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This is absolutely ridiculous and short-sighted. AI is a tool that is and always will make the creation of art less a matter of the expression of the human soul

This is absolutely ridiculous and short-sighted. AI is a tool that is and always will make the creation of art less a matter of the expression of the human soul. What techies NEVER understand about art is this: that art is not just the end product for the artist but something they use to express THEMSELVES. UNLIKE other tools, AI makes creative decisions. No other tool has done this, and moreover, its primary purpose is to take away the reliance on artists. The ultimate aim of BIG TECH is to take away this reliance so that they can be the ultimate source of cheap art, just like cheap slave labour is the ultimate source of cheap and unsustainable clothing for most people. Therefore, AI will NEVER be a tool to create art like other tools. It is is a tool that will outcompete humans on a massive scale so that even if "normal human art" exists, it will never gain much traction or commercial viability. To be honest, AI is absolutely sickening and companies like Microsoft and OpenAI make me sick.

dthul 3y ago
That sounds like a very Luddite view. Why wouldn't artists be able to use AI selectively to automate "boring" tasks (such as filling the sky of an image with clouds) while still retaining overall artistic control?
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  I am a luddite and I agree with most luddite sentiments. Most of this generative AI is NOT about using AI for boring tasks, and have you ever even tried to draw clouds? Not easy. Everyone draws clouds differently, which you would know if you ever tried to draw anything. Moreover, AI as a societal phenomenon goes way beyond AI drawing clouds.
  - dthul 3y ago
    > which you would know if you ever tried to draw anything I know exactly how hard it is to draw anything because I tried a bunch of times, and failed. I for one am happy that I can now express my creative ideas, which I couldn't do before due to missing talent / practice.
    - Riverheart 3y ago
      “I for one am happy that I can now express my creative ideas, which I couldn't do before due to missing talent / practice.” The problem here is we need to look beyond our own self interest to how this will impact other people. We don’t make a career out of art. This technology is just a novelty to us and but many others rely on it for themselves and their family and had no way of foreseeing the technology coming. They need it more than we do.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      You're free to personally be happy that you can express your creative ideas, but it is a bit absurd to expect people who did put in the effort in practicing to not see you in a negative light as someone who wants the 'benefits' without putting in the hard work of self-improvement. This is a uniquely AI related issue, as artists of all mediums can relate with each other about their struggles learning and improving their skills and ability to express themselves.
      - dthul 3y ago
        That's trying to put words in my mouth. We were talking about creative expression being taken away by AI, and I argued that artists can still retain creative expression, and that these AI tools make it possible for more people to express themselves creatively. I never said that artists should have no reason to feel unhappy about that. That's criticising a position I didn't argue.
      - Lacerda69 3y ago
        How many hours of hard work do you need to put in before you can have the "benefit" of calling yourself an artist? Tbh this sounds like gatekeeping to me.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > Most of this generative AI is NOT about using AI for boring tasks, and have you ever even tried to draw clouds? Not easy. Everyone draws clouds differently, which you would know if you ever tried to draw anything. Perlin noise on a plane, can be either in line with the camera or off at an angle. Nice effect. Very easy. I don't even count myself as a proper artist. Clouds can obviously be hard when you have a specific cloud formation in mind — but "just" a random cloud, to the standards of most who will observe it, is much easier. And of course, there are plenty of free photographs of clouds, and Photoshop has had plenty of filters — even from the days before people had broadband, let alone what people now call AI — to turn those photographs into different styles.
    - jdiff 3y ago
      > Perlin noise on a plane, can be either in line with the camera or off at an angle. This looks like trash and doesn't look like clouds. Even if you're doing procedural clouds, everyone does them differently. And a lot better than just slapping Perlin noise on a plane. Photoshop filters cannot change the bones of a cloud, and when people are illustrating clouds they're taking entirely different approaches. They're not just "this cloud, but flat" or "this cloud, but with a fuzzy diffused look." All you're doing is showcasing your own lack of knowledge on the subject while filling the arrogant techbro stereotype perfectly.
- gyy52380 3y ago
  Because that is not what's happening. My friends that work as illustrators for PC and mobile games say it's the exact opposite. AI is used for the bulk of the creative work - composition, posing, even the general artstyle. Illustrators are then tasked with "fixing" visual artefacts, stitching together generated images and giving the final polish. They describe it as being reduced from a creative writer to a grammar checker. It's tempting to just say that creative work that can be automated this quickly should be automated so that artists can focus on more creative challenges, but this is not how it plays out in practice. Rather, this only allows companies to cut down costs. It is already extremely difficult to find work which will pay a livable wage as a creative. AI has already caused layoffs and negative wage pressure on remaining employees. The only thing that AI has done (at least among my circle of friends) is reduce corporate costs and increase antidepressant prescriptions.
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    The problem with many technophiles is that they have a very distorted view of what they create. They often think it's going to do good because it's so cool but once that tech is out in the real world, it just mostly causes damage. If you're interested, feel free to reach out to me because I am starting an anti-AI coalition.
    - greatpatton 3y ago
      Out of curiosity can you just give me pratical example of: "it's so cool but once that tech is out in the real world, it just mostly causes damage."
      - vouaobrasil 3y ago
        Well: (1) AI has already been used for IDENTIY THEFT in many places. Check this out: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-scam-voice-clone-fake-kidnap-call-mother-money-ransom-2023-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-scam-voice-clone-fake-kid... AI here to clone a voice was used to make a mother think her daughter had been kidnapped (2) People getting fired from their jobs such as illustrators because AI can now do things. Also, people NOT getting hired when they could. (3) I am a professional writer, and I know of some websites who are using generative AI for articles and hiring less (or even firing writers) (4) AI removes what remaining reliance we have on each other and makes it less likely for people to talk to each other when needing some basic information. The societal effects of destroying communities where people need each other are pretty clear.
- __loam 3y ago
  Stop using a group of people who was slandered and murdered by ultra wealthy factory owners as a derogatory term.
bsenftner 3y ago
You're almost there. Few recognize that Art is human communication. Most just want a pretty or awe inspiring image, or an illustration to supply the consumer's lack of imagination. Perhaps with commercial art, pragmatic bread and butter art being automated and pooped out by noncomprehending, non-communicating consumers the job of real Art that communicates the frontiers of human experience using rich metaphor and on the edge of language and reason can work without having to also deliver hallmark nonsense. Yeah, the economics to allow this are all fucked. But if you're an artist communicating your human experience, that does not matter, it's a part of your work.
ben_w 3y ago
> AI is a tool that is and always will make the creation of art less a matter of the expression of the human soul I firmly disagree. I have a very strong imagination, but I never had time (and still don't have the time between full-time work and needing to learn German) to develop the skills to turn what I can imagine into artefacts that others can enjoy by my own hand. AI gives me the means to turn some of what I imagine into things I can share — not everything! (SD is so terrible at dragons, even the basic body plan is all over the place) — but it can help with many things. > its primary purpose is to take away the reliance on artists. The ultimate aim of BIG TECH is to take away this reliance so that they can be the ultimate source of cheap art, just like cheap slave labour is the ultimate source of cheap and unsustainable clothing for most people. IMO the purpose is fully automated luxury communism. Stable Diffusion is free, so "Big Tech" (which would here have to include a small German academic spin-off) can't reap huge rewards from this, just like there's no huge business case for yet more video call services or social networks — too much competition for the money. Finally, just yesterday I was watching a year-old video from a german robot supplier that's undercutting "cheap slave labour" for clothing.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  So I suppose your need to create AI diversions is more important than the need of others to feel a sense of purpose through their work through their actual talent that you don't have? Good thing you have a full-time job.... Big Tech will benefit immensely from AI. Even if Stable Diffusion is free, it will spurn the development of new computers and new technology to run models like Stable Diffusion, so even not immediate things benefit big tech. Fully automated luxury communism is a rather bleak future, and it will take us away from being stewards of the environment, and instead consume as many resources as possible. Finally, even if you are doing something relatively harmless with Stable Diffisuion, many other people will use AI for malicious purposes.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > So I suppose your need to create AI diversions is more important than the need of others to feel a sense of purpose through their work through their actual talent that you don't have? Not so. Sense of purpose is important. Your sense of purpose conflicts with the opportunity of everyone else to express themselves as they wish. How familiar are you with utilitarian ethics, and the "mere addition paradox" criticism of it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox > Good thing you have a full-time job.... For now. The LLMs will come/are coming for mine, just as diffusion models and GANs eat at the jobs of graphical artists. > Fully automated luxury communism is a rather bleak future, and it will take us away from being stewards of the environment, and instead consume as many resources as possible. It's (currently) pure Utopianism, taking on whatever hopes the proponents want it to have no matter how unrealistic. I therefore think you're arguing on the basis of which team it's associated with, without understanding the details of what it is you hate. > Finally, even if you are doing something relatively harmless with Stable Diffisuion, many other people will use AI for malicious purposes. Oh absolutely. Whole can of worms there. Can say the same about basically every tech way back to the wheel, fire, and pointy stick, though unlike most using this analogy I am well aware of the problem of induction (in particular the turkey and the farmer), and don't claim that it will all work out just because it has so far. AI in general could make us immortal, with lives of leisure and free from all suffering… or it could turn us all into paperclips to maximise shareholder value.
eMPee584 3y ago
Wait till "THEY" learn engineering and architecture ; )
Gormo 3y ago
> What techies NEVER understand about art is this: that art is not just the end product for the artist but something they use to express THEMSELVES. And yet artists have always used tools and adapted themselves to the qualities of those tools. Paints, paintbrushes, canvases, chemicals, instruments of all kinds inform the end result just as much as the artist's initial intention. Jackson Pollock's most famous works were produced by splattering paints on a canvas. Sure, he selected the paints, the canvas, and the trajectory and velocity of the splatters, but his works are as much the expression of stochastic fluid dynamics as they are of his vision. Nothing is stopping people who see handcrafting every intricate detail of their work as an expression of their innermost sense of self from continuing to do so just as they always have. If that's what they're getting out it, why should it bother them that people who do just want to obtain the end product for their own purposes are getting it from someplace else?
skeaker 3y ago
The reduction of "techies" to emotionless robots is an unfair generalization. The inappropriate and wildly inaccurate comparison to slave labor is out of line. Even taking your arguments at face value, it doesn't really make sense: Let's agree and say that AI can never make "real art." How does AI art existing prevent human-made art with the intent of self expression from existing? You say it will make human art less commercially viable, but that's hardly related to the expression behind the art. Human art has just as much expression whether or not it is a commercial success. Is your argument about financial viability or expression? Would you agree that having deep human expression enhances the value of a piece of art? Are you aware that artists who focus wholly on expression were already stereotypically "starving," even before AI art was a thing?
dragonwriter 3y ago
> UNLIKE other tools, AI makes creative decisions No, it doesn’t. That's just an anthropomorphization of “produces deterministic results of its inputs that are practically intractable to compute by other means”. But Stable Diffusion doesn’t “make creative decisions” any more than POV-Ray or (pre-Generative fill) Photoshop.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  I agree, but I'll be more precise: AI may not make creative decisions, but it generates something that approximates a creative decision to a sufficient level that people are willing to use it as a replacement for real creative decision. There. My argument works without modification but with this more precise definition.
Lacerda69 3y ago
I use any tool available to create art and express myself, so I does not really matter what you think of it. Art is a very subjective thing anyway and we can argue for hours what "art" really is. But here are some of my thoughts regarding your comment, I think they apply to many others in this thread as well. >UNLIKE other tools, AI makes creative decisions. No other tool has done this If you use any other tool or technology (for example certain oil paint, canvases, sculpting material, motif, etc.) that also implies a creative decision. >its primary purpose is to take away the reliance on artists That is not true. It might be the purpose that some people ascribe to it, but it is a technology & a tool. Humans decide what its purpose is, its purpose is not inherent to the technology itself. You can use Imagen to create very personal and individual self-expression. With open source models that you can tweak and train yourself there are many possibilities to get an individual result. I guess you only looked at things like Dall-E and came to the conclusion that this would replace artists. The same thing people said about photography aka "This is just a technology to replace portrait painters/landscape painters etc." If you learn more about how Imagen works you will understand that there are many possibilities to make it your own and create meaningful self-expression. >even if "normal human art" exists, it will never gain much traction or commercial viability. There is 0 indication of that. Why do you think that? FWIW the current art "market" is what makes me sick, so I am happy for any tech or idea that demolishes it and makes room for something new and creative.

dthul 3y ago

That sounds like a very Luddite view. Why wouldn't artists be able to use AI selectively to automate "boring" tasks (such as filling the sky of an image with clouds) while still retaining overall artistic control?

vouaobrasil 3y ago
I am a luddite and I agree with most luddite sentiments. Most of this generative AI is NOT about using AI for boring tasks, and have you ever even tried to draw clouds? Not easy. Everyone draws clouds differently, which you would know if you ever tried to draw anything. Moreover, AI as a societal phenomenon goes way beyond AI drawing clouds.
- dthul 3y ago
  > which you would know if you ever tried to draw anything I know exactly how hard it is to draw anything because I tried a bunch of times, and failed. I for one am happy that I can now express my creative ideas, which I couldn't do before due to missing talent / practice.
  - Riverheart 3y ago
    “I for one am happy that I can now express my creative ideas, which I couldn't do before due to missing talent / practice.” The problem here is we need to look beyond our own self interest to how this will impact other people. We don’t make a career out of art. This technology is just a novelty to us and but many others rely on it for themselves and their family and had no way of foreseeing the technology coming. They need it more than we do.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    You're free to personally be happy that you can express your creative ideas, but it is a bit absurd to expect people who did put in the effort in practicing to not see you in a negative light as someone who wants the 'benefits' without putting in the hard work of self-improvement. This is a uniquely AI related issue, as artists of all mediums can relate with each other about their struggles learning and improving their skills and ability to express themselves.
    - dthul 3y ago
      That's trying to put words in my mouth. We were talking about creative expression being taken away by AI, and I argued that artists can still retain creative expression, and that these AI tools make it possible for more people to express themselves creatively. I never said that artists should have no reason to feel unhappy about that. That's criticising a position I didn't argue.
    - Lacerda69 3y ago
      How many hours of hard work do you need to put in before you can have the "benefit" of calling yourself an artist? Tbh this sounds like gatekeeping to me.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > Most of this generative AI is NOT about using AI for boring tasks, and have you ever even tried to draw clouds? Not easy. Everyone draws clouds differently, which you would know if you ever tried to draw anything. Perlin noise on a plane, can be either in line with the camera or off at an angle. Nice effect. Very easy. I don't even count myself as a proper artist. Clouds can obviously be hard when you have a specific cloud formation in mind — but "just" a random cloud, to the standards of most who will observe it, is much easier. And of course, there are plenty of free photographs of clouds, and Photoshop has had plenty of filters — even from the days before people had broadband, let alone what people now call AI — to turn those photographs into different styles.
  - jdiff 3y ago
    > Perlin noise on a plane, can be either in line with the camera or off at an angle. This looks like trash and doesn't look like clouds. Even if you're doing procedural clouds, everyone does them differently. And a lot better than just slapping Perlin noise on a plane. Photoshop filters cannot change the bones of a cloud, and when people are illustrating clouds they're taking entirely different approaches. They're not just "this cloud, but flat" or "this cloud, but with a fuzzy diffused look." All you're doing is showcasing your own lack of knowledge on the subject while filling the arrogant techbro stereotype perfectly.
gyy52380 3y ago
Because that is not what's happening. My friends that work as illustrators for PC and mobile games say it's the exact opposite. AI is used for the bulk of the creative work - composition, posing, even the general artstyle. Illustrators are then tasked with "fixing" visual artefacts, stitching together generated images and giving the final polish. They describe it as being reduced from a creative writer to a grammar checker. It's tempting to just say that creative work that can be automated this quickly should be automated so that artists can focus on more creative challenges, but this is not how it plays out in practice. Rather, this only allows companies to cut down costs. It is already extremely difficult to find work which will pay a livable wage as a creative. AI has already caused layoffs and negative wage pressure on remaining employees. The only thing that AI has done (at least among my circle of friends) is reduce corporate costs and increase antidepressant prescriptions.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  The problem with many technophiles is that they have a very distorted view of what they create. They often think it's going to do good because it's so cool but once that tech is out in the real world, it just mostly causes damage. If you're interested, feel free to reach out to me because I am starting an anti-AI coalition.
  - greatpatton 3y ago
    Out of curiosity can you just give me pratical example of: "it's so cool but once that tech is out in the real world, it just mostly causes damage."
    - vouaobrasil 3y ago
      Well: (1) AI has already been used for IDENTIY THEFT in many places. Check this out: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-scam-voice-clone-fake-kidnap-call-mother-money-ransom-2023-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-scam-voice-clone-fake-kid... AI here to clone a voice was used to make a mother think her daughter had been kidnapped (2) People getting fired from their jobs such as illustrators because AI can now do things. Also, people NOT getting hired when they could. (3) I am a professional writer, and I know of some websites who are using generative AI for articles and hiring less (or even firing writers) (4) AI removes what remaining reliance we have on each other and makes it less likely for people to talk to each other when needing some basic information. The societal effects of destroying communities where people need each other are pretty clear.
__loam 3y ago
Stop using a group of people who was slandered and murdered by ultra wealthy factory owners as a derogatory term.

bsenftner 3y ago

You're almost there. Few recognize that Art is human communication. Most just want a pretty or awe inspiring image, or an illustration to supply the consumer's lack of imagination. Perhaps with commercial art, pragmatic bread and butter art being automated and pooped out by noncomprehending, non-communicating consumers the job of real Art that communicates the frontiers of human experience using rich metaphor and on the edge of language and reason can work without having to also deliver hallmark nonsense. Yeah, the economics to allow this are all fucked. But if you're an artist communicating your human experience, that does not matter, it's a part of your work.

ben_w 3y ago

> AI is a tool that is and always will make the creation of art less a matter of the expression of the human soul I firmly disagree. I have a very strong imagination, but I never had time (and still don't have the time between full-time work and needing to learn German) to develop the skills to turn what I can imagine into artefacts that others can enjoy by my own hand. AI gives me the means to turn some of what I imagine into things I can share — not everything! (SD is so terrible at dragons, even the basic body plan is all over the place) — but it can help with many things. > its primary purpose is to take away the reliance on artists. The ultimate aim of BIG TECH is to take away this reliance so that they can be the ultimate source of cheap art, just like cheap slave labour is the ultimate source of cheap and unsustainable clothing for most people. IMO the purpose is fully automated luxury communism. Stable Diffusion is free, so "Big Tech" (which would here have to include a small German academic spin-off) can't reap huge rewards from this, just like there's no huge business case for yet more video call services or social networks — too much competition for the money. Finally, just yesterday I was watching a year-old video from a german robot supplier that's undercutting "cheap slave labour" for clothing.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
So I suppose your need to create AI diversions is more important than the need of others to feel a sense of purpose through their work through their actual talent that you don't have? Good thing you have a full-time job.... Big Tech will benefit immensely from AI. Even if Stable Diffusion is free, it will spurn the development of new computers and new technology to run models like Stable Diffusion, so even not immediate things benefit big tech. Fully automated luxury communism is a rather bleak future, and it will take us away from being stewards of the environment, and instead consume as many resources as possible. Finally, even if you are doing something relatively harmless with Stable Diffisuion, many other people will use AI for malicious purposes.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > So I suppose your need to create AI diversions is more important than the need of others to feel a sense of purpose through their work through their actual talent that you don't have? Not so. Sense of purpose is important. Your sense of purpose conflicts with the opportunity of everyone else to express themselves as they wish. How familiar are you with utilitarian ethics, and the "mere addition paradox" criticism of it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox > Good thing you have a full-time job.... For now. The LLMs will come/are coming for mine, just as diffusion models and GANs eat at the jobs of graphical artists. > Fully automated luxury communism is a rather bleak future, and it will take us away from being stewards of the environment, and instead consume as many resources as possible. It's (currently) pure Utopianism, taking on whatever hopes the proponents want it to have no matter how unrealistic. I therefore think you're arguing on the basis of which team it's associated with, without understanding the details of what it is you hate. > Finally, even if you are doing something relatively harmless with Stable Diffisuion, many other people will use AI for malicious purposes. Oh absolutely. Whole can of worms there. Can say the same about basically every tech way back to the wheel, fire, and pointy stick, though unlike most using this analogy I am well aware of the problem of induction (in particular the turkey and the farmer), and don't claim that it will all work out just because it has so far. AI in general could make us immortal, with lives of leisure and free from all suffering… or it could turn us all into paperclips to maximise shareholder value.

eMPee584 3y ago

Wait till "THEY" learn engineering and architecture ; )

Gormo 3y ago

> What techies NEVER understand about art is this: that art is not just the end product for the artist but something they use to express THEMSELVES. And yet artists have always used tools and adapted themselves to the qualities of those tools. Paints, paintbrushes, canvases, chemicals, instruments of all kinds inform the end result just as much as the artist's initial intention. Jackson Pollock's most famous works were produced by splattering paints on a canvas. Sure, he selected the paints, the canvas, and the trajectory and velocity of the splatters, but his works are as much the expression of stochastic fluid dynamics as they are of his vision. Nothing is stopping people who see handcrafting every intricate detail of their work as an expression of their innermost sense of self from continuing to do so just as they always have. If that's what they're getting out it, why should it bother them that people who do just want to obtain the end product for their own purposes are getting it from someplace else?

skeaker 3y ago

The reduction of "techies" to emotionless robots is an unfair generalization. The inappropriate and wildly inaccurate comparison to slave labor is out of line. Even taking your arguments at face value, it doesn't really make sense: Let's agree and say that AI can never make "real art." How does AI art existing prevent human-made art with the intent of self expression from existing? You say it will make human art less commercially viable, but that's hardly related to the expression behind the art. Human art has just as much expression whether or not it is a commercial success. Is your argument about financial viability or expression? Would you agree that having deep human expression enhances the value of a piece of art? Are you aware that artists who focus wholly on expression were already stereotypically "starving," even before AI art was a thing?

dragonwriter 3y ago

> UNLIKE other tools, AI makes creative decisions No, it doesn’t. That's just an anthropomorphization of “produces deterministic results of its inputs that are practically intractable to compute by other means”. But Stable Diffusion doesn’t “make creative decisions” any more than POV-Ray or (pre-Generative fill) Photoshop.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
I agree, but I'll be more precise: AI may not make creative decisions, but it generates something that approximates a creative decision to a sufficient level that people are willing to use it as a replacement for real creative decision. There. My argument works without modification but with this more precise definition.

Lacerda69 3y ago

I use any tool available to create art and express myself, so I does not really matter what you think of it. Art is a very subjective thing anyway and we can argue for hours what "art" really is. But here are some of my thoughts regarding your comment, I think they apply to many others in this thread as well. >UNLIKE other tools, AI makes creative decisions. No other tool has done this If you use any other tool or technology (for example certain oil paint, canvases, sculpting material, motif, etc.) that also implies a creative decision. >its primary purpose is to take away the reliance on artists That is not true. It might be the purpose that some people ascribe to it, but it is a technology & a tool. Humans decide what its purpose is, its purpose is not inherent to the technology itself. You can use Imagen to create very personal and individual self-expression. With open source models that you can tweak and train yourself there are many possibilities to get an individual result. I guess you only looked at things like Dall-E and came to the conclusion that this would replace artists. The same thing people said about photography aka "This is just a technology to replace portrait painters/landscape painters etc." If you learn more about how Imagen works you will understand that there are many possibilities to make it your own and create meaningful self-expression. >even if "normal human art" exists, it will never gain much traction or commercial viability. There is 0 indication of that. Why do you think that? FWIW the current art "market" is what makes me sick, so I am happy for any tech or idea that demolishes it and makes room for something new and creative.