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Spending thousands of hours honing a craft and along the way learning from those who came before you, is not the same as using these models. You're being overly

Spending thousands of hours honing a craft and along the way learning from those who came before you, is not the same as using these models. You're being overly reductive to try and force a similarity, but in the process you just come off as disingenuous.

vessenes 1y ago
No. You're gatekeeping what "craft" is. Is craft making your own chisels for woodworking? Perhaps there are craftsman who buy chisels made by others. Okay. Then is craft only making furniture with dovetail joints by hand? Well, I guess people use planers. So, no it's not just hand made wood working that's craft. Someone uses a CnC machine with a design they made to cut wood, then hand sands and polishes. Is that craft? What if you learned it took them three or four times as many hours to learn the CnC machine and design as it did to hand plane a cedar log? To be clear, I don't identify as an artist at all, but I do have a stake in this conversation -- which is that I'd like more young folks to be positive, pick up tools at their disposal and build good things with them. The future's coming, and it's going to be built out by people with open minds who are soaking up everything they can about whatever tools are available. It's a sort of brain rot to gatekeep technology advances out of creativity.
- jplusequalt 1y ago
  >which is that I'd like more young folks to be positive, pick up tools at their disposal and build good things with them People have had access to tools for creating for generations. In the modern era you can buy a pencil and a sketch pad for dollars. You can buy an instrument used for as little as a hundred dollars. Hell, schools teach art and music for free. >The future's coming, and it's going to be built out by people with open minds who are soaking up everything they can about whatever tools are available. Not all technology presents a net good for society. These technologies only exist on top the mountain of stolen artwork created by millions of artists, and this tech will continue to hamper the livelihoods of artists as long these companies are pushing them. >It's a sort of brain rot to gatekeep technology advances out of creativity. JFC. Don't talk to me about brain rot. The "art" and "creativity" you speak about here is just more finely grained consumption. Now instead of scrolling through a feed, you can ask Google to present your dopamine addicted brain exactly what you want to see in that moment. In contrast, focusing on improving a craft acts as a sort of antidote to "brain rot" because you're engaging in multiple important things at once: - critical thinking - delayed gratification - habit formation - emotional exploration - and more
  - vessenes 1y ago
    I agree on the benefits of a hand-type craft, and that it’s an antidote to brain rot. Totally with you. I agree with the idea of “Amistics” (thanks Neal) - a sort of societal and moral lens to view technologies through and evaluate them. Totally with you there too. I agree that doomscrolling and social media are cancer-y in the extreme, to the extent that for a number of years I printed a daily personal newspaper. Srsly. > this tech will continue to hamper the livelihoods of artists … Nope. We’ll just redefine what an artist is. Pop quiz: did Disney employ more “artists” when each cel of a film was hand drawn and colored, or now when these modern “faux-artists, not like the real ones” have access to rendering clusters? Or a second pop quiz, when da Vinci or Rubens ran workshops where apprentices painted “da Vincis” or “Rubens(s?)” who was the artist? By the way, it’s right to redefine what an artist is. I’m going to get super controversial, ca 1900 and say that photographers can be artists. Now I’m going to get super controversial ca 1910 and say that someone mounting a bicycle wheel as a ‘readymade’ and displaying it can be an artist. Wait, now I’m going to move ahead the 1980s and say a cow cut in half and suspended in some sort of formaldehyde can be art. Hang on. A poem on a disk that deletes itself as its read is art. The art is the creative endeavor itself. It’s the outcome of a creative person engaging with whatever tools they want to create some output. If someone wants to engage with an LLM or diffusion model or whatever and have it make something to those standards, it’s art. Calling them ‘not an artist’ based on their choice of tools is just totally incorrect. I’m not saying all uses of diffusion models or any other AI assisted imagery is art. But I am saying that ingesting and summarizing publicized images is not theft, and people choosing to use those tools to instantiate a creative vision can absolutely be art, and further that generally the cheaper a form of creative expression becomes the better on balance for the world.
    - jplusequalt 1y ago
      >Calling them ‘not an artist’ based on their choice of tools is just totally incorrect Here's the crux of the issue I have with this entire conversation--because you now are able to generate "artwork," you expect the artistic community to respect you as an artist. You're waltzing into the room with none of the same battle scars, experiences, or morals and demanding that they bestow upon you the title of "creator". >By the way, it’s right to redefine what an artist is Sure, but let artists be the ones who take charge in redefining what art is. How is it right to redefine what "art" and "creating" is without the goodwill or consent of the artistic community at large? You are effectively trying to force a hostile takeover of the space, to demand everyone consider your generated image/song/video be treated with the same amount of respect as actual art. If you can't even be bothered to respect the artistic community enough to understand why they feel slighted over the creation of these tools, or to empathize with them over their impact in livelihood due to the proliferation of AI slop, why the hell do you expect them to consider you an artist?

vessenes 1y ago

No. You're gatekeeping what "craft" is. Is craft making your own chisels for woodworking? Perhaps there are craftsman who buy chisels made by others. Okay. Then is craft only making furniture with dovetail joints by hand? Well, I guess people use planers. So, no it's not just hand made wood working that's craft. Someone uses a CnC machine with a design they made to cut wood, then hand sands and polishes. Is that craft? What if you learned it took them three or four times as many hours to learn the CnC machine and design as it did to hand plane a cedar log? To be clear, I don't identify as an artist at all, but I do have a stake in this conversation -- which is that I'd like more young folks to be positive, pick up tools at their disposal and build good things with them. The future's coming, and it's going to be built out by people with open minds who are soaking up everything they can about whatever tools are available. It's a sort of brain rot to gatekeep technology advances out of creativity.

jplusequalt 1y ago
>which is that I'd like more young folks to be positive, pick up tools at their disposal and build good things with them People have had access to tools for creating for generations. In the modern era you can buy a pencil and a sketch pad for dollars. You can buy an instrument used for as little as a hundred dollars. Hell, schools teach art and music for free. >The future's coming, and it's going to be built out by people with open minds who are soaking up everything they can about whatever tools are available. Not all technology presents a net good for society. These technologies only exist on top the mountain of stolen artwork created by millions of artists, and this tech will continue to hamper the livelihoods of artists as long these companies are pushing them. >It's a sort of brain rot to gatekeep technology advances out of creativity. JFC. Don't talk to me about brain rot. The "art" and "creativity" you speak about here is just more finely grained consumption. Now instead of scrolling through a feed, you can ask Google to present your dopamine addicted brain exactly what you want to see in that moment. In contrast, focusing on improving a craft acts as a sort of antidote to "brain rot" because you're engaging in multiple important things at once: - critical thinking - delayed gratification - habit formation - emotional exploration - and more
- vessenes 1y ago
  I agree on the benefits of a hand-type craft, and that it’s an antidote to brain rot. Totally with you. I agree with the idea of “Amistics” (thanks Neal) - a sort of societal and moral lens to view technologies through and evaluate them. Totally with you there too. I agree that doomscrolling and social media are cancer-y in the extreme, to the extent that for a number of years I printed a daily personal newspaper. Srsly. > this tech will continue to hamper the livelihoods of artists … Nope. We’ll just redefine what an artist is. Pop quiz: did Disney employ more “artists” when each cel of a film was hand drawn and colored, or now when these modern “faux-artists, not like the real ones” have access to rendering clusters? Or a second pop quiz, when da Vinci or Rubens ran workshops where apprentices painted “da Vincis” or “Rubens(s?)” who was the artist? By the way, it’s right to redefine what an artist is. I’m going to get super controversial, ca 1900 and say that photographers can be artists. Now I’m going to get super controversial ca 1910 and say that someone mounting a bicycle wheel as a ‘readymade’ and displaying it can be an artist. Wait, now I’m going to move ahead the 1980s and say a cow cut in half and suspended in some sort of formaldehyde can be art. Hang on. A poem on a disk that deletes itself as its read is art. The art is the creative endeavor itself. It’s the outcome of a creative person engaging with whatever tools they want to create some output. If someone wants to engage with an LLM or diffusion model or whatever and have it make something to those standards, it’s art. Calling them ‘not an artist’ based on their choice of tools is just totally incorrect. I’m not saying all uses of diffusion models or any other AI assisted imagery is art. But I am saying that ingesting and summarizing publicized images is not theft, and people choosing to use those tools to instantiate a creative vision can absolutely be art, and further that generally the cheaper a form of creative expression becomes the better on balance for the world.
  - jplusequalt 1y ago
    >Calling them ‘not an artist’ based on their choice of tools is just totally incorrect Here's the crux of the issue I have with this entire conversation--because you now are able to generate "artwork," you expect the artistic community to respect you as an artist. You're waltzing into the room with none of the same battle scars, experiences, or morals and demanding that they bestow upon you the title of "creator". >By the way, it’s right to redefine what an artist is Sure, but let artists be the ones who take charge in redefining what art is. How is it right to redefine what "art" and "creating" is without the goodwill or consent of the artistic community at large? You are effectively trying to force a hostile takeover of the space, to demand everyone consider your generated image/song/video be treated with the same amount of respect as actual art. If you can't even be bothered to respect the artistic community enough to understand why they feel slighted over the creation of these tools, or to empathize with them over their impact in livelihood due to the proliferation of AI slop, why the hell do you expect them to consider you an artist?