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"Democratize" used to have positive connotations, as in "democratize access to information". I didn't anticipate that it would have negative ones.

Dalewyn 2y ago
When everyone is special noone is, as the old saying goes. There's nothing herently good or bad about everyone getting access to or becoming capable of something.
Spivak 2y ago
It shouldn't, one of my friends is a professional copywriter and she's very pro-AI because it raises the writing bar for the devs she works with. "I can write better than AI, but AI can write better than you, use AI" is her go-to line with her coworkers.
- boomlinde 2y ago
  So does AI democratize copywriting? It seems it makes it enables users not to write which is already an option to everyone. It doesn't enable users to write in anyway; instead it writes for you. Deferring to an oracle that writes for you is the exact opposite of democratization.
boomlinde 2y ago
I just think that "democratize" is the wrong word. AI tools that spit out prompt-based songs are enabling people not to create music, which is already available as an option to exactly everyone. Instead, centralized AI tools will be creating more of our music for us, which is the exact opposite of democratization.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >AI tools that spit out prompt-based songs are enabling people not to create music, What level of mental gymnastics is this? This is like saying that cars enable people to not travel. Music is in the ears of the beholder, it doesn't matter how it was produced. If a tool lets more people compose music, which "AI" does, then it's democratizing composing music. Likewise: Crossbows and then guns democratized violence. Cars democratized personal transport. Currency democratized procurement. The printing press democratized writing. The internet democratized information. Democratizing is about making something more accessible to the commons. Whether that will be good or bad is not the concern of democracy.
  - boomlinde 2y ago
    > What level of mental gymnastics is this? This is like saying that cars enable people to not travel. No, sitting in a car that's traveling, you are actually traveling with it regardless of whether you are driving it, so it's entirely unlike saying that cars enable people not to travel. It's more like saying that giving everyone access to a private robot driver doesn't somehow democratize driving and instead enables people not to drive. You can instruct the driver to drive where you want to go on your behalf, and you can travel along with them in the car, but it hasn't somehow enabled anyone but the robot to drive. It has however enabled you not to drive: even in situations where you would otherwise have driven you can now rely on your robot driver to do it for you. What the robot driver has democratized is access to something that can drive for you, not driving. Similarly, what AI/ML/LLM/whatever-based music generators and the like have democratized is access to something that can create music for you, not creating music. Not even the ATC can be considered to be pilots simply for giving instructions to others who fly planes, even though they give pilots much more detailed and involved instructions than anyone gives e.g. Suno. > Music is in the ears of the beholder, it doesn't matter how it was produced. Even if we assume that this is true, it has no bearing on my argument: whether or not it matters how music was produced is irrelevant to the question of who or what created the music. > If a tool lets more people compose music, which "AI" does, then it's democratizing composing music. But it doesn't let more people compose music. The "AI", for example Suno, creates the music for you, and your input is more akin to the instructions you give to the driver: extremely high level and entirely removed from the work involved in producing the result. Similarly, as a composer, writing a piece that performing artists then interpret and use as instructions for a performance doesn't somehow make me a performing artist, despite your instructions being much more detailed than any instruction that has ever been given to Suno, and therefore enabling the composer to be more involved in the outcome of the performance. > Likewise: Crossbows and then guns democratized violence. Will you agree that the degree of involvement has any bearing on the judgement whether it is something I do or it's something others do for me? For example, that having private robot driver driving me around at my behest doesn't make me a driver myself, but aiming and firing a gun at someone with the intent to cause violence to them makes me violent, despite the fact that I'm not the bullet that ultimately caused the harm? If so, the reductionist argument is misleading and we have to consider the degree to which you are involved in the process of creation when you tell Suno to produce a song. > Whether that will be good or bad is not the concern of democracy. Whether it's good or bad is also completely irrelevant to my argument, and seemingly also to your response to it, so why bring it up at all?

Dalewyn 2y ago

When everyone is special noone is, as the old saying goes. There's nothing herently good or bad about everyone getting access to or becoming capable of something.

Spivak 2y ago

It shouldn't, one of my friends is a professional copywriter and she's very pro-AI because it raises the writing bar for the devs she works with. "I can write better than AI, but AI can write better than you, use AI" is her go-to line with her coworkers.

boomlinde 2y ago
So does AI democratize copywriting? It seems it makes it enables users not to write which is already an option to everyone. It doesn't enable users to write in anyway; instead it writes for you. Deferring to an oracle that writes for you is the exact opposite of democratization.

boomlinde 2y ago

I just think that "democratize" is the wrong word. AI tools that spit out prompt-based songs are enabling people not to create music, which is already available as an option to exactly everyone. Instead, centralized AI tools will be creating more of our music for us, which is the exact opposite of democratization.

Dalewyn 2y ago
>AI tools that spit out prompt-based songs are enabling people not to create music, What level of mental gymnastics is this? This is like saying that cars enable people to not travel. Music is in the ears of the beholder, it doesn't matter how it was produced. If a tool lets more people compose music, which "AI" does, then it's democratizing composing music. Likewise: Crossbows and then guns democratized violence. Cars democratized personal transport. Currency democratized procurement. The printing press democratized writing. The internet democratized information. Democratizing is about making something more accessible to the commons. Whether that will be good or bad is not the concern of democracy.
- boomlinde 2y ago
  > What level of mental gymnastics is this? This is like saying that cars enable people to not travel. No, sitting in a car that's traveling, you are actually traveling with it regardless of whether you are driving it, so it's entirely unlike saying that cars enable people not to travel. It's more like saying that giving everyone access to a private robot driver doesn't somehow democratize driving and instead enables people not to drive. You can instruct the driver to drive where you want to go on your behalf, and you can travel along with them in the car, but it hasn't somehow enabled anyone but the robot to drive. It has however enabled you not to drive: even in situations where you would otherwise have driven you can now rely on your robot driver to do it for you. What the robot driver has democratized is access to something that can drive for you, not driving. Similarly, what AI/ML/LLM/whatever-based music generators and the like have democratized is access to something that can create music for you, not creating music. Not even the ATC can be considered to be pilots simply for giving instructions to others who fly planes, even though they give pilots much more detailed and involved instructions than anyone gives e.g. Suno. > Music is in the ears of the beholder, it doesn't matter how it was produced. Even if we assume that this is true, it has no bearing on my argument: whether or not it matters how music was produced is irrelevant to the question of who or what created the music. > If a tool lets more people compose music, which "AI" does, then it's democratizing composing music. But it doesn't let more people compose music. The "AI", for example Suno, creates the music for you, and your input is more akin to the instructions you give to the driver: extremely high level and entirely removed from the work involved in producing the result. Similarly, as a composer, writing a piece that performing artists then interpret and use as instructions for a performance doesn't somehow make me a performing artist, despite your instructions being much more detailed than any instruction that has ever been given to Suno, and therefore enabling the composer to be more involved in the outcome of the performance. > Likewise: Crossbows and then guns democratized violence. Will you agree that the degree of involvement has any bearing on the judgement whether it is something I do or it's something others do for me? For example, that having private robot driver driving me around at my behest doesn't make me a driver myself, but aiming and firing a gun at someone with the intent to cause violence to them makes me violent, despite the fact that I'm not the bullet that ultimately caused the harm? If so, the reductionist argument is misleading and we have to consider the degree to which you are involved in the process of creation when you tell Suno to produce a song. > Whether that will be good or bad is not the concern of democracy. Whether it's good or bad is also completely irrelevant to my argument, and seemingly also to your response to it, so why bring it up at all?