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Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make

Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real. It's like rich people saying money does not matter. "Easy for you to say." I can't draw. But now I can take the talent I have and extend it to make images. Is it art? I don't know. I don't care. I was not able, now I am able, and the people who are able complain. Screw 'em. This is what tools are for. The strong should not tell the weak they cannot use props.

leashless 3y ago
"Supermodels complain about plastic surgery letting ugly people look better" type headlines abound in AI
- rafaelmn 3y ago
  Plastic surgery only gets you so far. Likewise for AI generated content.
  - Hoasi 3y ago
    Perfect analogy.
    - leashless 3y ago
      Yes, I think that's absolutely true of both plastic surgery and of AI. I don't mind, it's better than where I was before! I can semi-draw with AI help. Good enough.
      - Hoasi 3y ago
        > I can semi-draw with AI help. Good enough. Good for you. But that's not drawing, though. You won't know what drawing is until you try. Then you'll come back with more questions. It's an open-ended endeavor. Drawing is not something you solve with an app. That's why the whole premise of this thread is a bit sad. AI is a tool that bypasses the joy (and the point) of drawing entirely.
        leashless 3y ago
        Oh I tried. I suck. If I worked at it, I would still suck. Am I to be deprived of the capability to take images from inside my head and turn them into pixels TO PROTECT THE CARTEL OF PEOPLE WHO CAN DO IT MANUALLY? Seems like a bad idea. “good artists borrow, great artists steal” —- Picasso. Whether AI generated work should be copyright able is a MUCH MUCH harder question. Maybe the answer you seek is there.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jazzyjackson 3y ago
the tech would not exist if not for the talented people you are screwing
- mvandermeulen 3y ago
  How are they being screwed?
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    They are being outcompeted by a megacorp selling bootleg derivatives of their work Not being screwed looks like royalties for content that the machine derives its value from
    - Hoasi 3y ago
      > They are being outcompeted by a megacorp selling bootleg derivatives of their work and driving the value of their hard work to the ground.
- leashless 3y ago
  Mine workers extract iron ore. Iron ore is made into iron which is made into machines which shovel iron ore. "Tell it like it is Till there's no misunderstanding When you strip it right back Man feed machine Machine feed man" to quote a (human) poet
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    an interesting analogy, thanks, I'll trade you some lines I heard from Johnny Cash: Well John Henry hammered in the mountain, he'd give a grunt and he'd give groan with every swing, the women folks for miles around, heard him and come down, to watch him make the cold steel ring, Lord what a swinger, just listen to that cold steel ring But the bad boss come up laughing at John Henry, said you full of vinegar now, but you bout through, were gonna get a steam drill to do your share of drivin, then what's all them muscles gonna do, huh John Henry, gonna take a little bit of vinegar out of you John Henry said I feed four little brothers, and my baby sister's walking on her knees, did the Lord say that machines ought to take the place of living, and what's a subsitute for bread and beans, I ain't seen it, do engines get rewarded for their steam?
Almondsetat 3y ago
Artists complain because they are being hit with the fact that most people don't care about art. Why is AI taking over corporate designs? Because, my dear artist, the stuff corporations commissioned you wasn't art, they were formulaic cogs into a soulless machine. Why is AI taking over porn? Because, my dear artists, almost all of your NSFW commissions wasn't art, its single purpose was making someone cum. Before automation people were forced to hire artists. Do you think the Church in the middle ages would have hired so many painters to decorate the walls of the myriad of minor churches in their possession? No, they would have saved them for the big meaningful projects and let AI do the job elsewhere. The people really paying you for your art are a minority and won't go away. Deal with this fact however you like. Perhaps if you're such a good artist then use AI to round up your weaker skills such as marketing or story writing.
viraptor 3y ago
That's not what Nick Cave says though, is it? He's not complaining about the tech enabling people to create. He says the whole song results suck and only have surface level similarity to someone. The closest he gets is actually just accepting: "ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary". He's not even saying anything about using LLM as a tool to help you express what you actually want to create, ("here's the beginning, now I need a line about X, but [constraint Y]") but rather criticises the complete "song in style of ..." result.
- thrwayaistartup 3y ago
  No. His critique is one of process, not of output quality. He is asserting the existence of an "unconscious human spirit", asserting that ChatGPT "is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination", and that we should fight against AI as we would fight against genocide: "just as we would fight any existential evil, we should fight it tooth and nail, for we are fighting for the very soul of the world." Incidentally, I agree with the importance of struggle and soul-work. I agree with the general valence of the lament, but come away with a very different call to action. In particular: I just don't think I have the right to impose luddism on the rest of the world for my particular niche while benefiting lavishly from the rest of the world's alienation form their much more essential labor. To me, it's the ravings of an angry, arrogant, and entitled elitist who fears being dethroned from his comfortable luxury and refined status. And a hilariously hyperbolic one at that. Of all the actual evils I would write something like this about, AI Art probably isn't even in the top 1,000,000. Can you imagine looking at the world today and writing that last paragraph? My god. --- Quotes: > ChatGPT rejects any notions of creative struggle, that our endeavours animate and nurture our lives giving them depth and meaning. It rejects that there is a collective, essential and unconscious human spirit underpinning our existence, connecting us all through our mutual striving. > ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary. That ‘songwriter ‘you were talking to, Leon, who is using ChatGPT to write ‘his’ lyrics because it is ‘faster and easier ,’is participating in this erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself and, to put it politely, should fucking desist if he wants to continue calling himself a songwriter. > This impulse – the creative dance – that is now being so cynically undermined, must be defended at all costs, and just as we would fight any existential evil, we should fight it tooth and nail, for we are fighting for the very soul of the world.
8jef 3y ago
Moreover, calling upon bible's genesis as an analogy for creation makes for a very weak, backward argument.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Hoasi 3y ago
> Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real. If we are speaking about the democratization of tools, this is not what is happening here. In effect, prompting Dall-E or Midjourney does not make you a creator. And herein lies the problem. It doesn't enable the talentless to create something beautiful. It allows anyone to prompt aggregated images, regardless of talent or years dedicated to a craft. These images have no intrinsic value and, on top of that, don't belong to the prompter. This technology is a collage tool, and it's great, but it doesn't make anyone a creator. If you believe it does, you're in for a rough awakening. Right now, the best models are only working thanks to bypassing the will of thousands of artists who didn't agree to have their work used for training data. As such, we are not essentially speaking about talent but the democratization of theft. Again, it's not the technology itself that is the problem. Most artists are pro-technology and don't oppose it. Besides, if you learn how to draw (anybody can learn this skill, come on!), you probably won't be impressed by most Midjourney results.
- thrwayaistartup 3y ago
  > This technology is a collage tool, and it's great, but it doesn't make anyone a creator. If you believe it does, you're in for a rough awakening. Hannah Höch would like a word.
- leashless 3y ago
  This is entirely not the point. I want to see a picture of a 5 kilometre high tower surrounded by spiralling cones of line on an infinite plane made of tessellating fractals. Now I have that picture. Great. I did not make than image "to be an artist". I made that image because I wanted that image. If it came out of a search engine rather than an AI, I wouldn't care. This kind of utilitarian creation of images is like photography for things that don't exist. Fine art? Art? Craft? Search of latent space? Collage? I don't care. Creator as an identity? I don't care. Whether machines are allowed to learn from humans is a hot topic. Every working artist studies, in great detail, other artists. They often make exact copies, as exact as they can, of great works to learn how those artists made them. Be very careful that in banning AI learning you do not also ban human learning. A law that covers one might also cover the other.
dorkwood 3y ago
> Is it art? I don't know. I don't care. I was not able, now I am able, and the people who are able complain. > Screw 'em. This is what tools are for. The strong should not tell the weak they cannot use props. Really? This famously maligned group of people, who have endured a lifetime of jokes about their useless art school degrees and student loans they'll never repay, we're now calling "the strong"? Artists aren't upset because a few developers made a machine that can generate pictures. They're upset because the machine couldn't have existed without their work, which they did not consent to being used, and it's now on the way to destroying their livelihoods all across the globe. Can't you see the tragedy in their story?
- unraveller 3y ago
  No machine could have been invented without taking from the human work that came before it. Those people provided the inventor with a task to be done. As they tell inventors, you can't patent an aim, only a method, and only for a time. Indeed, the aim is everything they mean to promote by patents... better, faster, cheaper ways of operating in the world. I thank the artists for their aim. That some don't want what they were aiming at to fall into lesser hands tells me they never did art for the right reasons. The accolades becoming diluted is no tragedy.
- leashless 3y ago
  When a talented person tries to ban the tools that make an average person able to do the same stuff the talented person can do, this is intentionally disabling people to preserve a class privilege. If there was a pill that gave people +40 points of IQ would we have born-smart people trying to ban it? Yes, some. If we had a machine that put knowledge right into people's heads by nanobot magic would we have people trying to ban it? "This four week doctor training is an unacceptable threat to the medical industry" You bet it is pal, you bet it is. This is not to say that *art is not vitally important* but it's not so important that we should ban talentless people getting access to the ability to make something that you will not be able to visually distinguish from art just to protect the monopoly of the talented-and-trained ones. I can't draw. Now I can draw-with-machine-assistance. Maybe it's not the same as "drawing" for some numinous reason. I'm too talentless to care. Somebody is going to take this away from me to protect the people who can draw? No.
famahar 3y ago
I wish people had a bit more confidence about making art. Not everything needs to be a flashy colorful realistic looking drawing. I'd argue they weren't talentless, just unconfident and narrow minded towards what art can be. Grab a canvas and go wild. People will be surprised with how easy it is to make art and you'll quickly shape your own unique art style.

leashless 3y ago

"Supermodels complain about plastic surgery letting ugly people look better" type headlines abound in AI

rafaelmn 3y ago
Plastic surgery only gets you so far. Likewise for AI generated content.
- Hoasi 3y ago
  Perfect analogy.
  - leashless 3y ago
    Yes, I think that's absolutely true of both plastic surgery and of AI. I don't mind, it's better than where I was before! I can semi-draw with AI help. Good enough.
    - Hoasi 3y ago
      > I can semi-draw with AI help. Good enough. Good for you. But that's not drawing, though. You won't know what drawing is until you try. Then you'll come back with more questions. It's an open-ended endeavor. Drawing is not something you solve with an app. That's why the whole premise of this thread is a bit sad. AI is a tool that bypasses the joy (and the point) of drawing entirely.
      - leashless 3y ago
        Oh I tried. I suck. If I worked at it, I would still suck. Am I to be deprived of the capability to take images from inside my head and turn them into pixels TO PROTECT THE CARTEL OF PEOPLE WHO CAN DO IT MANUALLY? Seems like a bad idea. “good artists borrow, great artists steal” —- Picasso. Whether AI generated work should be copyright able is a MUCH MUCH harder question. Maybe the answer you seek is there.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jazzyjackson 3y ago

the tech would not exist if not for the talented people you are screwing

mvandermeulen 3y ago
How are they being screwed?
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  They are being outcompeted by a megacorp selling bootleg derivatives of their work Not being screwed looks like royalties for content that the machine derives its value from
  - Hoasi 3y ago
    > They are being outcompeted by a megacorp selling bootleg derivatives of their work and driving the value of their hard work to the ground.
leashless 3y ago
Mine workers extract iron ore. Iron ore is made into iron which is made into machines which shovel iron ore. "Tell it like it is Till there's no misunderstanding When you strip it right back Man feed machine Machine feed man" to quote a (human) poet
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  an interesting analogy, thanks, I'll trade you some lines I heard from Johnny Cash: Well John Henry hammered in the mountain, he'd give a grunt and he'd give groan with every swing, the women folks for miles around, heard him and come down, to watch him make the cold steel ring, Lord what a swinger, just listen to that cold steel ring But the bad boss come up laughing at John Henry, said you full of vinegar now, but you bout through, were gonna get a steam drill to do your share of drivin, then what's all them muscles gonna do, huh John Henry, gonna take a little bit of vinegar out of you John Henry said I feed four little brothers, and my baby sister's walking on her knees, did the Lord say that machines ought to take the place of living, and what's a subsitute for bread and beans, I ain't seen it, do engines get rewarded for their steam?

Almondsetat 3y ago

Artists complain because they are being hit with the fact that most people don't care about art. Why is AI taking over corporate designs? Because, my dear artist, the stuff corporations commissioned you wasn't art, they were formulaic cogs into a soulless machine. Why is AI taking over porn? Because, my dear artists, almost all of your NSFW commissions wasn't art, its single purpose was making someone cum. Before automation people were forced to hire artists. Do you think the Church in the middle ages would have hired so many painters to decorate the walls of the myriad of minor churches in their possession? No, they would have saved them for the big meaningful projects and let AI do the job elsewhere. The people really paying you for your art are a minority and won't go away. Deal with this fact however you like. Perhaps if you're such a good artist then use AI to round up your weaker skills such as marketing or story writing.

viraptor 3y ago

That's not what Nick Cave says though, is it? He's not complaining about the tech enabling people to create. He says the whole song results suck and only have surface level similarity to someone. The closest he gets is actually just accepting: "ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary". He's not even saying anything about using LLM as a tool to help you express what you actually want to create, ("here's the beginning, now I need a line about X, but [constraint Y]") but rather criticises the complete "song in style of ..." result.

thrwayaistartup 3y ago
No. His critique is one of process, not of output quality. He is asserting the existence of an "unconscious human spirit", asserting that ChatGPT "is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination", and that we should fight against AI as we would fight against genocide: "just as we would fight any existential evil, we should fight it tooth and nail, for we are fighting for the very soul of the world." Incidentally, I agree with the importance of struggle and soul-work. I agree with the general valence of the lament, but come away with a very different call to action. In particular: I just don't think I have the right to impose luddism on the rest of the world for my particular niche while benefiting lavishly from the rest of the world's alienation form their much more essential labor. To me, it's the ravings of an angry, arrogant, and entitled elitist who fears being dethroned from his comfortable luxury and refined status. And a hilariously hyperbolic one at that. Of all the actual evils I would write something like this about, AI Art probably isn't even in the top 1,000,000. Can you imagine looking at the world today and writing that last paragraph? My god. --- Quotes: > ChatGPT rejects any notions of creative struggle, that our endeavours animate and nurture our lives giving them depth and meaning. It rejects that there is a collective, essential and unconscious human spirit underpinning our existence, connecting us all through our mutual striving. > ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary. That ‘songwriter ‘you were talking to, Leon, who is using ChatGPT to write ‘his’ lyrics because it is ‘faster and easier ,’is participating in this erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself and, to put it politely, should fucking desist if he wants to continue calling himself a songwriter. > This impulse – the creative dance – that is now being so cynically undermined, must be defended at all costs, and just as we would fight any existential evil, we should fight it tooth and nail, for we are fighting for the very soul of the world.

8jef 3y ago

Moreover, calling upon bible's genesis as an analogy for creation makes for a very weak, backward argument.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Hoasi 3y ago

> Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real. If we are speaking about the democratization of tools, this is not what is happening here. In effect, prompting Dall-E or Midjourney does not make you a creator. And herein lies the problem. It doesn't enable the talentless to create something beautiful. It allows anyone to prompt aggregated images, regardless of talent or years dedicated to a craft. These images have no intrinsic value and, on top of that, don't belong to the prompter. This technology is a collage tool, and it's great, but it doesn't make anyone a creator. If you believe it does, you're in for a rough awakening. Right now, the best models are only working thanks to bypassing the will of thousands of artists who didn't agree to have their work used for training data. As such, we are not essentially speaking about talent but the democratization of theft. Again, it's not the technology itself that is the problem. Most artists are pro-technology and don't oppose it. Besides, if you learn how to draw (anybody can learn this skill, come on!), you probably won't be impressed by most Midjourney results.

thrwayaistartup 3y ago
> This technology is a collage tool, and it's great, but it doesn't make anyone a creator. If you believe it does, you're in for a rough awakening. Hannah Höch would like a word.
leashless 3y ago
This is entirely not the point. I want to see a picture of a 5 kilometre high tower surrounded by spiralling cones of line on an infinite plane made of tessellating fractals. Now I have that picture. Great. I did not make than image "to be an artist". I made that image because I wanted that image. If it came out of a search engine rather than an AI, I wouldn't care. This kind of utilitarian creation of images is like photography for things that don't exist. Fine art? Art? Craft? Search of latent space? Collage? I don't care. Creator as an identity? I don't care. Whether machines are allowed to learn from humans is a hot topic. Every working artist studies, in great detail, other artists. They often make exact copies, as exact as they can, of great works to learn how those artists made them. Be very careful that in banning AI learning you do not also ban human learning. A law that covers one might also cover the other.

dorkwood 3y ago

> Is it art? I don't know. I don't care. I was not able, now I am able, and the people who are able complain. > Screw 'em. This is what tools are for. The strong should not tell the weak they cannot use props. Really? This famously maligned group of people, who have endured a lifetime of jokes about their useless art school degrees and student loans they'll never repay, we're now calling "the strong"? Artists aren't upset because a few developers made a machine that can generate pictures. They're upset because the machine couldn't have existed without their work, which they did not consent to being used, and it's now on the way to destroying their livelihoods all across the globe. Can't you see the tragedy in their story?

unraveller 3y ago
No machine could have been invented without taking from the human work that came before it. Those people provided the inventor with a task to be done. As they tell inventors, you can't patent an aim, only a method, and only for a time. Indeed, the aim is everything they mean to promote by patents... better, faster, cheaper ways of operating in the world. I thank the artists for their aim. That some don't want what they were aiming at to fall into lesser hands tells me they never did art for the right reasons. The accolades becoming diluted is no tragedy.
leashless 3y ago
When a talented person tries to ban the tools that make an average person able to do the same stuff the talented person can do, this is intentionally disabling people to preserve a class privilege. If there was a pill that gave people +40 points of IQ would we have born-smart people trying to ban it? Yes, some. If we had a machine that put knowledge right into people's heads by nanobot magic would we have people trying to ban it? "This four week doctor training is an unacceptable threat to the medical industry" You bet it is pal, you bet it is. This is not to say that *art is not vitally important* but it's not so important that we should ban talentless people getting access to the ability to make something that you will not be able to visually distinguish from art just to protect the monopoly of the talented-and-trained ones. I can't draw. Now I can draw-with-machine-assistance. Maybe it's not the same as "drawing" for some numinous reason. I'm too talentless to care. Somebody is going to take this away from me to protect the people who can draw? No.

famahar 3y ago

I wish people had a bit more confidence about making art. Not everything needs to be a flashy colorful realistic looking drawing. I'd argue they weren't talentless, just unconfident and narrow minded towards what art can be. Grab a canvas and go wild. People will be surprised with how easy it is to make art and you'll quickly shape your own unique art style.