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> The problem becomes the scale. A human artist can't look at 5bn images and use them to be able to instantly mimic the style of another artist, hundreds of tim

> The problem becomes the scale. A human artist can't look at 5bn images and use them to be able to instantly mimic the style of another artist, hundreds of times an hour. Can you say more about the scale argument? It reads as if you're saying that an entity that has an advantage shouldn't use that advantage. If you reduce the comparison to human scale, do you still have a problem with the competition? I.e., if one artist has a working memory of 5 inspirational artworks (unlicensed) and another artist has a working memory of 3, is that wrong if they both compete to produce new artwork based on what they know of existing art? If the answer to that question is no, then I don't see how the scale question is applicable.

simonw 4y ago
I'm saying that one artist walking around an art gallery and being inspired by the art they see there (or even visiting hundreds of galleries over a lifetime) is operating at such a minuscule scale compared to an AI that trains itself on 5bn images that the similarities between the two do not necessary mean that if one is OK then the other is OK as well.
- MattGrommes 4y ago
  Why though? Scale in and of itself isn't a bad thing just because we can't do it with our puny human minds. I'm open to the argument but I don't see it.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  Computers have scale benefits that no human has. An industrial controller can control all the machines in a factory all at once, and make them move faster than a human can react. A script can send out communications to hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of humans at once. A machine controlling door locks in a building can lock every door at once. No human can compete. It's unclear to me why art generation is unique in this regard unless there's a human status-quo bias at play. I'm increasingly inclined to think that it's ennui over the fact that creative work isn't unique anymore and can be automated, a reality that many laborers have already dealt with and accepted. One of the computer's "super powers" is its ability to run at scale.
  - candiodari 4y ago
    I think more and more humans are seeing this as a serious disadvantage that creates an ever greater asymmetry between companies and humans. The most egregious example is spam, but these days almost every large company communication essentially uses this "scale advantage". Very few people are happy with that. Therefore, if there was some way to eliminate this sort of advantage, especially for very large organisations like the government, that would be excellent.

simonw 4y ago

I'm saying that one artist walking around an art gallery and being inspired by the art they see there (or even visiting hundreds of galleries over a lifetime) is operating at such a minuscule scale compared to an AI that trains itself on 5bn images that the similarities between the two do not necessary mean that if one is OK then the other is OK as well.

MattGrommes 4y ago
Why though? Scale in and of itself isn't a bad thing just because we can't do it with our puny human minds. I'm open to the argument but I don't see it.
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
Computers have scale benefits that no human has. An industrial controller can control all the machines in a factory all at once, and make them move faster than a human can react. A script can send out communications to hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of humans at once. A machine controlling door locks in a building can lock every door at once. No human can compete. It's unclear to me why art generation is unique in this regard unless there's a human status-quo bias at play. I'm increasingly inclined to think that it's ennui over the fact that creative work isn't unique anymore and can be automated, a reality that many laborers have already dealt with and accepted. One of the computer's "super powers" is its ability to run at scale.
- candiodari 4y ago
  I think more and more humans are seeing this as a serious disadvantage that creates an ever greater asymmetry between companies and humans. The most egregious example is spam, but these days almost every large company communication essentially uses this "scale advantage". Very few people are happy with that. Therefore, if there was some way to eliminate this sort of advantage, especially for very large organisations like the government, that would be excellent.