4 ms·

"My paycheck depends on this technology destroying every field producing cultural artifacts"

by __loam 3y ago

echelon 3y ago
Said the butter churner, cotton ginner, and petrol pumper. I work in film. I've shot dozens of them the old fashioned way. I've always hated how labor, time, and cost intensive they are to make. Despite instructions from the luminaries to "just pick up a camera", the entire process is stone age. The field is extremely inequitable, full of nepotism and "who you know". Almost every starry-eyed film student winds up doing drudge work for the rest of their lives. Most will never make a feature to match their ambition. If the whole task was to simply convey my thoughts and dreams to others, why am I scrambling around to sign location rights, capture photons on expensive glass, and then smear and splice things together for months on end? This is ceremonial and soon to be anachronistic. I'm glad that whole mess is going to be replaced. It's a farce. To phrase it another way - would you like to be hand-writing assembly on punch cards? To only gain entrance into the field with your mathematics PhD? To speak of the liberty and the economics, why should I have to sell the rights to my idea to a studio so I can get it off the ground? Why should I have to obey the studio's rules and mind their interference? This whole Gen AI thing is going to be the biggest liberating moment for filmmaking creatives. I know, because I am one. And if you think any Jack or Jill can just come in and text prompt a whole movie, you're crazy. It's still hard work and a metric ton of good taste. Art will never die. It's the human soul. It'll take more than some tech bros with GPUs to kill it. AI is just another tool for the artist. A "bicycle for the mind" to quote Jobs, and a rocket ship for the imagination to convey my own direct experience.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  > And if you think any Jack or Jill can just come in and text prompt a whole movie, you're crazy. It's still hard work and a metric ton of good taste. Yeah, I cant wait for ChuChuTV to get the best film Oscar /s.
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  > And if you think any Jack or Jill can just come in and text prompt a whole movie, you're crazy. It's still hard work and a metric ton of good taste. If you want anything good, yes. If you just want something… I reckon it'd take a week to assemble an incomprehensible-nonsense-film pipeline, after which it's just a matter of feeding the computer electricity. Short-term, this is going to funnel resources away from the people with good taste. Long-term, it might help collapse the entire "creative industry", after which we might get some of that artist liberation stuff you're talking about – but we might just end up with new gatekeeping strategies from the wealthy and connected, and business as usual.
  - echelon 3y ago
    > If you want anything good, yes. If you just want something ... You don't even need AI for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_poop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_poop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skibidi_Toilet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skibidi_Toilet The idea that AI isn't going to be used as a creative tool too and that it won't lead to more and better art is a defeatist, Luddite attitude. Similarly shaped people thought that digital cameras would ruin cinema and photography. > Short-term, this is going to funnel resources away from the people with good taste. On the contrary - every budding film student will soon [1] be able to execute on their entire visions straight out of the gates. No decades of clawing their way to a very limited, almost impossible to reach peak. > it might help collapse the entire "creative industry" The studio system. Not the industry. > new gatekeeping strategies from the wealthy and connected, and business as usual. Creatives have more ways of building brands and followings for themselves than ever before. It's one of the largest growing sectors of the economy, and lots of people are earning livings off of it. You'll be able to follow that steampunk vampire creator that's been missing from the world until now. Every long tail interest will be catered to. Even the most obscure and wild tastes, ideas, and designs. Stuff that would never get studio funding. As a creative, I'm overjoyed by this. My friends and I are getting to create things we never could make before [2]. [1] This and next year. [2] Just an inspiration / aesthetic sample, but we're making a full film: https://imgur.com/a/JNVnJIn https://imgur.com/a/JNVnJIn
    - 3y ago
- munificent 3y ago
  Call me crazy, but I don't think churning butter and writing a novel are in the same category of human endeavor at all.
- dist-epoch 3y ago
  > The field is extremely inequitable, full of nepotism and "who you know" Maybe, but it's never been cheaper to make a movie. I know someone with no connections and (almost) no money which in 4 years made multiple no. 1 box-office films (obviously not in US, in a smaller country) and then got picked up by Netflix.
- lmm 3y ago
  > Said the butter churner, cotton ginner, and petrol pumper. Said the bank teller, record producer, etc.. Plenty of cases where we've been told technology and automation would democratise the field and remove the middleman, and actually it's the opposite. Yes, it would be nice if AI made it easy for anyone who wanted to make a great movie. That doesn't mean it's going to happen.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

"My paycheck depends on this technology destroying every field producing cultural artifacts"

by __loam 3y ago

"My paycheck depends on this technology destroying every field producing cultural artifacts"

Said the butter churner, cotton ginner, and petrol pumper. I work in film. I've shot dozens of them the old fashioned way. I've always hated how labor, time, and cost intensive they are to make. Despite instructions from the luminaries to "just pick up a camera", the entire process is stone age. The field is extremely inequitable, full of nepotism and "who you know". Almost every starry-eyed film student winds up doing drudge work for the rest of their lives. Most will never make a feature to match their ambition. If the whole task was to simply convey my thoughts and dreams to others, why am I scrambling around to sign location rights, capture photons on expensive glass, and then smear and splice things together for months on end? This is ceremonial and soon to be anachronistic. I'm glad that whole mess is going to be replaced. It's a farce. To phrase it another way - would you like to be hand-writing assembly on punch cards? To only gain entrance into the field with your mathematics PhD? To speak of the liberty and the economics, why should I have to sell the rights to my idea to a studio so I can get it off the ground? Why should I have to obey the studio's rules and mind their interference? This whole Gen AI thing is going to be the biggest liberating moment for filmmaking creatives. I know, because I am one. And if you think any Jack or Jill can just come in and text prompt a whole movie, you're crazy. It's still hard work and a metric ton of good taste. Art will never die. It's the human soul. It'll take more than some tech bros with GPUs to kill it. AI is just another tool for the artist. A "bicycle for the mind" to quote Jobs, and a rocket ship for the imagination to convey my own direct experience.

sangnoir 3y ago
> And if you think any Jack or Jill can just come in and text prompt a whole movie, you're crazy. It's still hard work and a metric ton of good taste. Yeah, I cant wait for ChuChuTV to get the best film Oscar /s.
wizzwizz4 3y ago
> And if you think any Jack or Jill can just come in and text prompt a whole movie, you're crazy. It's still hard work and a metric ton of good taste. If you want anything good, yes. If you just want something… I reckon it'd take a week to assemble an incomprehensible-nonsense-film pipeline, after which it's just a matter of feeding the computer electricity. Short-term, this is going to funnel resources away from the people with good taste. Long-term, it might help collapse the entire "creative industry", after which we might get some of that artist liberation stuff you're talking about – but we might just end up with new gatekeeping strategies from the wealthy and connected, and business as usual.
- echelon 3y ago
  > If you want anything good, yes. If you just want something ... You don't even need AI for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_poop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_poop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skibidi_Toilet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skibidi_Toilet The idea that AI isn't going to be used as a creative tool too and that it won't lead to more and better art is a defeatist, Luddite attitude. Similarly shaped people thought that digital cameras would ruin cinema and photography. > Short-term, this is going to funnel resources away from the people with good taste. On the contrary - every budding film student will soon [1] be able to execute on their entire visions straight out of the gates. No decades of clawing their way to a very limited, almost impossible to reach peak. > it might help collapse the entire "creative industry" The studio system. Not the industry. > new gatekeeping strategies from the wealthy and connected, and business as usual. Creatives have more ways of building brands and followings for themselves than ever before. It's one of the largest growing sectors of the economy, and lots of people are earning livings off of it. You'll be able to follow that steampunk vampire creator that's been missing from the world until now. Every long tail interest will be catered to. Even the most obscure and wild tastes, ideas, and designs. Stuff that would never get studio funding. As a creative, I'm overjoyed by this. My friends and I are getting to create things we never could make before [2]. [1] This and next year. [2] Just an inspiration / aesthetic sample, but we're making a full film: https://imgur.com/a/JNVnJIn https://imgur.com/a/JNVnJIn
  - 3y ago
munificent 3y ago
Call me crazy, but I don't think churning butter and writing a novel are in the same category of human endeavor at all.
dist-epoch 3y ago
> The field is extremely inequitable, full of nepotism and "who you know" Maybe, but it's never been cheaper to make a movie. I know someone with no connections and (almost) no money which in 4 years made multiple no. 1 box-office films (obviously not in US, in a smaller country) and then got picked up by Netflix.
lmm 3y ago
> Said the butter churner, cotton ginner, and petrol pumper. Said the bank teller, record producer, etc.. Plenty of cases where we've been told technology and automation would democratise the field and remove the middleman, and actually it's the opposite. Yes, it would be nice if AI made it easy for anyone who wanted to make a great movie. That doesn't mean it's going to happen.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]