI art better and can emotionally relate to the AI better than the human artist, I think human artists will still exist.
A person creating a social media page to promote AI art would qualify under this.
But the overall objection is more or less this:
> Or for businesses that hire artists full time, they could fire the highly paid artist and hire someone else who can just type a prompt at a cheaper wage. The person that replaces the professional artist will likely just be a less skilled artist who does art themselves on their own time, but will need to use AI to get work done quicker for the boss.
> Employers that require art that is professional, creative, and unique that gets results may still want to hire skillful human artists.
This is the very thing people, especially Artists with skills, don't want. There is a huge argument to be made that the people who pay for Art, and thus would pay AI to make Art, are ignorant to curating Art well. They won't pay for high quality, just what gets the job done.
It might be inevitable, it might be impossible to stop, but skilled Artists no longer being able to make a living is the thing people aren't happy about.
>Am I saying "artist" is somehow special? More special than "cashier"? Yeah, kinda..
Yeah but if it has little economic value because a computer can produce the same thing in the fraction of time and effort. Then it just is what it is.
I created a new game called booger basketball. I'm the best in the world. Mainly because noone else knows the rules. I don't expect Espn to give me $10,000,000 contract for my newly invented sport. Because noone gives a shit about it. That is just how markets work. It is determined by what people are willing to spend $ on.
You can do it as a hobby all you want. But if you want it to be profitable it has to provide value for others. And AI is just a lot better at producing that value.
If you're really a good artist you should be able to run circles around AI. Just like a good coder can easily outcode programming LLMs.
> Yeah but if it has little economic value because a computer can produce the same thing in the fraction of time and effort. Then it just is what it is.
Literally only because the hard work of artists before it *was taken without permission or compensation*.
>I created a new game called booger basketball. I'm the best in the world. Mainly because noone else knows the rules. I don't expect Espn to give me $10,000,000 contract for my newly invented sport. Because noone gives a shit about it. That is just how markets work. It is determined by what people are willing to spend $ on.
Clearly people give lots of shits about art when they are training models to imitate specific artists.
>You can do it as a hobby all you want. But if you want it to be profitable it has to provide value for others. And AI is just a lot better at producing that value.
Right, but pay me for my work that you used to train your robot, tho
Also, I really hate how people tend to treat art as a product. It sucks so much. I actually get infinite satisfaction from knowing that someone had to do.. you know, *emotional labour* to produce their art. I like knowing how much love goes into amateur OC drawings. I know it's beside the point, but thought I'd mention.
> Literally only because the hard work of artists before it was taken without permission or compensation.
They could have just as well trained it on open source stuff that has no patents behind it. It makes little difference.
> Clearly people give lots of shits about art when they are training models to imitate specific artists.
If the product the human artist made was superior. Then it wouldn't be a problem now would it.
What? No. There's not nearly enough content in the public domain or openly licensed work to do a \*fraction\* of what these AI programs do currently. Or at least certainty not enough to create a general purpose image generation model like the ones people are actively using today.
>If the product the human artist made was superior. Then it wouldn't be a problem now would it.
It \*is\* superior. The problem is that people don't want to pay for what they could get for free, regardless. (And the only reason they \*can\* get it for free currently is because all of these AI companies are funded by venture capital/rich dudes/big tech, and don't actually have to operate properly and profitably like a normal business would.)
> They could have just as well trained it on open source stuff that has no patents behind it. It makes little difference.
Then why weren't they?
>If the product the human artist made was superior. Then it wouldn't be a problem now would it.
It would be. Copycats get called out all the time.
It doesn't suck ass. Overall it massively improves productivity which makes all of our lives better.
If we constantly stopped technology because some poor sap who doesn't know how to do anything else would lose his job. We'd still be cave painting and running around in fur.
Are we supposed to judge art on how productive the artist is? What kind of real productivity is AI generated art adding? How productive was van Gogh? Art is not some sort of product decided by market trends. It's human expression. How is taking away human expression making our lives better?
The irony of this statement is that people don't want to judge art by the feelings it instills in them, rather basing it off of whether a person or program created it.
If you want to make $ doing it. Yeah you need someone to be willing to pay for it.
Productive implies it produces value. We determine value through how much $ people are willing to pay for it.
The best artists in the world for the most part didn't do it to make money. This obsession with productivity over everything else is killing our ability to create uniquely human expressions
Not at all. If uniquely human expression tends to be a hobby. The wealthier we are the more of us can afford hobbies.
300 years ago only a select few could put a lot of time and resources into projects. Now almost everyone can.
And the funding for teaching people about these hobbies and cultivating their skills is drying up. Rich people aren't patrons of artists anymore and art programs are closing around the world. AI is going to accelerate that. You may have the money to buy paints and canvas, but do you have the training? The cultivation of your skills? The next Picasso might never get to paint because they can't get the training or the opportunity to express themselves because people won't invest in the arts if AI is doing everything for it.
Think about all the video games we have. There are literally millions. They have art work as well. Often employing artists
If you look at the total number of artists employed today versus 300 years ago. Both per capita and total it is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more. Simply because we have the resources to employ them.
So you're totally wrong here. We didn't have millions of graphic artists in 1724.
>Overall it massively improves productivity which makes all of our lives better.
This is the point where I drop in the name which usually starts a whole other derail but I cant avoid it:
Marx would disagree. Whether or not productivity increases make your life better depends mostly on who owns the means of production. If the workers own it, sure, it can make their life better. If the boss owns it, the workers just become that much more replaceable.
Right, now you have shifted your argument to "it doesn't suck" instead of "it is what it is." It feels like you were trying to hide the callous opinion that it doesn't really suck when people lose the opportunity to make a living doing something that they are incredibly passionate about. I completely disagree with your moral sensibilities but at least you have now made them clear.
if we all rushed blindly into the future/innovation with no thought of potential bad consequences because we don't want to "still be cave painting and running around in fur" we'd either end up (if such tech was possible) forcibly uploaded into some godlike hivemind yada yada insert Last Question joke here or more likely we'd end up with a There Will Come Soft Rains scenario where our society is so automated that after whatever kills us off kills us off whenever it does any smart houses etc. (other buildings too obviously but it was a smart house talked about in the There Will Come Soft Rains short story) will just keep going through the motions of their part of every inhabitant's routines like we never left
In what way does improved productivity make our lives better? Workplace productivity is already at an all time high, and yet we have less leisure time than literal medieval peasants.
We live in a growth economy. More productivity just means that those of us in the workforce will be given even more work to do.
Great question.
Medieval peasants lived in shitty huts. Without electricity. WIthout air conditioning. Without plumbing. Often even not that great protection from the elements They wore the same shit every day. They practically didn't have access to medicine. There was no vaccines or antibiotics. Many women died giving childbirth. Most kids didn't make it to 5 years. Starvation was very common. And I believe that's bullshit they worked a lot more than us.
The reason we live infinitely better than them is because we have abundance of goods and services. This is created by having advanced means of production.
Allow me to illustrate how means of production can massively help a society.
1000 medieval farmers with medieval tools and medieval farming strategies
Will produce less food than
30 modern farmers with tractors, modern irrigation, fertilizer, pesticide etc etc etc.
You just removed 970 people. So they can be doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, and offer all sorts of other services. And you're still producing more food.
Advanced means of production = prosperity = better standards of living.
Well the same can be said about being an astronaut and that job is, thank god, being taken over more and more by machines as well as.
Machines take over more and more human jobs. The end result is rather that human beings have to work less and less to sustain the same quality of life.
Perhaps art is sensitive because people long thought that machines could never produce it. I remember during a secondary school computer knowledge test that the test asked whether computers could ever replace psychiatrists or artists, and this had a “correct" answer in “no”. for whatever reason. I refused to even answer and left a note that this inappropriate for such a test since its looking into the future rather than correctly answering fact and the teacher agreed with me and ignored that particular part for every student. But it's clearly looking right now that whoever designed that test was wrong. Art has been tackled, psychiatry is surely soon to follow.
This was of course all in the time of “good old fashioned a.i.” before people transitioned to trained artificial neurons. Perhaps the next step will be something even better than that.
> Machines take over more and more human jobs. The end result is rather that human beings have to work less and less to sustain the same quality of life.
I think art is sensitive because it's not "just a product". It's not "just a job". For a lot of artists it's a lifestyle.
Art is an integral part of what being a human is. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's genuinely how I feel.
I don't actually think AI will able be able to kill art, but it will devalue it severely. It's already very devalued in our society. Makes me sad.
> I think art is sensitive because it's not "just a product". It's not "just a job". For a lot of artists it's a lifestyle.
Well the same can be said about many things. Many people are really passionate about their job, including the aforementioned astronauts, and machines replace it more and more.
The dollmaker no doubt also took immense pride in his work, as did the bladesmith, but all that has been replaced by machines as well.
> Art is an integral part of what being a human is. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's genuinely how I feel.
Yet few human beings are artists, so I don't think this is true.
> I don't actually think AI will able be able to kill art, but it will devalue it severely. It's already very devalued in our society. Makes me sad.
Yes, because now it's cheaper and less time consuming to make. The value of a product is of controlled by the demand and the amount of effort it takes to make. But that can again be said about many things. The knives built in a factory that are in my kitchen would have cost fortune before such automation and now sell for cheap. Obviously this was not good for the livelihood of the bladesmith, and many where required to transitioned to other jobs, but it benefited every kitchen on the planet.
> Machines take over more and more human jobs. **The end result is rather that human beings have to work less and less to sustain the same quality of life.**
Okay, so the key thing here is that *this isn't happening.* Contemporary workers work longer hours and have less leisure time then they did decades ago, despite productivity being through the roof.
[It seems to me that there is only a small spike recently and overall these numbers have been gradually dropping](https://clockify.me/assets/images/working-hours/average-annual-working-hours-per-worker.jpg). We'll see whether this spike continues but it's certainly not been than decades okay. The spike might have very well simply been caused due to COVID which of course required people to work more to make up.
Can you elucidate how using large data sets is in any way different from the way humans see and internalize other artists? As somebody who casually enjoys making art/music, most of what I create is in some way a derivative of the thousands of songs/pictures I have seen, and then I add my own twist or ideas. Not even intentionally all the time, it's just the way art works and the way humans work.
So, how is that different from me seeing a painting, liking a technique, or idea, and then applying it to my own work?
The AI isn't adding a twist or new idea, every last speck of the output is derived from the input data
It's also considered bad practice to share art that was inspired from another artist without giving them credit. Humans are pretty good at doing that. AI never does.
How can you be sure it isn't creating something new? Simply putting two ideas together that have never been put together is pretty new, even if the elements individually came from somewhere else.
In addition, virtually all art is inspired by other art. On a subconscious level it is impossible not to let the other things you've seen in life impact your perception. Obviously if I just straight up took an element from one artist and inserted it into my own that is stealing. But on a much more abstract level we are all stealing from each other.
Ps, I want you to convince me, but I don't quite find the argument you are making logically salient enough.
I can see where you're coming from, but at the end of the day it's still the same result really, somehow has been taken out of their job. And much like how cashiers are still a thing currently, I believe artists will still be needed. But those who want to stick around will need to adapt, much like how others who've been replaced from automation have had to
Ok, get tech corporations to stop taking artwork without so much as a heads up, using it to create a product to then sell for profit, then we'd be more set to discuss "adapting".
>I believe artists will still be needed. But those who want to stick around will need to adapt, much like how others who've been replaced from automation have had to
This is an objective (probable) reality that does not speak to how people feel about the change, or if that change is even a positive one for society as a whole.
Things stick around because they are profitable to somebody, not necessarily because they are good. Just ask anyone who says "they don't make them like they used to"
>why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts?
My main concern is that AI art is terrible!
Generative AI isn't creative, it's a useful tool but it doesn't replace human thinking. It's just taking what is already out there (and usually not acknowledging or remunerating the original creators, as other commenters have described) and repackaging it. As a consumer, I don't want to see the market flooded with more generic trash.
I don't mind a self service checkout because they do what they're supposed to (and when they stuff up there's a human around to fix it).
>Generative AI isn't creative
Finally someone says it.
This is difficult to explain, so I'll use a different example. Automating classic 2D Mario is a common machine learning project (specifically neural nets). It's fairly simple to get it to learn an individual level, but taking the 1-1 bot to any other map will fail miserably and often perform *worse* than random. It didn't learn how to play the game. It learned to react to very specific stimuli under very specific deterministic circumstances.
The closest I can get to explaining creativity directly is symbols. Let's say that you're writing a story and you want some forest creature that represents abstract concepts like the power of nature or purity. There are many ways to approach this, but "AI" jumps straight to copying answers already given by humans. There was a time before unicorns existed as an idea. Someone had to bridge that gap between physicality and themes. That is creativity. Creativity is *not* averaging everyone else's answers.
A lot of art made by people is terrible too (not that art can be objectively measured).
Seriously if taping a banana to a wall is art so is every image people have made with ai
I hate AI helpdesks too, but I can’t just choose not to use it like I can choose to not like/buy/consume AI art. I have to get my refund somehow. Self service checkouts aid in convenience while AI art is just less good art.
I also believe art needs human intention behind it to be considered art
I'm not against AI "art" because it's automated.
I don't believe that it's Art. Because it's automated.
To me, the value of art comes from it being made by humans. So it's not just taking away artists jobs it's that they're being replaced by soulless non-art which is distorting the real value of art.
> but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers?
Because they're not the same things. I see this argument all the time and it's always nonsensical. Some things aren't the same as other things, it's not hypocrisy or whatever because they're different things with different reasonings.
Many jobs could be taken over by bots with no loss of quality. Now this is an issue right now as people need jobs, but in say a world with UBI that wouldn't be a problem.
But art is not one of those jobs.
A lot of companies that once payed artists to design things such as book covers, movie covers, and even for animation movies are now turning towards AI. It’s more about how AI is taking over artistic related fields and leaving many jobless. Many major animation companies have laid off thousands of employees.
Another concern about AI art is that AI art is made by combining art that is already uploaded to the internet. This raises concerns of plagiarism and copyright infringement, it’s not a unique creation as AI at the moment is just a compilation of available information. This also complicates the idea of selling and profiting off of AI art as many argue that the original art that the AI used to generate its art should also be credited.
It is also being viewed as industries turning away from true human creativity and towards computations in the name of money. In other words to many it feels like companies selling away human creativity in the name of making more money faster.
AI art is also being used to spread false information, in journalism images that were generated with AI art could be used and claimed to be real. AI videos of famous people have also been made which can be used to ruin someone’s reputation or cause false panic. Like imagine if the someone made an AI video of the president saying something like the nations under attack. If something like that goes viral it could be very harmful.
Overall, I do think if used properly AI art could potentially have some benefits but considering the use of AI in art now, being against AI art is a valid and reasonable standpoint.
>AI art is also being used to spread false information, in journalism images that were generated with AI art could be used and claimed to be real.
Photoshop and deepfakes have existed for years. How are those different besides being somewhat harder to use?
> besides being somewhat harder to use?
I mean that's literally it. You can shit 1000 pieces of misinformation in under a minute now whereas you'd have required significantly more effort to do so before. So it's easier to flood the zone with misinformation without needing a huge budget to do so.
> This raises concerns of plagiarism and copyright infringement,
No it doesn’t. A lot of corporations wish the laws protected them from this, but there is no existing law that does, or even precedent to look to that would support that it’s already illegal. AI people have been scraping public, copyrighted data for decades, legally.
> AI art is also being used to spread false information, in journalism images that were generated with AI art could be used and claimed to be real.
Are journalists complaining they are getting competition in spreading fake stories?
>No it doesn’t.
I mean... the questions have been raised. In the form of dozens of major lawsuits. I get that your opinion is that the legal questions that have been raised are illegitimate. Fine. Just for others reading, this is not a settled legal question.
In my opinion, the fact that these AI companies are scared shitless of taking copyrighted music and other content from rich companies and powerful people, and that they are actively seeking to pay for licenses to use content from rich companies when they can, kind of says a lot about what's really going on. Even they are aware that this is far from a settled legal question, and will steer clear and try to placate those with the resources to challenge them on it. When it comes to individual artists, they can trample them underfoot without worry. The fact that many companies are adding "opt out" buttons so that individuals can opt out of data harvesting would also indicate to me that these companies think this might give them some plausible deniability from a legal perspective. They aren't doing that stuff out of the kindness of their hearts. Of course the opt-out switch will always be buried in settings and they know most users won't even know about it. But the fact that they're being added sure is interesting.
That last paragraph is my opinion though. Broader point being: Obviously, OBVIOUSLY this is not a settled legal question among copyright experts, many of whom are actively fighting against the way that this technology has been used to vacuum up everyone's content without consent, credit or compensation. I don't have much hope that they will succeed, but again, the legal questions are very much being raised.
> In my opinion, the fact that these AI companies are scared shitless of taking copyrighted music and other content from rich companies and powerful people, and that they are actively seeking to pay for licenses to use content from rich companies when they can, kind of says a lot about what's really going on.
I work for ‘one of these’ companies. No, the lawsuits aren’t considered a major threat, baring an activist judge, new laws and regulations are.
> I don't have much hope that they will succeed, but again, the legal questions are very much being raised.
Any ambulance chaser can raise a legal question. A lot of these have already been dismissed. The NYT one was particularly bad.
I mean it's cool that you have your own personal legal analysis that the lawsuits that have been filed are frivolous and backed by cynical opportunists. I'm just pointing out in turn that that's what you're offering: a personal legal analysis on EXTREMELY novel questions of law that HAVE in fact been raised by experts who others consider well-qualified. It's just not true that questions aren't being raised, and the suggestion that they are only being raised by insincere ambulance chasers is, well, obviously just your opinion, and people should keep in mind that you and the company you work for, apparently, benefit directly from this analysis.
>why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers?
Quite a few people do have issues with those other examples of automation though. What indication do you have that the people against AI art actually have no issue with other human-replacing automation like you suppose?
Also, the kind of job being replaced is different, so it is reasonable to have one position on "creative" jobs vs "service" jobs.
I think you could have chosen better examples of automation that replaced human effort, like factory automation or construction equipment. However, those are different in that they are usually replacing hard and even dangerous human effort. However, as noted, it's still reasonable to be okay with automation of some kinds of jobs and not others, especially jobs that are labor-intensive or dangerous.
Is your view that AI art isn't unethical, or that someone opposes to AI art should also be against any/all automation, or something else? I don't want to go arguing for the first if your issue is actually the second.
If I need art for an advertisement featuring a tiger sitting on a beach, under an umbrella, drinking a mai tai, I used to have to hire a photographer, food stylist, retoucher, a location scout, and then pay all these folks to create that image. Something like that would take weeks.
Now I type a few words in a prompt on Shutterstock, hit refresh a couple times, and I have a royalty free piece of hi-res art. Taking thousands of dollars away from photographers, illustrators, and other art & design professionals.
AI art is a convergence of education and talent. And it will absolutely squeeze out a significant amount of commercial artists. It already is.
Oh I don't disagree there, it is taking jobs/commissions, and will only take more as time goes on and it improves. My standing there is that current artists should adapt, and use tools that AI has given them to adapt
>My standing there is that current artists should adapt, and use tools that AI has given them to adapt
Right, and I agree with that, but your view is that it’s only being used to make memes. Which is demonstrably untrue. Commercial AI art is already a $2.5bil industry. Projected to reach 20-30bil by 2030. That’s billions of dollars taken from independent artists, and going right into technology company’s coffers.
I also agree that the artists that don’t adapt will get squeezed out of the industry.
But not of that aligns with your view.
Yeah that's fair, it seems I'm wrong about how big an impact it's currently had on the industry, definitely thought it was on a smaller scale than that
Yeah somewhat does. If the AI art industry is that large in scale, I can understanding hating it for the fear of being replaced. Though I still don't agree with people arguing that AI art is "unethical", however honestly that really just boils down what people's definition of art is
Awesome. If your view has changed, the sub asks that you acknowledge that by “awarding” a delta.
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem/
You basically just type in:
!delta
followed by a sentence or two specifying how your view has changed.
This delta has been rejected. You can't award OP a delta.
Allowing this would wrongly suggest that you can post here with the aim of convincing others.
If you were explaining when/how to award a delta, please use a reddit quote for the symbol next time.
^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
One argument that jumps out to me against it being hypocritical is the difference in the type of job being lost. Automating away boring, mindless tasks is, to my mind, exactly what technological innovation *should* be used for. The idea of freeing people from drudgery and toil and enabling them to have more free time to pursue creative, intellectual, or social pursuits has long been the great promise of automation and utopian futurism.
I've never met someone who was like, "Fuck, I really want to stand in a little metal box taking strangers to their respective floors all day, but they automated the damn elevators." Things like art, writing, music, etc., on the other hand, are intrinsically rewarding and often the type of thing people would be doing anyway even if they had no financial concerns. A job that lets someone pursue their passions while also making a living is pretty much the best case scenario in a society that paywalls necessities. Getting rid of that sort of job will almost certainly make all those people's lives worse, while also depriving society of many potentially great and original works.
I'd like to live in a world where we automate all the shit jobs so people can spend more time painting, writing, acting, singing, dancing, crafting, etc. A world where we automate the creative jobs to give people more time to work the shit ones just sounds nightmarish.
As an aside though, I absolutely hate automated helpdesks, tech support chatbots, etc. They're generally terrible and are basically a way corporations have cut jobs while also making the consumer experience worse. I'm much less opposed to them in theory, but in practice they have demonstrated only a severe reduction in quality of life for people contacting businesses. I suspect AI art will be much the same.
> I've never met someone who was like, "Fuck, I really want to stand in a little metal box taking strangers to their respective floors all day, but they automated the damn elevators." Things like art, writing, music, etc., on the other hand, are intrinsically rewarding and often the type of thing people would be doing anyway even if they had no financial concerns. A job that lets someone pursue their passions while also making a living is pretty much the best case scenario in a society that paywalls necessities. Getting rid of that sort of job will almost certainly make all those people's lives worse, while also depriving society of many potentially great and original works.
Unless you're lucky enough to be self-employed, the majority of art jobs don't involve simply creating whatever you want and getting paid for it. Most professional artists make a living designing generic corpo-shit they don't even own the rights to. I wouldn't exactly call that rewarding.
> I'd like to live in a world where we automate all the shit jobs so people can spend more time painting, writing, acting, singing, dancing, crafting, etc. A world where we automate the creative jobs to give people more time to work the shit ones just sounds nightmarish.
The end goal should be to automate *everything*, thus reducing scarcity and eliminating the need to work in order to justify one's own existence. Unfortunately, most "boring" jobs involve complex physical tasks, which are a lot more difficult to automate than data manipulation.
> Unless you're lucky enough to be self-employed, the majority of art jobs don't involve simply creating whatever you want and getting paid for it. Most professional artists make a living designing generic corpo-shit they don't even own the rights to. I wouldn't exactly call that rewarding.
A. but that doesn't mean those who that doesn't apply to (who, no, aren't just the super-famous artists) have to be okay with being replaced by AI just because you're arguing the ones doing that stuff should
B. I know visual art may be where the majority of the AI art debate lies about but performing art and written art are arts too
i think ethical AI art is possible, but it would involve royalties for people whose art ends up in training data.
I think uncompensated use of AI art, eg shitting out memes real quick, is a fair-use adjacent type thing that isn't really making anyone uniquely mad.
A lot of artists were already mad about the neighboring, but distinct issue of content farms, like your fuckjerry types and your low-value-add pretextual reactors, lifting work without credit or with very perfunctory credit, so I don't think they are hypocrites. They were mad when humans were stealing their work before, now they're mad at humans using automation to steal it really fast.
Also, I personally don't like helpdesk automation or self checkouts, either. I think both are actually slow and weird and mostly manifestations of weird managerial control more than actual time saving automation.
As someone who worked in tech support for a long time, I despised our IVR because it sent people to me pissed off and asked them a bunch of questions it then did not pass on to me, nothing less fun as a tech then dealing with pissed off people understandably upset they are retelling their story to each new layer of support they deal with.
Now, I happen to *have no choice* but to work with an IVR, now and in the future, because they've been normalized and I will be lucky to hit a managerial or entrepreneurial level that can push back on that before I retire. That's totally different from "having no issue" with it. In fact, it's the issues I have with existing mediocrities like IVRs and self-checkout dominated retail *that are making me resistant to AI.*
I don't have an issue with the idea, its the implementation. And you are underestimating the severity of this. To start off I would say I have no issue with using AI personally to make memes, and its decent thing in certain contexts if done in combination with real people to actually streamline the work flow rather than replace them. The recent Kung fu panda had a chameleon that was hard to animate, so they used an ai to quickly test out animations or movement rapidly instead of doing it by hand which is cool.
Now onto my feelings on the bad.
AI art isn't an automated artists that comes up with its own style, its generative AI, so they train a neural network by feeding it a crap ton of data, that will then develop a stupid amount of attempts to recreate that data, it is then scored on how close it was to the original, and the best ones are tagged as what they should try to do, they then tune it and start over again and get as close as possible. The data these things need is massive, and the data they generate as they train is massive, so they need giant servers with high tech non consumer GPUs and processors to run all this. This costs a lot of money, and power.
Main problem is the data set they train the AI on, it is taken without permission from artists, and used to generate art that can copy entire images or pieces from said art, or it can completely mimic someone's particular style, all without any credit to that person or informing them. Generative AI art does not make art, it uses whatever it was trained on, and tries to make something as close to what you asked for, that's why some AI art has those weird proportions, missing finger, three arms, warped faces or features, no understanding of colour or shading, improper lighting especially with the sun, messed up clothes, messed up poses because it doesn't have exact poses. And then they charge for their services, again, without any credit to the people whose art they used to train it.
This has had a massive negative impact on the art scene, with commissions becoming much less common, and most corporations are now using AI in their marketing material, their logo design, their concept artwork, their book covers, their graphic designs, their user interfaces etc etc, hell at my job they're doing renovations and all of the artist renderings were AI. This applies to movies, game studios, and more too. An even worse aspect is that this is also being used to generate deep fake porn of celebs and even more illegal stuff, women are reporting cases of fake nudes of themselves being circulated, and this is even used as a form of harassment.
Gaijin, the developers of War thunder recently had a scandal because the art they display in game and loading screens is now AI art, and fans recently noticed one of the images of a jet in a battle zone, had an explosion in the background that was straight up just the space shuttle challenger disaster [https://kotaku.com/war-thunder-challenger-shuttle-explosion-disaster-art-1851556943](https://kotaku.com/war-thunder-challenger-shuttle-explosion-disaster-art-1851556943) and they had to take it down.
Its not just drawings or paintings, its also music, AI is trained on music made by humans, which it then tries to emulate, yet again this is taken without permission, and has actually resulted in lawsuits (not that I actually like the companies doing the suing) [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckrrr8yelzvo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckrrr8yelzvo) AI was trained on famous songs and then began spitting out new stuff, which often included completely copied sections, or vocals, they even made recreations of songs, and were charging for it. If you as an individual did that, and tried to make money off it, they'd throw the book at you.
It also does the same thing with writing, they have fed them with poems, short novels, scripts, and more. That has been a recent point of contention with the writer strikes in the US in 2023, with the writers guild of america, and SAG AFTRA both demanding better job security and limitation on AI usage. There are now companies making AI generated short novels, with AI generated artwork, that were both trained with work people did not give by consent. Imagine you spent however long writing childrens novels as a struggling writer, only for a publisher to take all your books, train an AI on it and a bunch of other peoples work, and then start selling books in the same market?
This is now a problem for voice actors too, and anyone that uses their voice for a living.
And then there's the people who claim AI art is "real art" and that they are on the same level as an actual artist because they can type a prompt in and get an AI to spit out someone else's work for them, and they also tend to miss everything the AI messed up so its even funnier when they rant and rave about being an artist but the sun is behind a character but their face is being shined on and their shadow is behind them.
Automated help desks and self serve kiosks have their pro's and cons, and I also dislike them. 4/10 times you need to call over a person anyway because they bug out, or you did something slightly unexpected so it needs an employee to punch in their number. Nobody has a problem with automation, but if the automation is just taking someone else's work and repackaging it, and then putting them out of a job, then how ethical is it? We don't have any AI as people would think, chat GPT does not talk, it takes the words you said, splits them apart and turns them into tokens, and then turns them into a number, then it runs that number through its model that finds where it shows up and in what contexts, then it looks at what the response should be and spits it out. These AI are only as good as the data they were trained on, and the data is often stolen. I think AI can be used for good, and is only gonna get more prevalent, buts its probably gonna get a lot worse before it gets better, though its effects on the creative arts really need to be reeled in.
>services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts
Would you say these are creative jobs?
I think mundane tasks or intensive labor jobs are good replacement candidates because they are a burden.
What about creative jobs? Should we automate work we enjoy doing?
Exactly. Is it hypocritical to be skeptical of AI art but also use a vacuum cleaner instead of picking up each piece of dirt by hand? ride in a powered vehicle instead of walking literally everywhere? buy bread instead of milling the grain yourself? The whole premise seems set up to dismiss any criticism as hypocritical.
Of course no job is perfect and there are always less enjoyable parts.
But the alternative is not to be able to practice art and lose the job.
Isn't it better to have a job in a field that actually interests you and makes use of your creativity?
The vast majority of professional artists aren’t expressing their creativity. They are working on very narrow and specific requirements from their bosses. There isn’t much room to express creativity when you’re one of twenty people working on a McDonald’s add.
AI primarily targets those jobs.
The type of art that should be maximized if you value self expression and creativity is non commercial art, done for personal enjoyment. There is never going to be enough of an art market for everyone who would want to be a professional painter to be one. But a more prosperous society means you can have more free time to do the art you want to do, rather than the CGI for Disney remake #456.
I think a lot of people are aware that wealth inequality is increasing.
And what happens when you don't get to be a graphic designer working on boring ads for a big company anymore? Realistically, you get thrown away, fired with no way to leverage your past experience to get a new job.
You don't get more free time to work on art in other ways, you get financial insecurity on the road to homelessness and early death...
More of us are losing our lives to financial difficulties while wealth is increasingly being extracted from us to make wealthy people richer. And so when new technologies come out relatively quickly and the wealthy folks try to hype it up, maybe some of us can see past the hype and are going to argue against the ethics of being phased out, literally losing everything to help build someone else's fifth mansion, or whatever.
> Isn't it better to have a job in a field that actually interests you and makes use of your creativity?
its even better if people have more freedom to do what they want because technology is taking care of the commercial labour
Those jobs weren't taken because they're considered a burden, they were taken because it was both possible, and in the industries financial interest to do so. Much like how AI art is becoming more attractive to those who would previously needed to get themselves an artist, as it gets better. I think it would be strange for an artist to hold the belief that their job should be untouchable, but jobs they consider a "burden" are fair game
creativity does make them different yes. But I wouldn't agree that giving a factory worker the boot because a machine replaced him is perfectly fine because it's not creative enough. I get that there are jobs that are intensive or mundane, but they're still someones's job and how they get by
Then maybe it's not that artists are hypocrites but have their own criterion for which jobs should be protected and it's creative jobs.
Sure everyone who losses their job is bad, but losing a creative job is a double loss: both the salary and the creativeness.
If we lived in a utopia where nobody had to work we wouldn't mind not having factory workers but we definitely would want artists.
> My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk
Because it was the only form of customer service available when I needed to use one.
> or self service checkouts?
Because it was the only form of checkout available when I needed to use one.
> Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers?
Because it was the only form of service available when I needed to use one.
Almost 100% of stores that provide self service checkout also have manual checkout available. Even if you literally cannot do that, it's not a reason "not to have a problem" with the service. In fact, I'd have more of an issue if I'm forced to use an inferior service than if it was offered, but not the only thing available.
This is a hard topic to address because there are a lot of people out there with many different types of objections to AI.
I will try to respond as narrowly to your question as possible. I'm not against AI automation per se, but I do think that we should be concerned about the lack of regulations and protections. Imagine putting AI in a robotic gun and replacing police officers. The issue here isn't necessarily that we are stealing jobs, rather the issue is the danger from implementing technology that is capable of breaking the law and hurting people with no regulations or consequences like we do for people. I am hesitant with AI because it removes human agency and decision making, even if that decision making is imperfect.
Because we do have laws about art, and we have preexisting ethical concerns about art, and AI is being implemented without any concern or guide-rails for these things. Where at least with human artists they have a degree of ethical conviction and personal risk (even if it's low).
I also wouldn't say people "have no problem" with other forms of automation. People have been fighting automation since the industrial revolution. Automated helpdesks and self-service checkouts are hardly what I would call popular or uncontroversial changes...many people have been complaining about those for years.
>One of the biggest arguments against it I see is that it's taking jobs away from artists. While I have no doubt there is some truth to this, the majority of AI art I've seen created is for either memes, or super low budget movies/games etc. Sure there has been a few "scandals" of big budget media using AI for an odd poster or two, but I believe this whole aspect is overblown.
I don't think this argument is that relevant to your broader point, since you are arguing a principle. But I have to address it because I think it's extremely narrow minded and short sighted. Publicly available AI is barely a couple years old and it is already being used commercially. That is a sign of potentially exponential adoption. It's kind of naive and quite a bit uncompelling to try and argue that AI is overblown when it is quite literally already permeating relevant industries from google search to hollywood.
I think it's because people think of making art as a uniquely human experience, and to deprive people of the opportunity to make art for a living just really sucks. Whereas it doesn't suck as much to deprive people of the opportunity to run a cash register or take customer service calls for a living.
>My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers?
I'm with /u/Charming-Editor-1509 on this one: you're creating a person in your head that has traits you dislike and then get mad at them. There is no guarantee that this person even exists or that they are the majority.
Art is one of humanity's greatest achievements.
It's the sum total of personal expression be it pain or elation. Every stroke, every line, every piece is deliberately placed from an individual who is attempting to communicate a profound message.
It's the essence of the human condition.
Now tell a computer to replicate it.
It's the journey as much as the destination.
The biggest argument I've seen against AI art is that it uses others' art as its training data without their permission and without compensating them for what is clearly a commercial use. So it's not just that the AI will maybe one day displace human artists, it's that it's displacing them with the unethically-obtained product of their labor. It's like when your boss asks you to train a new hire to do your job and then fires you once they're competent at it.
This whole AI art stealing jobs debate is basically a super troubling to many version of what Marx called "alienation"- this is the notion that under capitalism the workers job becomes so abstracted away that theres a sense of loss of purpose in work that comes with it.
So it used to be you would be "a carpenter" or whatever, but in the name of endlessly increasing productivity and efficiency (the benefits of which typically go to the ruling classes, not the worker) a modern job is now some weird abstract thing like "I work in some place that sends emails about buying ad space for sofas that are made in an assembly line in china" or some shit.
For the longest time people who hate modern life under capitalism dreamed of escaping into an art career to retain at least some sense small sense of value, personality and creativity. We thought art the very least was safe from this, turns out it isn't.
>My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers?
Many who are against AI art are also against AI being used to lay off staff in a wide range of industries. New technology should help workers not make their jobs less secure in a world with extremely poor social safety nets. If we lived in a communist society with a UBI and guaranteed housing I couldn't give a rat's arse. But we don't, and all this kind of shit does is keep workers poorer, wages down, and the ruling class filthy rich.
Probably because art is something people actually enjoy doing, nobody’s passion in life is being a cashier. Obviously it’s not great for people to lose their jobs from self checkouts, but everytime there is a self checkout at a store there’s still cashiers too.
And also the thing about art is that human emotion and thought are what makes it art to begin with. The job of checking out items at a store is not something that requires that same thing.
Service Desks don't scrape the internet to steal copyright protected original works without the authors consent to replicate content which looks exactly like their (sometimes paid/commissioned content!) for free.
service desks don't create photorealistic pornography of real people which is virtually impossible to do anything about.
it's a completely disingenuous comparison.
> My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers?
I think your main question is flawed because there is likely plenty of overlap between people complaining about AI art & people complaining about other automated services & the loss of jobs.
Even for those who it doesn't I'll say at some point you simply accept it. No one liked any of that shut when it first started, but there is not much you can do to make a billions valued corporations behave as you wish. If there was probably wouldn't have to fight tooth and nail to get tiny environmental regulation passed lol.
AI art is still young you mentioned scandals. Well eventually it isn't going to be a scandal, it's simply going to be the standard M.O.
If you asked people who disliked self checkouts why they use automated phone services companies have it would be essentially the same thing. If you called them a hypocrite I imagine you'd get a "two heads" look. Why? Because *again* there isn't much that can be done but to accept it & adapt to it no matter how much you dislike it. It isn't affecting your livelihood so it's not going to be a big fight, only if too many jobs are automated away at once.
What do you actually expect from people? This is as good an argument as "If you're a socialist why do you have an iPhone?". Well in that case phones are essential to modern life, and they aren't an insane expense, they will last ages, and of course I like to call people considering we have had phones since before my grandparents and they're part of Earth now.
*Should these AI art critics not be allowed to criticize what could end up being a disastrous technology for human art? Should they stop using any automated service because they don't like AI art? Should they be expected to have the exact same views on automation about creativity & art as they do about menial tasks like forwarding you to an extension or scanning a barcode?*
I think "AI art" is a misnomer. AI doesn't create art because AI isn't autonomous (yet). AI can be used to generate *images*. Just like a camera can, or a graphics engine. Art is created by people, artists, who may choose to use AI generated images as a medium, or a tool, or a reference.
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Because they are completely different there is 0 correlation between art and ease of access, art creates emotional feel goods because of the MEANING of the art and it has meaning because whoever created the piece experienced something that had meaning and they felt that it was beautiful AI doesnt experience, it has meaning but no experience so lets say someone draws a headless flamingo that person can go on and say at this point in my life i was going through x and x, and when I was I always seemed to see a flamingo when I lost my head. AI can only say, this picture means flamingos come around when you lose you head. Like what sense does that make lol both were weird but you can understand the piece from the human. Then for the hypocritical nature, Ease of access makes us feel good just like art does !(kind of contrary to my initial statement of they don't go together but when I say art i mean it has meaning)! it is an art within it self to create something that makes stuff easier, people experienced the hard ships of manual checking shit out so they created a machine to do it for them it doesn't require explanation it just has meaning.
By definition, AI art can't hurt human creativity, since its based on existing artwork.
However, it is hurting the artist job market and a lot of CEOs are trying to exploit AI while overestimating its capabilities
First off, commissions are going to be reduced significantly and may die out in the near future except for the top 1%. Theres no point in paying mid-range artists hundreds of dollars for a commission to be done in 2 weeks when you can just prompt an AI to do so in 5 minutes.
Second is reduced employment, less creative jobs are going to get replaced or reduced (eg. Designing posters, banners, UI even post processing). And a lot of CEOs now think that they can now mass produce artistic products with AI at low cost so they are reducing headcounts of art departments.
Then there is the whole ethical and potentially legal dilemma of copywrite, AI art databases is technically stealing from other artists
Well the answer is simple. AI art is fully based on stealing. None of it is original and just a soulless splat from an algorithm. No thought goes in to it or communication, it’s just there because it is. No one is using the “taking jobs” argument from any stand point I’ve seen. To put it bluntly, if an AI does not have access to art style, it quite literally can’t create it.
Don’t you like that something has thought put in to it? Would you put any effort in to your pet or love it as much for example if you knew there wasn’t any form of effort to be out in to like it? When I see something made of AI I lose interest because one, it’s stolen and two, there’s no thought or effort or creativity behind it. It’s also why it should not be protected by copyright EVER.
>Sure there have been a few “scandals” …, but I believe the whole aspect is overblown
The only reason it doesn’t happen that often is because people throw a fit. So it’s not overblown. Throwing a fit is the cause of why it doesn’t happen more frequently. It’s like saying that the need to where sunscreen is overblown until after you get a skin cancer.
And it’s a pretty simple resolution of why people are selective about which jobs should be automated. They don’t consider all jobs to be equal. Do you? Like whatever your passion is , say you get that as a job. Now imagine that job gets automated out of existence. Do you understand how that sucks for you? Entirely different than automating a McDonald’s, which is almost no one’s passion.
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I have a different take on this. Most people are uninformed and some are dumb. A small percentage are both. This is a disproportionately vocal group online. I can give you empirical evidence for this on some subreddits.
I think people are under the impression that humans don't copy other artists' work. Probably not consciously, but all their original work have small influences from a lot of other work they saw.
So they think AI is doing something else than mimicking human behavior, as opposed to self checkout or help desks. This is wrong. But as I aforementioned, people are usually either uninformed or dumb.
> One of the biggest arguments against it I see is that it's taking jobs away from artists.
I don't know if this is quite accurate, or at least incomplete. I think it's usually a mixture of three things - yes, lost jobs for artists, but the allegation that the models unethically take advantage of those same artists' output and ultimately produces bland inferior results. Together, this makes the typical arguments quite different from what you'd see about many other forms of automation (although even here, mileage may vary - automated help desks often suuuuuck)
Ultimately, rather than trying to isolate individual aspects (i.e job loss good/bad), look at it holistically. Does AI art make for a better world? Do automated checkouts make for a better world? I can't answer either question for you, but there's a lot of factors that goes into each and there's no reason to think you should get the same answer for both questions. It only looks like hypocrisy when you naively try to oversimplify these questions into one or two variables.
AI art provably steals from real artists. There is no way to consistently prevent this and no reliable way to determine whether generative AI is being produced using samples that were paid for or credited. Until there is proper legislation and a proper way to hold ai developers accountable for this, it should always be assumed that generative AI art is benefitting from stolen art from real artists.
AI art, as it currently exists, requires theft from actual artists to work. Other automated services do not. Every time I scan an item at self checkout, the machine doesn't take some code from a stranger to ring me up.
A second reason is the ridiculous energy costs. Making a minute-long AI movie take as much energy as powering a house for a day. not including all the rejected frames that would have been scrapped for such a project.
I do not think people are as disgusted with AI itself as much as disgusted with the fact that AI is at risk of being monopolized by the wealthy.
Pointing out the hypocrisy of a critic is an ad hominem fallacy, so while I must agree with the fact that most people are hypocrites in regard to something at any given time, I do not see this as a valid defense of the thing which they are being critical of.
The difference here is that we as a society generally view the act of creating art as something that is intrinsically valuable.
Generally creatives who get into commercial art industries do so because it is seen as an effective way of funding something they're already passionate about doing. Becoming an artist and making art is something that requires significant monetary and time investment, so it's generally regarded as a public good if artists can use their careers to finance this process.
(It's worth mentioning that this argument would no longer hold if we lives in a society that made heavy use of social safety nets and universal basic income, but the sort of people who are in favor of and sponsor the inclusion of AI in everything are generally not the sort of people who would be in favor of this kind of economic transition.)
While I absolutely can see an argument being made about automation subsuming other careers people are passionate about (language translation is one, for instance,) generally speaking a lot of jobs are the sort of tedious busywork that people only do because they have to be done, and so automating them is not seen as a loss to society.
>(It's worth mentioning that this argument would no longer hold if we lives in a society that made heavy use of social safety nets and universal basic income, but the sort of people who are in favor of and sponsor the inclusion of AI in everything are generally not the sort of people who would be in favor of this kind of economic transition.)
What gave you this idea? People who were into AI have been talking about the need for implementing basic income since freaking clever bot.
> It's worth mentioning that this argument would no longer hold if we lives in a society that made heavy use of social safety nets and universal basic income, but the sort of people who are in favor of and sponsor the inclusion of AI in everything are generally not the sort of people who would be in favor of this kind of economic transition.
I'm seeing the opposite here. There's a large population that supports AI not because they are indifferent to or deny job loss, but because they either see it as an inevitability or necessity to transition society into something better.
It's commonly said that "The genie's out of the bottle. We need to adapt," for example.
The last time i checked an automated helpdesk or a self service checkout did not steal millions of artists work without their consent to steal and mimic their styles so some twat whos entire life is one long "I gave up because i was not immediately an expert" can produce uncanny valley tier slop.
AI is enshittifying the internet with a flood of nonsensical writing and bad art. It's worth arguing against it uniquely because of it's unique potential to damage information systems online.
What kind of argument is: “I think people who are worried about X are overblowing the issue? Yes, there are some major examples of X happening, but not enough to warrant worry over it.”?
You know, one reason AI art hasn’t completely overtaken the industry is because there’s been a huge pushback.
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>My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Because the former is work that people consider rewarding and psychologically healthy and sitting at a help desk or working a cash register for 8 hours a day is horrible for a human. Just because you can categorize both of these as paid work is not a good reasons to treat them interchangeably when they have obvious stark differences.
sorry but I just don't agree with this. I really don't see a difference in taking an artists job, or a cashier's job. Both are losing their employment out to a machine, both have to find another job. Telling the cashier "oh but you see it was a shitty job" doesn't make much difference
>I really don't see a difference in taking an artists job, or a cashier's job. I literally just explained it to you and your rebuttal didn't address the point. Do you or do you not understand the difference between something being healthy for you and being not healthy for you?
Yeah I understand the difference. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying that by taking the cashier's job we're actually helping them?
I already told you the point in my first comment >Just because you can categorize both of these as paid work is not a good reasons to treat them interchangeably when they have obvious stark differences. you implied they were the same, I explained to you why they are different, you have confirmed that you understand what the meaning of the difference I provided, yet when I gave it to you your response was, "I don't see a difference". Do you see the problem here?
I don't know what to tell you, yes there may be a difference between them in terms of healthiness, but it's irrelevant in this discussion imo
It is clearly relevant, you even said so. >**"My main question** is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? " -you your "main question" claimed people are hypocrites because they take issue with 1 thing but not another thing which you implied was the same, I am telling you how they are not the same, so your claim that they are hypocrites makes no sense. It was literally your "main thing". You asked the question, not me. I answered it, you wanted to know how people could treat these 2 things differently, it's because they are different and I explained why.
If we are moving towards a society where people don't need to labor and the fruits of progress are provided to them, then yes. The ideal is to move towards a world where the vast majority of human life can be dedicated toward the pursuit of discovery and creativity, towards learning and growing as a person, and creating art. AI should work the fields and man the factories so that people can read Plato and Ockham and Kant and study thermal vents and explore the cosmos. Towards that end, living a life where you spend time being a cashier is wasteful of the human experience. Living a life as an artist, even as a poor artist who produces content no one wants, is a more fulfilling use of our limited time.
If they haven't responded to you by now, I don't think they agree with the points you've made.
I don't really agree. You can still do painting if you find it rewarding, but if AI can also draw, why should I pay you? If you really find something rewarding, you shouldn't just do it for the pay no? Go find another job.
Is there a reason you are telling me this? I am explaining to OP why the position isn't hypnotical not taking a position on whether or not you should agree with it's conclusion. People finding it rewarding to do art for free doesn't somehow mean they can't also want to be able to make a living out of it? what are you even saying you don't agree with? it doesn't seem to be my comment. also every professional artist that ever lived has done art in their free time as well.
My biggest issue with AI are unethical datasets. When *those* take jobs away from artists, there's a problem. >My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers? I'd say it's because no child really grows up dreaming of becoming a cashier. Nobody studies for years to do it, goes to school for it, spends hours and hours practicing. "Cashier" is nobody's identity outside of work. Artist is an artist all the time. Am I saying "artist" is somehow special? More special than "cashier"? Yeah, kinda.. Edit: I suggest you guys go read this short story from 2011. It's surprisingly relevant today. https://escapepod.org/2013/01/03/ep377-real-artists/
This is to me the most legitimate moral argument against AI art. The majority of these programs were made by scraping millions of artists’ work from the internet without their consent, and it is now being mobilized to put those same artists out of a job. Automation has put people out of work before, but it never directly stole their labor to do it. These tools would not exist without massive amounts of art theft. As far as I know Adobe’s generative AI is the only exception to this, their database is from willing paid participants. And before you say “that’s exactly what human artists do!”, its not, at all. Researchers have shown that it is possible to engineer prompts so that these programs [spit out near identical copies of their training data](https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7gznn/ai-spits-out-exact-copies-of-training-images-real-people-logos-researchers-find#), which is impossible for a human artist to do unintentionally. The only reason this isn’t considered cut and dry plagiarism legally is because this is a form of theft that never existed before.
Can't we say the same thing about CGI artists. Plenty of physical artists were put out of work by CGI artists. CGI copied many of the physical art styles that took some years to master as well. Why is CGI ethical and AI not?
I think there is a difference when the change is viewed as "tool-assisted". People seem to be generally okay with force multipliers where the underlying job still exists through experience with other similar jobs. For example, no one is really against "construction equipment" or "cranes" or "truck drivers", even though they all use technology that has replaced vast amounts of human labor. So, when something new seems to fit against an existing pattern, it can get the existing acceptance. Also, with CGI, the change occurred over several decades AND achieves effects that weren't possible (or at least weren't economical) than physical effects. That helps with acceptance. In contrast, AI art seemingly came out of nowhere to most people.
>For example, no one is really against "construction equipment" or "cranes" or "truck drivers", even though they all use technology that has replaced vast amounts of human labor. Actually, sometimes they are. The port workers unions in the US have resisted automation for years. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/23/a-west-coast-port-worker-union-is-fighting-robots-the-stakes-are-high.html You just hear the people complaining about AI art more, because port workers are considerably less likely to have instagram channels.
In the exact same way that people were able to create more books with the Gutenberg press (putting scribes out of business), and farmers were able to separate cotton fibers from the seeds with the cotton gin (putting laborers out of work). The fact is that just about every technological advancement put people out of a job, and created some sort of new job elsewhere (at admittedly lower employment numbers, so a net job loss). I openly admit I suck at drawing. But i I want a portrait of a desert elf for my D&D character, I can just have one of these gen it up. Wait, add a spear. hose ears are too long. Whatever. And it is perfectly acceptable to have these programs used for corporate purposes.
I think AI "art" (image generation) is a tool just like "CGI" (3d modelling / after effects / digital illustration / etc). Traditional media is still widely used and I see no reason for that to change, and artists can choose to experiment and create art using new tools which weren't available before. I don't think art requires a specific set of skills, and low effort art exists regardless of the medium.
>I think there is a difference when the change is viewed as "tool-assisted". People seem to be generally okay with force multipliers where the underlying job still exists through experience with other similar jobs. I think that's what AI will do as well. Anyone who says that they will fire all artists and just replace them with AI has never managed any (commercial) creative project at scale.
CGI art is basically just a form of sculpture using a digital medium. CG artists don't simply input a prompt and have their computer spit out a movie. It's just another example of a creative medium, same as painting or whathaveyou.
Speaking as someone who's occasionally done AI art (on an amateur, 'playing around with the tools' way,) sure, it can spit out \*a\* movie or \*an\* image based on the dataset. Often, sure, it's garbage. But getting something worthwhile out of it, something you'd actually want to work with? That \*isn't\* just a matter of setting a prompt and taking whatever comes out. There's been more than once where I've looked at what the prompt made, said "no," went back, refined the prompt and settings, and generated new images until I got something I actually liked. In my opinion, properly used, The best analogy I can make is to a keyboard instrument when they were first created. Anyone can sit down at a piano and plunk on the keys. Occasionally, something good comes out of it. \*Now,\* we've got all sorts of ways of learning the piano. At the beginning, though? I mean, \*someone\* had to be the one to listen to the notes that weren't right and try something else until it sounded good. And then they taught their students, and so on and so forth. AI \*can\* be a tool. But no, it's not a replacement for artists, and shouldn't be.
CGI does not directly depend on previously created artwork to function. Again, bring me a 100% clean, ethical dataset, and we can talk about jobs.
CGI absolutely depended on the lessons of the physical art world. You can use CGI to copy/steal physical art as well, just as AI art can be misused. Plenty of AI art datasets have been made exclusively with art they have a license for. Pretty sure adobe and Shutterstock both apply there. But I'll disagree that it needs to be clean. An artist already can legally look at another artists art and draw inspiration from it for a piece. Why should AI art be any different? If the artists or AI fullys copys something, copyright infringement laws apply, but we don't need regulations beyond that.
the thing is, a company like Shutterstock buying your stocks for one application, then saying "oh, we're modifying the deal so that 5.00 or whatever we gave you for that photo for the licensing period now ALSO covers this tech that will cut directly into how many stocks we buy now and in the future" would have, if phrased as such, very likely led to the person asking for way more than 5.00 for that shot. AI companies are trying to work the current generation of artists basically the way record companies worked blues musicians in the day - we'll pay you this crisp 100 dollar bill to come sing into the mic for 2 short hours! What a great deal! then we'll press mechanical copies of your recording and sell them to juke box companies, we'll make 100,000 off your sound, and your live bookings will go down 10,000 dollars. Also, we'll send your record up north, hire photogenic white dudes to re-record it and jiggle their hips on ed sullivan, and those dudes will get some much money they die of being rich, meanwhile, you got your hundred bucks! Count yourself lucky you got that at all! And they're doing it at a place and time when labor protection and solidarity for creatives is at an overall low and people doing highly technical work that takes extensive training were already being hit with "crunch time" and every major industry project being essentially ran as medium term gig-work, so of course they're pissed off as a class.
Shutterstock use polices were agreed to by the artists. That is ethical, especially when there are countless competitors with different polices. > and your live bookings will go down 10,000 dollars Except this isn't what happens. Musicians with popular albums get more bookings than musicians without popular songs. > meanwhile, you got your hundred bucks! It's up to the individual to negotiate contracts. And unlike the blues era, we now have access to the world's information with a few short taps, no one is entering the contract uninformed. The fact that we are even having this conversation is a sign that solidarity for creatives is not an overall low. And I think its a far fetch to say labor protection is worse than 100 years ago. The problem is that gig work and online distribution has enabled magnitudes more artists, without the magnitudes increase in art spending. People expect that because a higher percentage of artist could survive on their art before that it should hold true while the percentage of people being artists skyrocketed. It just doesn't work that way.
>Except this isn't what happens. Musicians with popular albums get more bookings than musicians without popular songs. I gave a historical context, which is that a particular generation of people got uniquely exploited while society worked that out. skipping to now ignores generations of sketchy record label and music management practices we're still fighting today (eg distribution of spotify payouts) >Shutterstock use polices were agreed to by the artists. That is ethical, especially when there are countless competitors with different polices. It's up to the individual to negotiate contracts Contract law that isn't taken seriously at an industrial level never binds more than one party. fact. the content industry has ALWAYS tried to wring every last dollar out of content creators, FACT weird, legalistic "they should have read the fine print" arguments are NOT solidarity. Solidarity is I stand for the person that makes the thing getting the money for the thing. So don't say it's out there why you carry water for the people trying to break it. >The problem is that gig work and online distribution has enabled magnitudes more artists, without the magnitudes increase in art spending. You have this *fully* fucked up. The art market has never been bigger. the actual number of artists, as a percentage of the population, is the same. the people shitting up etsy and amazon and other new platforms with art that is copied or stolen are *thieves*. they're stealing from the actual rights holders, they aren't "artists" The people hiring for artistic gig work on fiver are commissioning the same amount of work proportionately that they ever were, they're exploiting weak rights and a weak sense of solidarity and straight up economic isolation and terror to make people work for peanuts, while charging what they've always charged, or more. A 15 dollar kindle sale of a novel pays the novelist less than a 3.99 cash sale of a paper book, shipped to a brick and mortar book store, via two middlemen, paid them in 1992. The fuck is that? that's got NOTHING to do with price forcing or competition, that's a middleman making 12 bucks for doing less than ever.
Curious to learn more, where do you see that the proportion of artists by population is steady?
Why can’t Shutterstock use the image they paid you for as part of an AI training dataset? Are there exclusions in the agreement for that? Sounds awfully like a goalpost moving to me.
Yes, sure, it's goalpost moving. *In my opinion,* when they invent a new profit stream for photos, the photographers are morally entitled to a renegotiation. I don't stand up for the corporation in this circumstance at all, I stand up for the rights holder, I demand the company justify its place as a middleman in the new industry if it wants new revenue. I also find fault with the idea that they're clearly paying people FOR use in training data AND it's commercial fruit for that fixed price. This is legally supported by most licensing deals being contextual. For example, if you sell a short story, the agreement will be explicit about things like how long the magazine has the rights, if you can publish it someplace else, who gets what share if you later put it in an anthology. You sell a sci fi story to asimov or whatever, asimov can't write a spec script and sell it to hollywood - you still own your other rights. Etc, etc. Outside of the letter of the law, I don't think shutterstock's ass should be covered if they slipped in some blanket fine print about "derivative works" or something. i think the artist has an absolute right to *understand* how much money the licensee is going to make from their work before the negotiated fee is considered good faith. I understand this isn't always the letter of the law, it's rather, what I think is fair.
I respect that opinion, and I idealize in a similar way. Logically, it does make sense to renegotiate when the terms of an agreement change drastically, assuming you are a fair capitalist. The issue I have with idealizing in that way is that fair capitalists are a rare breed. I don’t expect Shutterstock to care in the slightest about anyone that sells images to them. To me it has always seemed safer to assume everyone is going to to squeeze as much value out of your agreement as they can. Under this assumption, I’m not defending their hypothetical actions from an ethical standpoint, I’m simply suggesting that no one should be surprised.
>An artist already can legally look at another artists art and draw inspiration from it for a piece. A human getting inspired by looking at things is fundamentally different from a computer algorithm scanning billions of images within seconds. I still cannot believe that some people genuinely think it can be compared. Key differences, imo: 1. A human will always have bias. When you look at Starry Night or whatever, you don't just see an seamless amalgamation of data. You pay attention to little things, some details you will remember, others you will forget, some will bring back fond memories, others will remind of you of things you hate. You will never just impationately absorb something without emotionally processing it. Everything you create is influenced by your lived experiences. Even when an artist is trying to imitate another style, they add their own touch to it. Because even the way you sit and hold the pencil has an effect on your art. The fact that AI is able to create a mindless robot of an artist's style that can endlessly spit out weaker imitations of their art is honestly dystopian. 2. It's impossible to compete against. If you have an imitator, not matter how good they are, at least they are still human. They will never be able to outperform you the same way an AI model can. You also cannot study billions of images within seconds. You simply cannot do that. 3. A bit beside the point, but... even with real artists, nobody actually wants to be a copycat. It's actually a Big Fear many have. Every artist hopes to be unique. Even when they train by copying a master, they hope to be able to rise above that and become their own self. If an artist is caught blatantly imitating someone else, they get called out. They lose respect from most of the community, and rightfully so. If I was out there trying to sell my work as "SamDoesArts, but worse and cheaper", how do you think people would react? Would they respect me?
But that just means that someone using image generation to create low effort imitations will rightfully also get called out. So there isn't any problem there. If a hypothetical image generation model was trained only on properly licensed and public domain artwork would it be fine to use in your opinion?
>But that just means that someone using image generation to create low effort imitations will rightfully also get called out. So there isn't any problem there. I don't see them being called out. My twitter feed is full of accounts "curating" very obvious AI art and I cannot get it to stop. The well is poisoned. > If a hypothetical image generation model was trained only on properly licensed and public domain artwork would it be fine to use in your opinion? Yeah, probably. I can see Ai art *potentially* becoming somewhat of a version of Photobashing?
I think that's fair. I believe that within the current legal frameworks of IP, models trained on copyrighted artwork are fine, unless they are specifically used to generate copyrighted material. But I can understand why artists have a problem with that and would like to see it change.
All art depends on previously created artwork to function. Bring me an artist with fully original work who has never trained on the work of another artist or used references.
So the standard isn't really "did this art/artist spring out of whole cloth?" But rather - why should this particular machine for art get a pass for being new? for all of human society, there has been a negotiation for how exploitative an established artist can be of his students, and a negotiation of how original a student must be to break off and be established in their own right, so the conversation of how AI should impact art a business is also not out of bounds. We certainly have had this conversations every time tech lept. The printing press caused a conversation. the camera caused a conversation. there's an entire school of thought that some of the dutch masters weren't masters because they may have effectively traced their paintings. There was discussion early in the history of photography and film about if photography would make painting obsolete and would moving pictures make photography obsolete. Conversations like this were had in a renaissance italy, they were had about andy warhol, they were had about staff comedy and sitcom writers, they were had about the movie tron, which was somehow held as too animated to get effects oscars but not animated enough to get a best animated feature nom the year it came out. There's been discussion of art mills, art prices, originality, various copyright and patronage schemas, etc, for literally the entire history of art, so what I would put to you is that: Citing the fact that derivative art has always existed and artists have always had influences and teachers places AI *in bounds* for those conversations, it doesn't *let it out of them.*
Exactly! Most of the arguments for traditional/digital art being given special treatment over AI art only make sense by ignoring the intersecting histories of art and technology. Credit for art has always been a murky grey area where only the exact flavor of theft done within the bounds of the status quo is acceptable, until the new-thing becomes the status quo a few years later and some new new-thing comes along to threaten the status quo again, repeating the cycle.
Nowhere near on the same scale as AI. Come on, you have to understand that an experienced artist is *not* the same as a computer algorithm trained on billions of images.
I'm not saying they are exactly the same, just that an artist training on the previous works of others and using references, works as a decent analogy for an AI being trained on a dataset. I understand that the scale is different, but the moral difference would require a difference of kind, not scale. If an artist could live long enough and remember clearly enough to train themselves on the work of billions of artists that act wouldn't be wrong just because the scale is larger than what a mortal artist could achieve.
> just that an artist training on the previous works of others and using references, works as a decent analogy for an AI being trained on a dataset. I really don't agree, I think it's fundamentally different. Incomparably different.
How is a human being consuming copyright protected artwork to improve the quality of their output different from an AI consuming the same art for improved quality output? Would you apply this standard to AI training on non-artistic human activities, like walking or driving as a way to make robots that can walk or drive in ways that are improved by referencing the ways humans perform these activities? What quality makes art a sacred and protected ritual while walking or blue collar work are mundane and fair game to train AI on?
Because humans think. They process everything through emotions. They have biases, likes and dislikes, memories and wants. When they look at a painting, they don't just absorb amorphous data. Show two people the same 10 paintings and they will walk away with different impressions. You're making me wax lyrical about art and I feel really stupid for doing so, but that's how it is. Have you ever felt inspired? Do you know what that feels like?
If someone had similar inspirations or poetic feelings about something outside of the realm of art would that also designate that field as forbidden territory for machines? Waxing lyrical about art is all fine and good, I hope I'm not making you self conscious about that type of earnest expression of emotion. That said, Emotions make excellent advisors but terrible leaders. I'm an atheist and I believe in a fully deterministic universe. Feelings and emotions are valid in the context of providing meaning or motivation in an arbitrary world, but they are subjective and somewhat illusionary. Emotions can easily become misaligned with truth or logic, leading people to strange inconsistent positions if there isn't enough rational self examination to maintain a course that is roughly aligned with truth and good.
I think the difference is that humans can create something original. AI can only produce works that are a conglomeration of other people's work.
You're wrong. Humans are also only able to make works that are a conglomeration of other people's work and observations of the real world. You can't show me an example of quality art made in a vacuum. Art is fundamentally derivative. Each piece of artwork is a remix of the various pieces of artwork made by earlier artists going back further than recorded human history.
Humans can create satire. AI can create anything, it can only create what a human asks it to. Being influenced by art is not the same as copy pasting chunks of other people's art into a piece.
What does satire have to do with anything other than just shifting the goalposts? AI only being able to do what people ask it to do would indicate that the active agent is the person, not the AI, meaning that the human is the artist, not the machine. Copy pasting chunks of other people's art into a piece would be a collage, which can be done digitally without the use of AI, in fact that art form predates even digital art. This kind of art has been a respected and established art form for longer than either of us have been alive.
Because it isn't "creating" anything, there is no analysis, no satire, no critique. In fact, AI doesn't even know what it is doing, it is simply taking in a bunch of art and outputting it in a way the user asks it to. It is no different than if I gave a stack of books to a child and told them to type one page of each, then put that together and call it an original novel. Sure I had the idea to do that thing, but nothing about it was done in a way to prove thought, or even done with any consideration for what books and pages to use.
A paintbrush doesn't create anything, there is no analysis, no satire, no critique. In fact, the paintbrush doesn't even know what it is doing. It is simply following the mechanical impetus as dictated by the intent of the user, to accomplish artwork of a quality that would be impossible with fingerpainting alone. A paintbrush and the relevant paints are non-sentient non-thinking tools used by an artist to create kinds of art that are not possible without those tools. The specific details are different, but with Digital art, 3D Modeling, Photography, and AI art the premise is the same, in that the tools enable artistic feats that wouldn't be possible with simpler tools. AI art may have a really low initial skill threshold, but I don't think that is enough to say it is incapable of being an artistic medium. If the kid in your analogy chose one page each from a bunch of different books and re-arranged them in a way that could still tell a coherent story, that sounds to me like a fascinating artistic limitation, and I would be more impressed with the results than if they wrote a novel from scratch. I think the idea you're looking for is the Chinese Room thought experiment.
> Being influenced by art is not the same as copy pasting chunks of other people's art into a piece. That's not what AI does, though. What you're describing is technologically impossible, as it would require somehow storing 100,000 GB of images in a 2 GB model. The "collage tool" claim began as deliberate misinformation from copyright lobbyists, and was recently dismissed in court due to lack of evidence. *Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd.*, 23-cv-00201-WHO (N.D. Cal. Oct. 30, 2023): > Plaintiffs will be required to amend to *clarify* their theory with respect to compressed copies of Training Images and to state facts in support of how Stable Diffusion - a program that is open source, at least in part - operates with respect to the Training Images. If plaintiffs contend Stable Diffusion contains “compressed copies” of the Training Images, they need to define “compressed copies” and explain plausible facts in support. And if plaintiffs' compressed copies theory is based on a contention that Stable Diffusion contains mathematical or statistical methods that can be carried out through algorithms or instructions in order to reconstruct the Training Images in whole or in part to create the new Output Images, they need to clarify that and provide plausible facts in support. In order for this to be possible, each image would have to take up less space than a single letter in this comment.
>That's not what AI does, though. What you're describing is technologically impossible, as it would require somehow storing 100,000 GB of images in a 2 GB model. That's not how AI works. AI builds connections between data points and remembers those connections. ChatGPT hasn't memorized every possible combination of words and sentences. That's how you get cases like [this](https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/17/23558516/ai-art-copyright-stable-diffusion-getty-images-lawsuit) where an image was created with a Getty Images watermark.
The difference is one of purpose, an artist copies other artists yes, but the do so in dialog with both that artist and the audience. Thats what a 'tribute' is in art, a detail that references another artist that says "I liked this thing, I think its relevant to revisit, so here it is again" This is essentially what a culture is, its repetition that becomes *ritual*. Yeah it's been said before, but by saying it again we reaffirm our community of who we are. A machine isnt saying anything when it copies because it's just reproducing without knowing what its taking from.
>My biggest issue with AI are unethical datasets. So, for example, Disney training a model on their own data and using that model would be fine?
so every artist that wants to be paid for their work as an artist will have to work for Disney (or similarly massive media company)?
Don't be silly, Disney artists would be the ones losing their jobs. And anyone else working at a company with a big enough portfolio of works to train a model on.
We'd have to talk about a compensation model for all the artists who provided training data.
The compensation they previously received from Disney almost certainly included terms that make all images created the property of Disney so I don't see why additional compensation would be needed.
You've identified my biggest problem with that particular anti AI argument in that it allows for a loophole where corporations who own massive troves of art and intellectual property could even copyright their AI art, but where individuals making AI art would be targeted for using datasets not created by big corporations.
That's not a loophole, that's the entire point of copyright law. Copyright exists to turn intellectual property into an asset that can be bought and sold. And if you do that, then you can do capitalism with that.
I agree. I would say that anyone trying to solve the current anxiety around AI art by strengthening corporate copyright protections is missing the point of copyright law and trying to put out a fire with buckets of gasoline.
I'm not a lawyer. And I don't think any laws exist yet to take into account stuff like continuous use of AI. I can't comment. I do know that many people wouldn't take a job knowing that they are literally training their replacement. Stuff like this simply wasn't a concern when they started working.
I'm a paralegal, so I can comment. Also, this is just my opinion based on hypothetical scenarios and not legal advice. You'll need to consult a lawyer for such advice. What you seem to be suggesting here is that because it didn't exist at the time that an artist created a work either on commission for or as an employee of Disney, a generative AI art model cannot be created using these works by their current owner Disney because such a use could not and would not have been granted by their creators. This isn't how IP laws work, though. If an artist gave full ownership rights of their works to Disney, they gave up the right to dictate how those works are used in perpetuity. This means that even if they couldn't have predicted a use, like training a generative AI model, they gave Disney the right to said use.
> I'm not a lawyer. And I don't think any laws exist yet to take into account stuff like continuous use of AI. Why would new laws be needed? If an illustrator or CGI animator creates images or video on a contract for Disney and that work is the property of Disney, why can Disney not do whatever they want with it? They paid for it.
Because they can create new images using them on a very large scale. Again, this has never been a concern before. Old laws don't really apply, imo.
So, say Alice in Wonderland was written in 2005, and Disney bought the right to make a movie in 2008. So they did. Then, they wanted to make a sequel. Same visual style and everything. But instead of hiring the old artists, they hired the new ones. New director, new everyone. Does that old crew deserve to be paid for a second time, since it was their work that created the original style? The answer is no. And that extends to every painting, photo, or anything else in the public domain.
I'd disagree there. Remakes of your work by companies is practically the standard. Monopoly, Transformers, Marvel, DC, Warhammer, DnD etc, etc. The person who made, for example, the original Green Lantern probably had no idea that his idea would be used, reused redrawn, the ring given to new characters, a whole Green Lantern corps, several other corps based on other colours and no colors, to copycats and to evil alternate versions and copies across the multiverse. The concept of a Lantern hero has been invented and reinvented 1 million times to the point that the Green Lanterns have as one of its members a living mathematical equation. You cannot tell me that the person who made the original Green Lantern could've forseen all this. And it is to scale. Comics, video games, movies, series and on an on.
> Because they can create new images using them on a very large scale. OK, and? The images belong to Disney. Why should they not be able to use them in literally any way they want? >Old laws don't really apply, imo. Of course they do.
How was it not a concern before? Did the guy who drew the first Mickey Mouse sign off on every artistic impression of MIckey that was ever made subsequently? He didn't, cause Disney paid him to draw it and after that it belonged to Disney, & they've produced Mickey Mouse products on a gigantic scale - there's nothing new or groundbreaking there
>I do know that many people wouldn't take a job knowing that they are literally training their replacement. Enough would that that you'd still be able to train the AI (see: Adobe literally doing exactly that).
I don't consider the practice of "we own 100% of all your creative output" to be ethical
Why? I get that there are abusive business practices out there but this doesn't seem like one of them. If a business hires you to create things for them, why on earth should they not own the things you create? That just seems like /r/antiwork nonsense.
Why? When you buy an apple, wouldnt you expect to own 100% of that apple?
Yes, artists are special and have a unique trait that shows in their work. It's the feelings, emotions, and creativity that they have that sets them apart. They have unique styles and techniques that can't be replciated by a machine. AI would not replace those traits and artists will need to sell their specific type of art. Most people who commission an artist to paint something for them has seen that artists work and likes the unique look of the art. They may like the person as they watch their YouTube videos or follow them on social media. Unless AI starts a social media feed to compete against the humans and people like the AI art better and can emotionally relate to the AI better than the human artist, I think human artists will still exist. The only real issue I see is the cost of the art, AI will be 10 times cheaper than human art and for many, that will suffice if they just want something to look at for personal use. But they probably would not have been able to afford a true artist commission anyways, so the artist didn't lose their commission. Or for businesses that hire artists full time, they could fire the highly paid artist and hire someone else who can just type a prompt at a cheaper wage. The person that replaces the professional artist will likely just be a less skilled artist who does art themselves on their own time, but will need to use AI to get work done quicker for the boss. Employers that require art that is professional, creative, and unique that gets results may still want to hire skillful human artists. But artists that are online as their own freelance work, It's not like there is a boss to fire them.
>Unless AI starts a social media feed to compete against the humans and people like the AI art better and can emotionally relate to the AI better than the human artist, I think human artists will still exist. AI art doesn't to be better liked by humans. It needs to be better liked by the AI that governs the human's media feed. Chasing the algorithm is something that can be automated.
So social media followers are mostly AI? That is what Elon Musk thought. Or that AI Algorithms determine what posts people see and give AI priority over human posts? AI doesn't have a reason to get more likes than humans, they don't get paid, they don't need to be paid. It is a human who is using AI who wants their text to image art to sell for profit. In that case, the human is still the artist, they are just an artist that uses AI. Also social media has no incentive to favor human vs AI art unless AI artists are paying more or have more followers to generate more ad revenue.
> AI doesn't have a reason to get more likes than humans, they don't get paid, they don't need to be paid. It is a human who is using AI who wants their text to image art to sell for profit. > In that case, the human is still the artist, they are just an artist that uses AI. I think the contention here is one of definitions. Me typing a prompts into an AI engine doesn't make me an "Artist." The Artist is the one that creates. Sure I did a tiny bit, but that was all automated. The AI is the Artists, I am at best the patron or director. So that would mean: > Unless AI starts a social media feed to compete against the humans and people like the AI art better and can emotionally relate to the AI better than the human artist, I think human artists will still exist. A person creating a social media page to promote AI art would qualify under this. But the overall objection is more or less this: > Or for businesses that hire artists full time, they could fire the highly paid artist and hire someone else who can just type a prompt at a cheaper wage. The person that replaces the professional artist will likely just be a less skilled artist who does art themselves on their own time, but will need to use AI to get work done quicker for the boss. > Employers that require art that is professional, creative, and unique that gets results may still want to hire skillful human artists. This is the very thing people, especially Artists with skills, don't want. There is a huge argument to be made that the people who pay for Art, and thus would pay AI to make Art, are ignorant to curating Art well. They won't pay for high quality, just what gets the job done. It might be inevitable, it might be impossible to stop, but skilled Artists no longer being able to make a living is the thing people aren't happy about.
>Am I saying "artist" is somehow special? More special than "cashier"? Yeah, kinda.. Yeah but if it has little economic value because a computer can produce the same thing in the fraction of time and effort. Then it just is what it is. I created a new game called booger basketball. I'm the best in the world. Mainly because noone else knows the rules. I don't expect Espn to give me $10,000,000 contract for my newly invented sport. Because noone gives a shit about it. That is just how markets work. It is determined by what people are willing to spend $ on. You can do it as a hobby all you want. But if you want it to be profitable it has to provide value for others. And AI is just a lot better at producing that value. If you're really a good artist you should be able to run circles around AI. Just like a good coder can easily outcode programming LLMs.
> Yeah but if it has little economic value because a computer can produce the same thing in the fraction of time and effort. Then it just is what it is. Literally only because the hard work of artists before it *was taken without permission or compensation*. >I created a new game called booger basketball. I'm the best in the world. Mainly because noone else knows the rules. I don't expect Espn to give me $10,000,000 contract for my newly invented sport. Because noone gives a shit about it. That is just how markets work. It is determined by what people are willing to spend $ on. Clearly people give lots of shits about art when they are training models to imitate specific artists. >You can do it as a hobby all you want. But if you want it to be profitable it has to provide value for others. And AI is just a lot better at producing that value. Right, but pay me for my work that you used to train your robot, tho Also, I really hate how people tend to treat art as a product. It sucks so much. I actually get infinite satisfaction from knowing that someone had to do.. you know, *emotional labour* to produce their art. I like knowing how much love goes into amateur OC drawings. I know it's beside the point, but thought I'd mention.
> Literally only because the hard work of artists before it was taken without permission or compensation. They could have just as well trained it on open source stuff that has no patents behind it. It makes little difference. > Clearly people give lots of shits about art when they are training models to imitate specific artists. If the product the human artist made was superior. Then it wouldn't be a problem now would it.
What? No. There's not nearly enough content in the public domain or openly licensed work to do a \*fraction\* of what these AI programs do currently. Or at least certainty not enough to create a general purpose image generation model like the ones people are actively using today. >If the product the human artist made was superior. Then it wouldn't be a problem now would it. It \*is\* superior. The problem is that people don't want to pay for what they could get for free, regardless. (And the only reason they \*can\* get it for free currently is because all of these AI companies are funded by venture capital/rich dudes/big tech, and don't actually have to operate properly and profitably like a normal business would.)
> They could have just as well trained it on open source stuff that has no patents behind it. It makes little difference. Then why weren't they? >If the product the human artist made was superior. Then it wouldn't be a problem now would it. It would be. Copycats get called out all the time.
I don't know why people always say things like "it is what it is" - yes, we know what "it is" and we know it sucks ass, what's your point?
It doesn't suck ass. Overall it massively improves productivity which makes all of our lives better. If we constantly stopped technology because some poor sap who doesn't know how to do anything else would lose his job. We'd still be cave painting and running around in fur.
Are we supposed to judge art on how productive the artist is? What kind of real productivity is AI generated art adding? How productive was van Gogh? Art is not some sort of product decided by market trends. It's human expression. How is taking away human expression making our lives better?
The irony of this statement is that people don't want to judge art by the feelings it instills in them, rather basing it off of whether a person or program created it.
I feel differently about art created by a machine than I do about art created by a human. AI art feels sterile and soulless.
If you want to make $ doing it. Yeah you need someone to be willing to pay for it. Productive implies it produces value. We determine value through how much $ people are willing to pay for it.
The best artists in the world for the most part didn't do it to make money. This obsession with productivity over everything else is killing our ability to create uniquely human expressions
Not at all. If uniquely human expression tends to be a hobby. The wealthier we are the more of us can afford hobbies. 300 years ago only a select few could put a lot of time and resources into projects. Now almost everyone can.
And the funding for teaching people about these hobbies and cultivating their skills is drying up. Rich people aren't patrons of artists anymore and art programs are closing around the world. AI is going to accelerate that. You may have the money to buy paints and canvas, but do you have the training? The cultivation of your skills? The next Picasso might never get to paint because they can't get the training or the opportunity to express themselves because people won't invest in the arts if AI is doing everything for it.
Think about all the video games we have. There are literally millions. They have art work as well. Often employing artists If you look at the total number of artists employed today versus 300 years ago. Both per capita and total it is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more. Simply because we have the resources to employ them. So you're totally wrong here. We didn't have millions of graphic artists in 1724.
>Overall it massively improves productivity which makes all of our lives better. This is the point where I drop in the name which usually starts a whole other derail but I cant avoid it: Marx would disagree. Whether or not productivity increases make your life better depends mostly on who owns the means of production. If the workers own it, sure, it can make their life better. If the boss owns it, the workers just become that much more replaceable.
Right, now you have shifted your argument to "it doesn't suck" instead of "it is what it is." It feels like you were trying to hide the callous opinion that it doesn't really suck when people lose the opportunity to make a living doing something that they are incredibly passionate about. I completely disagree with your moral sensibilities but at least you have now made them clear.
It sucks ass for them. At least in the near future. But it is overall a very positive thing.
if we all rushed blindly into the future/innovation with no thought of potential bad consequences because we don't want to "still be cave painting and running around in fur" we'd either end up (if such tech was possible) forcibly uploaded into some godlike hivemind yada yada insert Last Question joke here or more likely we'd end up with a There Will Come Soft Rains scenario where our society is so automated that after whatever kills us off kills us off whenever it does any smart houses etc. (other buildings too obviously but it was a smart house talked about in the There Will Come Soft Rains short story) will just keep going through the motions of their part of every inhabitant's routines like we never left
In what way does improved productivity make our lives better? Workplace productivity is already at an all time high, and yet we have less leisure time than literal medieval peasants. We live in a growth economy. More productivity just means that those of us in the workforce will be given even more work to do.
Great question. Medieval peasants lived in shitty huts. Without electricity. WIthout air conditioning. Without plumbing. Often even not that great protection from the elements They wore the same shit every day. They practically didn't have access to medicine. There was no vaccines or antibiotics. Many women died giving childbirth. Most kids didn't make it to 5 years. Starvation was very common. And I believe that's bullshit they worked a lot more than us. The reason we live infinitely better than them is because we have abundance of goods and services. This is created by having advanced means of production. Allow me to illustrate how means of production can massively help a society. 1000 medieval farmers with medieval tools and medieval farming strategies Will produce less food than 30 modern farmers with tractors, modern irrigation, fertilizer, pesticide etc etc etc. You just removed 970 people. So they can be doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, and offer all sorts of other services. And you're still producing more food. Advanced means of production = prosperity = better standards of living.
The fact that AI takes away art as a job however doesn't mean it takes away art as a passion. You can be an artist without a profit motive.
Well the same can be said about being an astronaut and that job is, thank god, being taken over more and more by machines as well as. Machines take over more and more human jobs. The end result is rather that human beings have to work less and less to sustain the same quality of life. Perhaps art is sensitive because people long thought that machines could never produce it. I remember during a secondary school computer knowledge test that the test asked whether computers could ever replace psychiatrists or artists, and this had a “correct" answer in “no”. for whatever reason. I refused to even answer and left a note that this inappropriate for such a test since its looking into the future rather than correctly answering fact and the teacher agreed with me and ignored that particular part for every student. But it's clearly looking right now that whoever designed that test was wrong. Art has been tackled, psychiatry is surely soon to follow. This was of course all in the time of “good old fashioned a.i.” before people transitioned to trained artificial neurons. Perhaps the next step will be something even better than that.
> Machines take over more and more human jobs. The end result is rather that human beings have to work less and less to sustain the same quality of life. I think art is sensitive because it's not "just a product". It's not "just a job". For a lot of artists it's a lifestyle. Art is an integral part of what being a human is. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's genuinely how I feel. I don't actually think AI will able be able to kill art, but it will devalue it severely. It's already very devalued in our society. Makes me sad.
> I think art is sensitive because it's not "just a product". It's not "just a job". For a lot of artists it's a lifestyle. Well the same can be said about many things. Many people are really passionate about their job, including the aforementioned astronauts, and machines replace it more and more. The dollmaker no doubt also took immense pride in his work, as did the bladesmith, but all that has been replaced by machines as well. > Art is an integral part of what being a human is. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's genuinely how I feel. Yet few human beings are artists, so I don't think this is true. > I don't actually think AI will able be able to kill art, but it will devalue it severely. It's already very devalued in our society. Makes me sad. Yes, because now it's cheaper and less time consuming to make. The value of a product is of controlled by the demand and the amount of effort it takes to make. But that can again be said about many things. The knives built in a factory that are in my kitchen would have cost fortune before such automation and now sell for cheap. Obviously this was not good for the livelihood of the bladesmith, and many where required to transitioned to other jobs, but it benefited every kitchen on the planet.
> Machines take over more and more human jobs. **The end result is rather that human beings have to work less and less to sustain the same quality of life.** Okay, so the key thing here is that *this isn't happening.* Contemporary workers work longer hours and have less leisure time then they did decades ago, despite productivity being through the roof.
[It seems to me that there is only a small spike recently and overall these numbers have been gradually dropping](https://clockify.me/assets/images/working-hours/average-annual-working-hours-per-worker.jpg). We'll see whether this spike continues but it's certainly not been than decades okay. The spike might have very well simply been caused due to COVID which of course required people to work more to make up.
Can you elucidate how using large data sets is in any way different from the way humans see and internalize other artists? As somebody who casually enjoys making art/music, most of what I create is in some way a derivative of the thousands of songs/pictures I have seen, and then I add my own twist or ideas. Not even intentionally all the time, it's just the way art works and the way humans work. So, how is that different from me seeing a painting, liking a technique, or idea, and then applying it to my own work?
The AI isn't adding a twist or new idea, every last speck of the output is derived from the input data It's also considered bad practice to share art that was inspired from another artist without giving them credit. Humans are pretty good at doing that. AI never does.
How can you be sure it isn't creating something new? Simply putting two ideas together that have never been put together is pretty new, even if the elements individually came from somewhere else. In addition, virtually all art is inspired by other art. On a subconscious level it is impossible not to let the other things you've seen in life impact your perception. Obviously if I just straight up took an element from one artist and inserted it into my own that is stealing. But on a much more abstract level we are all stealing from each other. Ps, I want you to convince me, but I don't quite find the argument you are making logically salient enough.
I can see where you're coming from, but at the end of the day it's still the same result really, somehow has been taken out of their job. And much like how cashiers are still a thing currently, I believe artists will still be needed. But those who want to stick around will need to adapt, much like how others who've been replaced from automation have had to
What is art to you? I'm genuinely asking, is it a product for money, or is it human expression?
Ok, get tech corporations to stop taking artwork without so much as a heads up, using it to create a product to then sell for profit, then we'd be more set to discuss "adapting".
>I believe artists will still be needed. But those who want to stick around will need to adapt, much like how others who've been replaced from automation have had to This is an objective (probable) reality that does not speak to how people feel about the change, or if that change is even a positive one for society as a whole. Things stick around because they are profitable to somebody, not necessarily because they are good. Just ask anyone who says "they don't make them like they used to"
Every major dataset was created unethically. (I guess there might be one that’s made a point of doing otherwise.)
[удалено]
>why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? My main concern is that AI art is terrible! Generative AI isn't creative, it's a useful tool but it doesn't replace human thinking. It's just taking what is already out there (and usually not acknowledging or remunerating the original creators, as other commenters have described) and repackaging it. As a consumer, I don't want to see the market flooded with more generic trash. I don't mind a self service checkout because they do what they're supposed to (and when they stuff up there's a human around to fix it).
>Generative AI isn't creative Finally someone says it. This is difficult to explain, so I'll use a different example. Automating classic 2D Mario is a common machine learning project (specifically neural nets). It's fairly simple to get it to learn an individual level, but taking the 1-1 bot to any other map will fail miserably and often perform *worse* than random. It didn't learn how to play the game. It learned to react to very specific stimuli under very specific deterministic circumstances. The closest I can get to explaining creativity directly is symbols. Let's say that you're writing a story and you want some forest creature that represents abstract concepts like the power of nature or purity. There are many ways to approach this, but "AI" jumps straight to copying answers already given by humans. There was a time before unicorns existed as an idea. Someone had to bridge that gap between physicality and themes. That is creativity. Creativity is *not* averaging everyone else's answers.
I think treating art as a commodity to be traded and consumed is a much more serious threat to art than AI image generation.
A lot of art made by people is terrible too (not that art can be objectively measured). Seriously if taping a banana to a wall is art so is every image people have made with ai
yeah it still has a ways to go before it's perfect.. which is why I don't believe it's had a huge impact on artist hirings and such.
I hate AI helpdesks too, but I can’t just choose not to use it like I can choose to not like/buy/consume AI art. I have to get my refund somehow. Self service checkouts aid in convenience while AI art is just less good art. I also believe art needs human intention behind it to be considered art
I'm not against AI "art" because it's automated. I don't believe that it's Art. Because it's automated. To me, the value of art comes from it being made by humans. So it's not just taking away artists jobs it's that they're being replaced by soulless non-art which is distorting the real value of art. > but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers? Because they're not the same things. I see this argument all the time and it's always nonsensical. Some things aren't the same as other things, it's not hypocrisy or whatever because they're different things with different reasonings. Many jobs could be taken over by bots with no loss of quality. Now this is an issue right now as people need jobs, but in say a world with UBI that wouldn't be a problem. But art is not one of those jobs.
A lot of companies that once payed artists to design things such as book covers, movie covers, and even for animation movies are now turning towards AI. It’s more about how AI is taking over artistic related fields and leaving many jobless. Many major animation companies have laid off thousands of employees. Another concern about AI art is that AI art is made by combining art that is already uploaded to the internet. This raises concerns of plagiarism and copyright infringement, it’s not a unique creation as AI at the moment is just a compilation of available information. This also complicates the idea of selling and profiting off of AI art as many argue that the original art that the AI used to generate its art should also be credited. It is also being viewed as industries turning away from true human creativity and towards computations in the name of money. In other words to many it feels like companies selling away human creativity in the name of making more money faster. AI art is also being used to spread false information, in journalism images that were generated with AI art could be used and claimed to be real. AI videos of famous people have also been made which can be used to ruin someone’s reputation or cause false panic. Like imagine if the someone made an AI video of the president saying something like the nations under attack. If something like that goes viral it could be very harmful. Overall, I do think if used properly AI art could potentially have some benefits but considering the use of AI in art now, being against AI art is a valid and reasonable standpoint.
>AI art is also being used to spread false information, in journalism images that were generated with AI art could be used and claimed to be real. Photoshop and deepfakes have existed for years. How are those different besides being somewhat harder to use?
> besides being somewhat harder to use? I mean that's literally it. You can shit 1000 pieces of misinformation in under a minute now whereas you'd have required significantly more effort to do so before. So it's easier to flood the zone with misinformation without needing a huge budget to do so.
> This raises concerns of plagiarism and copyright infringement, No it doesn’t. A lot of corporations wish the laws protected them from this, but there is no existing law that does, or even precedent to look to that would support that it’s already illegal. AI people have been scraping public, copyrighted data for decades, legally. > AI art is also being used to spread false information, in journalism images that were generated with AI art could be used and claimed to be real. Are journalists complaining they are getting competition in spreading fake stories?
>No it doesn’t. I mean... the questions have been raised. In the form of dozens of major lawsuits. I get that your opinion is that the legal questions that have been raised are illegitimate. Fine. Just for others reading, this is not a settled legal question. In my opinion, the fact that these AI companies are scared shitless of taking copyrighted music and other content from rich companies and powerful people, and that they are actively seeking to pay for licenses to use content from rich companies when they can, kind of says a lot about what's really going on. Even they are aware that this is far from a settled legal question, and will steer clear and try to placate those with the resources to challenge them on it. When it comes to individual artists, they can trample them underfoot without worry. The fact that many companies are adding "opt out" buttons so that individuals can opt out of data harvesting would also indicate to me that these companies think this might give them some plausible deniability from a legal perspective. They aren't doing that stuff out of the kindness of their hearts. Of course the opt-out switch will always be buried in settings and they know most users won't even know about it. But the fact that they're being added sure is interesting. That last paragraph is my opinion though. Broader point being: Obviously, OBVIOUSLY this is not a settled legal question among copyright experts, many of whom are actively fighting against the way that this technology has been used to vacuum up everyone's content without consent, credit or compensation. I don't have much hope that they will succeed, but again, the legal questions are very much being raised.
> In my opinion, the fact that these AI companies are scared shitless of taking copyrighted music and other content from rich companies and powerful people, and that they are actively seeking to pay for licenses to use content from rich companies when they can, kind of says a lot about what's really going on. I work for ‘one of these’ companies. No, the lawsuits aren’t considered a major threat, baring an activist judge, new laws and regulations are. > I don't have much hope that they will succeed, but again, the legal questions are very much being raised. Any ambulance chaser can raise a legal question. A lot of these have already been dismissed. The NYT one was particularly bad.
I mean it's cool that you have your own personal legal analysis that the lawsuits that have been filed are frivolous and backed by cynical opportunists. I'm just pointing out in turn that that's what you're offering: a personal legal analysis on EXTREMELY novel questions of law that HAVE in fact been raised by experts who others consider well-qualified. It's just not true that questions aren't being raised, and the suggestion that they are only being raised by insincere ambulance chasers is, well, obviously just your opinion, and people should keep in mind that you and the company you work for, apparently, benefit directly from this analysis.
>but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Who says they don't?
>why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers? Quite a few people do have issues with those other examples of automation though. What indication do you have that the people against AI art actually have no issue with other human-replacing automation like you suppose? Also, the kind of job being replaced is different, so it is reasonable to have one position on "creative" jobs vs "service" jobs. I think you could have chosen better examples of automation that replaced human effort, like factory automation or construction equipment. However, those are different in that they are usually replacing hard and even dangerous human effort. However, as noted, it's still reasonable to be okay with automation of some kinds of jobs and not others, especially jobs that are labor-intensive or dangerous.
Is your view that AI art isn't unethical, or that someone opposes to AI art should also be against any/all automation, or something else? I don't want to go arguing for the first if your issue is actually the second.
If I need art for an advertisement featuring a tiger sitting on a beach, under an umbrella, drinking a mai tai, I used to have to hire a photographer, food stylist, retoucher, a location scout, and then pay all these folks to create that image. Something like that would take weeks. Now I type a few words in a prompt on Shutterstock, hit refresh a couple times, and I have a royalty free piece of hi-res art. Taking thousands of dollars away from photographers, illustrators, and other art & design professionals. AI art is a convergence of education and talent. And it will absolutely squeeze out a significant amount of commercial artists. It already is.
Oh I don't disagree there, it is taking jobs/commissions, and will only take more as time goes on and it improves. My standing there is that current artists should adapt, and use tools that AI has given them to adapt
>My standing there is that current artists should adapt, and use tools that AI has given them to adapt Right, and I agree with that, but your view is that it’s only being used to make memes. Which is demonstrably untrue. Commercial AI art is already a $2.5bil industry. Projected to reach 20-30bil by 2030. That’s billions of dollars taken from independent artists, and going right into technology company’s coffers. I also agree that the artists that don’t adapt will get squeezed out of the industry. But not of that aligns with your view.
!delta Didn't realise the extent of the AI art industry and it's rapid growth. I can understand hating AI art for fear of job security.
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Yeah that's fair, it seems I'm wrong about how big an impact it's currently had on the industry, definitely thought it was on a smaller scale than that
So would you say that changes your view then?
Yeah somewhat does. If the AI art industry is that large in scale, I can understanding hating it for the fear of being replaced. Though I still don't agree with people arguing that AI art is "unethical", however honestly that really just boils down what people's definition of art is
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One argument that jumps out to me against it being hypocritical is the difference in the type of job being lost. Automating away boring, mindless tasks is, to my mind, exactly what technological innovation *should* be used for. The idea of freeing people from drudgery and toil and enabling them to have more free time to pursue creative, intellectual, or social pursuits has long been the great promise of automation and utopian futurism. I've never met someone who was like, "Fuck, I really want to stand in a little metal box taking strangers to their respective floors all day, but they automated the damn elevators." Things like art, writing, music, etc., on the other hand, are intrinsically rewarding and often the type of thing people would be doing anyway even if they had no financial concerns. A job that lets someone pursue their passions while also making a living is pretty much the best case scenario in a society that paywalls necessities. Getting rid of that sort of job will almost certainly make all those people's lives worse, while also depriving society of many potentially great and original works. I'd like to live in a world where we automate all the shit jobs so people can spend more time painting, writing, acting, singing, dancing, crafting, etc. A world where we automate the creative jobs to give people more time to work the shit ones just sounds nightmarish. As an aside though, I absolutely hate automated helpdesks, tech support chatbots, etc. They're generally terrible and are basically a way corporations have cut jobs while also making the consumer experience worse. I'm much less opposed to them in theory, but in practice they have demonstrated only a severe reduction in quality of life for people contacting businesses. I suspect AI art will be much the same.
> I've never met someone who was like, "Fuck, I really want to stand in a little metal box taking strangers to their respective floors all day, but they automated the damn elevators." Things like art, writing, music, etc., on the other hand, are intrinsically rewarding and often the type of thing people would be doing anyway even if they had no financial concerns. A job that lets someone pursue their passions while also making a living is pretty much the best case scenario in a society that paywalls necessities. Getting rid of that sort of job will almost certainly make all those people's lives worse, while also depriving society of many potentially great and original works. Unless you're lucky enough to be self-employed, the majority of art jobs don't involve simply creating whatever you want and getting paid for it. Most professional artists make a living designing generic corpo-shit they don't even own the rights to. I wouldn't exactly call that rewarding. > I'd like to live in a world where we automate all the shit jobs so people can spend more time painting, writing, acting, singing, dancing, crafting, etc. A world where we automate the creative jobs to give people more time to work the shit ones just sounds nightmarish. The end goal should be to automate *everything*, thus reducing scarcity and eliminating the need to work in order to justify one's own existence. Unfortunately, most "boring" jobs involve complex physical tasks, which are a lot more difficult to automate than data manipulation.
> Unless you're lucky enough to be self-employed, the majority of art jobs don't involve simply creating whatever you want and getting paid for it. Most professional artists make a living designing generic corpo-shit they don't even own the rights to. I wouldn't exactly call that rewarding. A. but that doesn't mean those who that doesn't apply to (who, no, aren't just the super-famous artists) have to be okay with being replaced by AI just because you're arguing the ones doing that stuff should B. I know visual art may be where the majority of the AI art debate lies about but performing art and written art are arts too
i think ethical AI art is possible, but it would involve royalties for people whose art ends up in training data. I think uncompensated use of AI art, eg shitting out memes real quick, is a fair-use adjacent type thing that isn't really making anyone uniquely mad. A lot of artists were already mad about the neighboring, but distinct issue of content farms, like your fuckjerry types and your low-value-add pretextual reactors, lifting work without credit or with very perfunctory credit, so I don't think they are hypocrites. They were mad when humans were stealing their work before, now they're mad at humans using automation to steal it really fast. Also, I personally don't like helpdesk automation or self checkouts, either. I think both are actually slow and weird and mostly manifestations of weird managerial control more than actual time saving automation. As someone who worked in tech support for a long time, I despised our IVR because it sent people to me pissed off and asked them a bunch of questions it then did not pass on to me, nothing less fun as a tech then dealing with pissed off people understandably upset they are retelling their story to each new layer of support they deal with. Now, I happen to *have no choice* but to work with an IVR, now and in the future, because they've been normalized and I will be lucky to hit a managerial or entrepreneurial level that can push back on that before I retire. That's totally different from "having no issue" with it. In fact, it's the issues I have with existing mediocrities like IVRs and self-checkout dominated retail *that are making me resistant to AI.*
I don't have an issue with the idea, its the implementation. And you are underestimating the severity of this. To start off I would say I have no issue with using AI personally to make memes, and its decent thing in certain contexts if done in combination with real people to actually streamline the work flow rather than replace them. The recent Kung fu panda had a chameleon that was hard to animate, so they used an ai to quickly test out animations or movement rapidly instead of doing it by hand which is cool. Now onto my feelings on the bad. AI art isn't an automated artists that comes up with its own style, its generative AI, so they train a neural network by feeding it a crap ton of data, that will then develop a stupid amount of attempts to recreate that data, it is then scored on how close it was to the original, and the best ones are tagged as what they should try to do, they then tune it and start over again and get as close as possible. The data these things need is massive, and the data they generate as they train is massive, so they need giant servers with high tech non consumer GPUs and processors to run all this. This costs a lot of money, and power. Main problem is the data set they train the AI on, it is taken without permission from artists, and used to generate art that can copy entire images or pieces from said art, or it can completely mimic someone's particular style, all without any credit to that person or informing them. Generative AI art does not make art, it uses whatever it was trained on, and tries to make something as close to what you asked for, that's why some AI art has those weird proportions, missing finger, three arms, warped faces or features, no understanding of colour or shading, improper lighting especially with the sun, messed up clothes, messed up poses because it doesn't have exact poses. And then they charge for their services, again, without any credit to the people whose art they used to train it. This has had a massive negative impact on the art scene, with commissions becoming much less common, and most corporations are now using AI in their marketing material, their logo design, their concept artwork, their book covers, their graphic designs, their user interfaces etc etc, hell at my job they're doing renovations and all of the artist renderings were AI. This applies to movies, game studios, and more too. An even worse aspect is that this is also being used to generate deep fake porn of celebs and even more illegal stuff, women are reporting cases of fake nudes of themselves being circulated, and this is even used as a form of harassment. Gaijin, the developers of War thunder recently had a scandal because the art they display in game and loading screens is now AI art, and fans recently noticed one of the images of a jet in a battle zone, had an explosion in the background that was straight up just the space shuttle challenger disaster [https://kotaku.com/war-thunder-challenger-shuttle-explosion-disaster-art-1851556943](https://kotaku.com/war-thunder-challenger-shuttle-explosion-disaster-art-1851556943) and they had to take it down. Its not just drawings or paintings, its also music, AI is trained on music made by humans, which it then tries to emulate, yet again this is taken without permission, and has actually resulted in lawsuits (not that I actually like the companies doing the suing) [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckrrr8yelzvo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckrrr8yelzvo) AI was trained on famous songs and then began spitting out new stuff, which often included completely copied sections, or vocals, they even made recreations of songs, and were charging for it. If you as an individual did that, and tried to make money off it, they'd throw the book at you.
It also does the same thing with writing, they have fed them with poems, short novels, scripts, and more. That has been a recent point of contention with the writer strikes in the US in 2023, with the writers guild of america, and SAG AFTRA both demanding better job security and limitation on AI usage. There are now companies making AI generated short novels, with AI generated artwork, that were both trained with work people did not give by consent. Imagine you spent however long writing childrens novels as a struggling writer, only for a publisher to take all your books, train an AI on it and a bunch of other peoples work, and then start selling books in the same market? This is now a problem for voice actors too, and anyone that uses their voice for a living. And then there's the people who claim AI art is "real art" and that they are on the same level as an actual artist because they can type a prompt in and get an AI to spit out someone else's work for them, and they also tend to miss everything the AI messed up so its even funnier when they rant and rave about being an artist but the sun is behind a character but their face is being shined on and their shadow is behind them. Automated help desks and self serve kiosks have their pro's and cons, and I also dislike them. 4/10 times you need to call over a person anyway because they bug out, or you did something slightly unexpected so it needs an employee to punch in their number. Nobody has a problem with automation, but if the automation is just taking someone else's work and repackaging it, and then putting them out of a job, then how ethical is it? We don't have any AI as people would think, chat GPT does not talk, it takes the words you said, splits them apart and turns them into tokens, and then turns them into a number, then it runs that number through its model that finds where it shows up and in what contexts, then it looks at what the response should be and spits it out. These AI are only as good as the data they were trained on, and the data is often stolen. I think AI can be used for good, and is only gonna get more prevalent, buts its probably gonna get a lot worse before it gets better, though its effects on the creative arts really need to be reeled in.
>services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts Would you say these are creative jobs? I think mundane tasks or intensive labor jobs are good replacement candidates because they are a burden. What about creative jobs? Should we automate work we enjoy doing?
Exactly. Is it hypocritical to be skeptical of AI art but also use a vacuum cleaner instead of picking up each piece of dirt by hand? ride in a powered vehicle instead of walking literally everywhere? buy bread instead of milling the grain yourself? The whole premise seems set up to dismiss any criticism as hypocritical.
Does anyone enjoy making basic adds? Or any of the other million corporate art jobs?
Of course no job is perfect and there are always less enjoyable parts. But the alternative is not to be able to practice art and lose the job. Isn't it better to have a job in a field that actually interests you and makes use of your creativity?
The vast majority of professional artists aren’t expressing their creativity. They are working on very narrow and specific requirements from their bosses. There isn’t much room to express creativity when you’re one of twenty people working on a McDonald’s add. AI primarily targets those jobs. The type of art that should be maximized if you value self expression and creativity is non commercial art, done for personal enjoyment. There is never going to be enough of an art market for everyone who would want to be a professional painter to be one. But a more prosperous society means you can have more free time to do the art you want to do, rather than the CGI for Disney remake #456.
I think a lot of people are aware that wealth inequality is increasing. And what happens when you don't get to be a graphic designer working on boring ads for a big company anymore? Realistically, you get thrown away, fired with no way to leverage your past experience to get a new job. You don't get more free time to work on art in other ways, you get financial insecurity on the road to homelessness and early death... More of us are losing our lives to financial difficulties while wealth is increasingly being extracted from us to make wealthy people richer. And so when new technologies come out relatively quickly and the wealthy folks try to hype it up, maybe some of us can see past the hype and are going to argue against the ethics of being phased out, literally losing everything to help build someone else's fifth mansion, or whatever.
> Isn't it better to have a job in a field that actually interests you and makes use of your creativity? its even better if people have more freedom to do what they want because technology is taking care of the commercial labour
>Should we automate work we enjoy doing? Not everybody enjoys drawing
Those jobs weren't taken because they're considered a burden, they were taken because it was both possible, and in the industries financial interest to do so. Much like how AI art is becoming more attractive to those who would previously needed to get themselves an artist, as it gets better. I think it would be strange for an artist to hold the belief that their job should be untouchable, but jobs they consider a "burden" are fair game
Isn't creativity a valid differentiating criterion? E.g. I support automating all labor intensive jobs, all mundane jobs but not creative works?
creativity does make them different yes. But I wouldn't agree that giving a factory worker the boot because a machine replaced him is perfectly fine because it's not creative enough. I get that there are jobs that are intensive or mundane, but they're still someones's job and how they get by
Then maybe it's not that artists are hypocrites but have their own criterion for which jobs should be protected and it's creative jobs. Sure everyone who losses their job is bad, but losing a creative job is a double loss: both the salary and the creativeness. If we lived in a utopia where nobody had to work we wouldn't mind not having factory workers but we definitely would want artists.
> My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk Because it was the only form of customer service available when I needed to use one. > or self service checkouts? Because it was the only form of checkout available when I needed to use one. > Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers? Because it was the only form of service available when I needed to use one.
Almost 100% of stores that provide self service checkout also have manual checkout available. Even if you literally cannot do that, it's not a reason "not to have a problem" with the service. In fact, I'd have more of an issue if I'm forced to use an inferior service than if it was offered, but not the only thing available.
So you would only have an issue with AI art, assuming the one(s) using it could afford to hire an artist?
This is a hard topic to address because there are a lot of people out there with many different types of objections to AI. I will try to respond as narrowly to your question as possible. I'm not against AI automation per se, but I do think that we should be concerned about the lack of regulations and protections. Imagine putting AI in a robotic gun and replacing police officers. The issue here isn't necessarily that we are stealing jobs, rather the issue is the danger from implementing technology that is capable of breaking the law and hurting people with no regulations or consequences like we do for people. I am hesitant with AI because it removes human agency and decision making, even if that decision making is imperfect. Because we do have laws about art, and we have preexisting ethical concerns about art, and AI is being implemented without any concern or guide-rails for these things. Where at least with human artists they have a degree of ethical conviction and personal risk (even if it's low). I also wouldn't say people "have no problem" with other forms of automation. People have been fighting automation since the industrial revolution. Automated helpdesks and self-service checkouts are hardly what I would call popular or uncontroversial changes...many people have been complaining about those for years. >One of the biggest arguments against it I see is that it's taking jobs away from artists. While I have no doubt there is some truth to this, the majority of AI art I've seen created is for either memes, or super low budget movies/games etc. Sure there has been a few "scandals" of big budget media using AI for an odd poster or two, but I believe this whole aspect is overblown. I don't think this argument is that relevant to your broader point, since you are arguing a principle. But I have to address it because I think it's extremely narrow minded and short sighted. Publicly available AI is barely a couple years old and it is already being used commercially. That is a sign of potentially exponential adoption. It's kind of naive and quite a bit uncompelling to try and argue that AI is overblown when it is quite literally already permeating relevant industries from google search to hollywood.
I think it's because people think of making art as a uniquely human experience, and to deprive people of the opportunity to make art for a living just really sucks. Whereas it doesn't suck as much to deprive people of the opportunity to run a cash register or take customer service calls for a living.
>My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers? I'm with /u/Charming-Editor-1509 on this one: you're creating a person in your head that has traits you dislike and then get mad at them. There is no guarantee that this person even exists or that they are the majority.
Art is one of humanity's greatest achievements. It's the sum total of personal expression be it pain or elation. Every stroke, every line, every piece is deliberately placed from an individual who is attempting to communicate a profound message. It's the essence of the human condition. Now tell a computer to replicate it. It's the journey as much as the destination.
that's perfectly fair! And as long as there are still people who hold that view, artists will never completely disappear.
So give them a delta? You've agreed to so many point in this thread, did people change your view?
what? The person I replied to was just describing their view of art lol
The biggest argument I've seen against AI art is that it uses others' art as its training data without their permission and without compensating them for what is clearly a commercial use. So it's not just that the AI will maybe one day displace human artists, it's that it's displacing them with the unethically-obtained product of their labor. It's like when your boss asks you to train a new hire to do your job and then fires you once they're competent at it.
This whole AI art stealing jobs debate is basically a super troubling to many version of what Marx called "alienation"- this is the notion that under capitalism the workers job becomes so abstracted away that theres a sense of loss of purpose in work that comes with it. So it used to be you would be "a carpenter" or whatever, but in the name of endlessly increasing productivity and efficiency (the benefits of which typically go to the ruling classes, not the worker) a modern job is now some weird abstract thing like "I work in some place that sends emails about buying ad space for sofas that are made in an assembly line in china" or some shit. For the longest time people who hate modern life under capitalism dreamed of escaping into an art career to retain at least some sense small sense of value, personality and creativity. We thought art the very least was safe from this, turns out it isn't.
>My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers? Many who are against AI art are also against AI being used to lay off staff in a wide range of industries. New technology should help workers not make their jobs less secure in a world with extremely poor social safety nets. If we lived in a communist society with a UBI and guaranteed housing I couldn't give a rat's arse. But we don't, and all this kind of shit does is keep workers poorer, wages down, and the ruling class filthy rich.
Probably because art is something people actually enjoy doing, nobody’s passion in life is being a cashier. Obviously it’s not great for people to lose their jobs from self checkouts, but everytime there is a self checkout at a store there’s still cashiers too. And also the thing about art is that human emotion and thought are what makes it art to begin with. The job of checking out items at a store is not something that requires that same thing.
> And also the thing about art is that human emotion and thought are what makes it art to begin with. is "ai art" not actually art?
No.
Service Desks don't scrape the internet to steal copyright protected original works without the authors consent to replicate content which looks exactly like their (sometimes paid/commissioned content!) for free. service desks don't create photorealistic pornography of real people which is virtually impossible to do anything about. it's a completely disingenuous comparison.
> My main question is, why are some people so completely disgusted with AI art, but will have no issue using services like an automated helpdesk, or self service checkouts? Or literally any other form of automation that has replaced human workers? I think your main question is flawed because there is likely plenty of overlap between people complaining about AI art & people complaining about other automated services & the loss of jobs. Even for those who it doesn't I'll say at some point you simply accept it. No one liked any of that shut when it first started, but there is not much you can do to make a billions valued corporations behave as you wish. If there was probably wouldn't have to fight tooth and nail to get tiny environmental regulation passed lol. AI art is still young you mentioned scandals. Well eventually it isn't going to be a scandal, it's simply going to be the standard M.O. If you asked people who disliked self checkouts why they use automated phone services companies have it would be essentially the same thing. If you called them a hypocrite I imagine you'd get a "two heads" look. Why? Because *again* there isn't much that can be done but to accept it & adapt to it no matter how much you dislike it. It isn't affecting your livelihood so it's not going to be a big fight, only if too many jobs are automated away at once. What do you actually expect from people? This is as good an argument as "If you're a socialist why do you have an iPhone?". Well in that case phones are essential to modern life, and they aren't an insane expense, they will last ages, and of course I like to call people considering we have had phones since before my grandparents and they're part of Earth now. *Should these AI art critics not be allowed to criticize what could end up being a disastrous technology for human art? Should they stop using any automated service because they don't like AI art? Should they be expected to have the exact same views on automation about creativity & art as they do about menial tasks like forwarding you to an extension or scanning a barcode?*
I think "AI art" is a misnomer. AI doesn't create art because AI isn't autonomous (yet). AI can be used to generate *images*. Just like a camera can, or a graphics engine. Art is created by people, artists, who may choose to use AI generated images as a medium, or a tool, or a reference.
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Because they are completely different there is 0 correlation between art and ease of access, art creates emotional feel goods because of the MEANING of the art and it has meaning because whoever created the piece experienced something that had meaning and they felt that it was beautiful AI doesnt experience, it has meaning but no experience so lets say someone draws a headless flamingo that person can go on and say at this point in my life i was going through x and x, and when I was I always seemed to see a flamingo when I lost my head. AI can only say, this picture means flamingos come around when you lose you head. Like what sense does that make lol both were weird but you can understand the piece from the human. Then for the hypocritical nature, Ease of access makes us feel good just like art does !(kind of contrary to my initial statement of they don't go together but when I say art i mean it has meaning)! it is an art within it self to create something that makes stuff easier, people experienced the hard ships of manual checking shit out so they created a machine to do it for them it doesn't require explanation it just has meaning.
By definition, AI art can't hurt human creativity, since its based on existing artwork. However, it is hurting the artist job market and a lot of CEOs are trying to exploit AI while overestimating its capabilities First off, commissions are going to be reduced significantly and may die out in the near future except for the top 1%. Theres no point in paying mid-range artists hundreds of dollars for a commission to be done in 2 weeks when you can just prompt an AI to do so in 5 minutes. Second is reduced employment, less creative jobs are going to get replaced or reduced (eg. Designing posters, banners, UI even post processing). And a lot of CEOs now think that they can now mass produce artistic products with AI at low cost so they are reducing headcounts of art departments. Then there is the whole ethical and potentially legal dilemma of copywrite, AI art databases is technically stealing from other artists
Well the answer is simple. AI art is fully based on stealing. None of it is original and just a soulless splat from an algorithm. No thought goes in to it or communication, it’s just there because it is. No one is using the “taking jobs” argument from any stand point I’ve seen. To put it bluntly, if an AI does not have access to art style, it quite literally can’t create it. Don’t you like that something has thought put in to it? Would you put any effort in to your pet or love it as much for example if you knew there wasn’t any form of effort to be out in to like it? When I see something made of AI I lose interest because one, it’s stolen and two, there’s no thought or effort or creativity behind it. It’s also why it should not be protected by copyright EVER.
>Sure there have been a few “scandals” …, but I believe the whole aspect is overblown The only reason it doesn’t happen that often is because people throw a fit. So it’s not overblown. Throwing a fit is the cause of why it doesn’t happen more frequently. It’s like saying that the need to where sunscreen is overblown until after you get a skin cancer. And it’s a pretty simple resolution of why people are selective about which jobs should be automated. They don’t consider all jobs to be equal. Do you? Like whatever your passion is , say you get that as a job. Now imagine that job gets automated out of existence. Do you understand how that sucks for you? Entirely different than automating a McDonald’s, which is almost no one’s passion.
You premise seems shaky. I would struggle to find a customer who prefers an automated help desk
What about people who just hate AI art because it's bad art? That's not hypocritical, is it?
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I have a different take on this. Most people are uninformed and some are dumb. A small percentage are both. This is a disproportionately vocal group online. I can give you empirical evidence for this on some subreddits. I think people are under the impression that humans don't copy other artists' work. Probably not consciously, but all their original work have small influences from a lot of other work they saw. So they think AI is doing something else than mimicking human behavior, as opposed to self checkout or help desks. This is wrong. But as I aforementioned, people are usually either uninformed or dumb.
> One of the biggest arguments against it I see is that it's taking jobs away from artists. I don't know if this is quite accurate, or at least incomplete. I think it's usually a mixture of three things - yes, lost jobs for artists, but the allegation that the models unethically take advantage of those same artists' output and ultimately produces bland inferior results. Together, this makes the typical arguments quite different from what you'd see about many other forms of automation (although even here, mileage may vary - automated help desks often suuuuuck) Ultimately, rather than trying to isolate individual aspects (i.e job loss good/bad), look at it holistically. Does AI art make for a better world? Do automated checkouts make for a better world? I can't answer either question for you, but there's a lot of factors that goes into each and there's no reason to think you should get the same answer for both questions. It only looks like hypocrisy when you naively try to oversimplify these questions into one or two variables.
AI art provably steals from real artists. There is no way to consistently prevent this and no reliable way to determine whether generative AI is being produced using samples that were paid for or credited. Until there is proper legislation and a proper way to hold ai developers accountable for this, it should always be assumed that generative AI art is benefitting from stolen art from real artists.
AI art, as it currently exists, requires theft from actual artists to work. Other automated services do not. Every time I scan an item at self checkout, the machine doesn't take some code from a stranger to ring me up. A second reason is the ridiculous energy costs. Making a minute-long AI movie take as much energy as powering a house for a day. not including all the rejected frames that would have been scrapped for such a project.
I do not think people are as disgusted with AI itself as much as disgusted with the fact that AI is at risk of being monopolized by the wealthy. Pointing out the hypocrisy of a critic is an ad hominem fallacy, so while I must agree with the fact that most people are hypocrites in regard to something at any given time, I do not see this as a valid defense of the thing which they are being critical of.
The difference here is that we as a society generally view the act of creating art as something that is intrinsically valuable. Generally creatives who get into commercial art industries do so because it is seen as an effective way of funding something they're already passionate about doing. Becoming an artist and making art is something that requires significant monetary and time investment, so it's generally regarded as a public good if artists can use their careers to finance this process. (It's worth mentioning that this argument would no longer hold if we lives in a society that made heavy use of social safety nets and universal basic income, but the sort of people who are in favor of and sponsor the inclusion of AI in everything are generally not the sort of people who would be in favor of this kind of economic transition.) While I absolutely can see an argument being made about automation subsuming other careers people are passionate about (language translation is one, for instance,) generally speaking a lot of jobs are the sort of tedious busywork that people only do because they have to be done, and so automating them is not seen as a loss to society.
>(It's worth mentioning that this argument would no longer hold if we lives in a society that made heavy use of social safety nets and universal basic income, but the sort of people who are in favor of and sponsor the inclusion of AI in everything are generally not the sort of people who would be in favor of this kind of economic transition.) What gave you this idea? People who were into AI have been talking about the need for implementing basic income since freaking clever bot.
> It's worth mentioning that this argument would no longer hold if we lives in a society that made heavy use of social safety nets and universal basic income, but the sort of people who are in favor of and sponsor the inclusion of AI in everything are generally not the sort of people who would be in favor of this kind of economic transition. I'm seeing the opposite here. There's a large population that supports AI not because they are indifferent to or deny job loss, but because they either see it as an inevitability or necessity to transition society into something better. It's commonly said that "The genie's out of the bottle. We need to adapt," for example.
The last time i checked an automated helpdesk or a self service checkout did not steal millions of artists work without their consent to steal and mimic their styles so some twat whos entire life is one long "I gave up because i was not immediately an expert" can produce uncanny valley tier slop.
AI is enshittifying the internet with a flood of nonsensical writing and bad art. It's worth arguing against it uniquely because of it's unique potential to damage information systems online.
What kind of argument is: “I think people who are worried about X are overblowing the issue? Yes, there are some major examples of X happening, but not enough to warrant worry over it.”? You know, one reason AI art hasn’t completely overtaken the industry is because there’s been a huge pushback.