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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW (Destiny)

by ManKitten, The Stugotz is strong in me., Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 06:19 (438 days ago)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/02/05/ai-art-accidentally-wins-destiny-2s-art-of-the-week-fanart-contest/...

As a professional artist, I've used AI images before...but as jumping off points. For brainstorming. My finished product will not look like the AI image, just inspired by it. It stinks that people put a lot of time and effort into their art and a 5 second prompt of text takes the win. It also stinks how many business will host a "design our logo" contest instead of paying a designer to do it.

Anyway.

What so you?

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Wow! Those prompt engineers put in some hard work!

by Anna Komnene, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 08:29 (438 days ago) @ ManKitten

- No text -

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 08:48 (438 days ago) @ ManKitten

It stinks that people put a lot of time and effort into their art and a 5 second prompt of text takes the win. It also stinks how many business will host a "design our logo" contest instead of paying a designer to do it.

Contests like that do stink.

But I'm not sure AI art does.

To me, gauging the quality of a work by effort has always seemed misguided. That would imply that a savant who can effortlessly conjure drawings somehow has less valuable work than someone who works incredibly hard at it over time. It makes no sense to me - the aesthetics of the final image are all that matter. I don't think people really care either - if they did every entry into an art contest would include exhaustive documentation of the process of creation. But they don't. They just look at the image.

If you DO value human effort when evaluating art, then you clearly have nothing to fear. The response to AI art, particularly those which have won competitions and had their awards rescinded, proves you aren't really at risk of being replaced, doesn't it?

My worry about AI art is going to be about who controls the algorithms. A big corporation? No bueno. Open source and democratic? Now we are talking.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 18:28 (437 days ago) @ Cody Miller

My worry about AI art is going to be about who controls the algorithms. A big corporation? No bueno. Open source and democratic? Now we are talking.

Not only the algorithm matters, the database for training makes a lot of difference too, both in terms of potential and ethically.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 20:39 (437 days ago) @ ZackDark
edited by Cody Miller, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 20:44

My worry about AI art is going to be about who controls the algorithms. A big corporation? No bueno. Open source and democratic? Now we are talking.


Not only the algorithm matters, the database for training makes a lot of difference too, both in terms of potential and ethically.

Not sure there is anything wrong with training databases ethically either.

Human artists literally do the same thing. You consume art in your field to learn and get better. I watched a bunch of movies to learn the basics of editing. How's that different than an AI looking at images to learn the basics of making one? In neither case did anyone give either me, or the AI permission to learn from them.

If you don't think an AI should be allowed to learn by looking, then you must accept that every human must get permission from every artist whose work they consume in order to learn, OR that a human be potentially forbidden to learn from a certain work of art - an absurd notion.

If you publish your work, it can be used in learning. Seems pretty basic to me. Curtailing that just creates logical and artistic absurdities.

AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by EffortlessFury @, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 22:26 (437 days ago) @ Cody Miller

My worry about AI art is going to be about who controls the algorithms. A big corporation? No bueno. Open source and democratic? Now we are talking.


Not only the algorithm matters, the database for training makes a lot of difference too, both in terms of potential and ethically.


Not sure there is anything wrong with training databases ethically either.

Human artists literally do the same thing. You consume art in your field to learn and get better. I watched a bunch of movies to learn the basics of editing. How's that different than an AI looking at images to learn the basics of making one? In neither case did anyone give either me, or the AI permission to learn from them.

If you don't think an AI should be allowed to learn by looking, then you must accept that every human must get permission from every artist whose work they consume in order to learn, OR that a human be potentially forbidden to learn from a certain work of art - an absurd notion.

If you publish your work, it can be used in learning. Seems pretty basic to me. Curtailing that just creates logical and artistic absurdities.

The reason why it has always been okay is that A. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to practice and apply that learning and B. Most people inherently develop a style that is unique to themselves. These two facts need to be taken in conjunction with one another. An algorithm completing this process in a fraction of a fraction of the time a human can, while being able to reasonably replicate the styles presented to it, is not the same outcome as before.

Someone could spend their life going through this process and developing their own style, which AI could now replicate with little to no effort. A human learning from that person's art style cannot conceivably replace them in the marketplace in short order, and it is still not likely to be similar enough that the original artist would be replaceable. Now, that is a much more possible.

Look at AI being used to reproduce people's voices. It is the exact same process and result for audible content as this is for visual content. Would you also say that by putting their voice out into the world, training AI on it is justified (whether on their speaking voice or a character voice they perform)?

All of this resides in a very blurry region of plagiarism, IMO. The human brain is a filter for the content they consume in the process of training their brain, which creates variety and does so over a long period of time (which is a limited resource that each of us has to spend).

One time, someone argued to me that, simply because they existed, they had a right (and almost a responsibility) to take whatever they could from the world (and its resources). Even if that meant making the future less sustainable for others, it was still right and fair for them to do so, even if their present existence depended on others not having behaved that way in the past. Is the response to that attitude to say, "well, we should just get used to people trying to take everything they can," or do we fix the loopholes in society that allow people to take far more than what is fair (to the point that others suffer)?

Technological progress comes, whether we like it or not, but that doesn't mean we should abandon any attempt at ethics.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 22:44 (437 days ago) @ EffortlessFury
edited by Cody Miller, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 22:48

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

The reason why it has always been okay is that A. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to practice and apply that learning and B. Most people inherently develop a style that is unique to themselves. These two facts need to be taken in conjunction with one another. An algorithm completing this process in a fraction of a fraction of the time a human can, while being able to reasonably replicate the styles presented to it, is not the same outcome as before.

Someone could spend their life going through this process and developing their own style, which AI could now replicate with little to no effort.

Isn't this what Amadeus is about? Dude is jealous Mozart can crank out in an afternoon what he worked years for. So you'd blame Mozart and tell him to not be such a genius?

A human learning from that person's art style cannot conceivably replace them in the marketplace in short order, and it is still not likely to be similar enough that the original artist would be replaceable. Now, that is a much more possible.

Artists don't have any legal protection for their 'style'. Your style cannot be copyrighted - only specific expressions - basically individual drawings or character designs.

Look at AI being used to reproduce people's voices. It is the exact same process and result for audible content as this is for visual content. Would you also say that by putting their voice out into the world, training AI on it is justified (whether on their speaking voice or a character voice they perform)?

Yes. An impersonator or impressionist is free to listen to you and learn your speech to imitate. So… why not AI? Exactly the same principle.

All of this resides in a very blurry region of plagiarism, IMO. The human brain is a filter for the content they consume in the process of training their brain, which creates variety and does so over a long period of time (which is a limited resource that each of us has to spend).

As far as I know, the AIs generate completely new works with prompts. They do not copy and exactly replicate specific parts of artist's published work.

One time, someone argued to me that, simply because they existed, they had a right (and almost a responsibility) to take whatever they could from the world (and its resources). Even if that meant making the future less sustainable for others, it was still right and fair for them to do so, even if their present existence depended on others not having behaved that way in the past. Is the response to that attitude to say, "well, we should just get used to people trying to take everything they can," or do we fix the loopholes in society that allow people to take far more than what is fair (to the point that others suffer)?

Technological progress comes, whether we like it or not, but that doesn't mean we should abandon any attempt at ethics.

I just don't see any of the arguments against this as having sound ethical value. It's basically "I want to keep making money doing what I do", or "I want what I do to be considered special so I can get prestige". Neither of which I find compelling enough to halt progress on this.

AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by EffortlessFury @, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 00:29 (437 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Why is it unethical to write a paper that is composed of nothing but sentences from various other works? What makes the specific arrangement of words unique enough to not be considered plagiarism?

I dunno, man, but you seem to toss ethics out the window completely. By your standard, plagiarism shouldn't even be a thing. If one accepts that plagiarism is a legitimate concern, I feel like it should be self-evident that this is not a 100% ethically clean technology.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 07:53 (437 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

Why is it unethical to write a paper that is composed of nothing but sentences from various other works? What makes the specific arrangement of words unique enough to not be considered plagiarism?

This isn’t what something like chatGPT does. It’s not lifting sentences from existing works. It’s composing unique sentences. Image generators are doing the same thing. What they create has not existed before.

AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by EffortlessFury @, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 09:09 (437 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Why is it unethical to write a paper that is composed of nothing but sentences from various other works? What makes the specific arrangement of words unique enough to not be considered plagiarism?


This isn’t what something like chatGPT does. It’s not lifting sentences from existing works. It’s composing unique sentences. Image generators are doing the same thing. What they create has not existed before.

Except chatGPT and AI like it have been shown to lift entire sentences. It isn't intelligent, it just regurgitates what it has been trained on. That regurgitation is not always unique. That's the point here...it is variable-degrees of plagiarism at "random." That is why the entire concept is ethically dubious.

Also, there are already laws in place protecting actors from having their likeness and voice from being replicated by AI, which means even the law (which is notorious for being inefficient and behind the times) is at the very least on the fence about this topic. (and if there aren't any laws in place, then the entities that wish to utilize actors' likeness and voice are afraid of taking it to court because they, too, see the dubiousness of the subject)

I can't take the position of "this is completely fine" seriously.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 09:22 (437 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

Why is it unethical to write a paper that is composed of nothing but sentences from various other works? What makes the specific arrangement of words unique enough to not be considered plagiarism?


This isn’t what something like chatGPT does. It’s not lifting sentences from existing works. It’s composing unique sentences. Image generators are doing the same thing. What they create has not existed before.


Except chatGPT and AI like it have been shown to lift entire sentences. It isn't intelligent, it just regurgitates what it has been trained on. That regurgitation is not always unique. That's the point here...it is variable-degrees of plagiarism at "random." That is why the entire concept is ethically dubious.

Ahh I see. But how is that not easily checked for? I wonder. It'd be trivial to toss out something that matches anything in the training database.

Also, there are already laws in place protecting actors from having their likeness and voice from being replicated by AI, which means even the law (which is notorious for being inefficient and behind the times) is at the very least on the fence about this topic. (and if there aren't any laws in place, then the entities that wish to utilize actors' likeness and voice are afraid of taking it to court because they, too, see the dubiousness of the subject)

That's a different issue, and it also applies to imitators too. You can't go and hire someone who sounds like an actor to do ADR instead of that actor. Just like you can't have an AI do the lines without permission or the actor signing a release and/or being compensated if this is done.

A Concrete Example

by EffortlessFury @, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 09:32 (437 days ago) @ EffortlessFury
edited by EffortlessFury, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 09:35

GitHub Copilot is an AI-assist tool that aids in the coding process to suggest code to help you accomplish the goals it believes you are attempting to achieve. Source code is distributed under a license (and a lack of license, i.e. the default, is not permissive). Different source code repositories can be reused to varying degrees based upon various conditions.

The major problem is that GitHub Copilot was trained on repos with various licenses with varying degrees of reuse permissions. Github Copilot can be used to develop software with licenses that are less permissive than the repos it was trained on.

Now, let's step back for a moment to the human factor. I, a developer, can look at the source code of a project and observe the implementation of a solution to a problem. Assuming a restrictive license, I cannot reuse that code verbatim, but I can attempt to reimplement the same general process in my own way. What's the distinction? Well, that is considered, by and large, a grey area. Because the number of ways to solve a problem, especially efficiently, are limited, there's not much room for reinventing the wheel. It is likely that multiple independent implementations of a solution to the same problem will look similar. Therefore, this transformative reuse will happen and is ultimately an unavoidable byproduct of open sourcing code.

Bringing this back to Copilot: Copilot does not source its recommendations. How could it, after all? It is an amalgamation of all that it has been trained upon. It no longer has the context of where that particular solution came from. Copilot has been shown to regurgitate entire sections of code from repos, so it is not always creating something original; were a developer to take one of these larger suggestions and implement them by manually observing the repo, this would be considered illegal. However, because Copilot scrubs the context of its suggestions, this is much harder to prove and enforce.

At the end of the day, Copilot is essentially money laundering for code. It takes what would be illegal reuse and makes it "clean." The entire reason why the aforementioned transformative reuse is generally acceptable is that a human assesses the license of the source code, understands the conditions under which it can be used, and properly reuses and/or transforms it based upon those conditions. A human must consider the legal and ethical ramifications of that reuse. Trained AI does not do this.

That is why there is a pending lawsuit against Copilot. While the different potential products of AI generators have varying degrees of transformation depending on the type of product and the training set, it all exsists in this gray area because it is not consciously aware of the ethics of what it is doing. There is no human element making a judgement call on how far they should take their transformative work, and there is no one to hold accountable if the product would be considered unethical were a human to do it themselves.

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A Concrete Example

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 09:43 (437 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

That's interesting, but I guess I just don't understand how that's different than what we have now. The same law applies to a human copying code or an AI copying code. Either way, using someone else's code gets the project sued.

A human being could similarly 'launder' code in the same way.

Existing law would seem to cover the situation you are describing. Ultimately a human makes the decision to incorporate the code output from the AI.

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A human does it on purpose

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 14:13 (436 days ago) @ Cody Miller

A human simply piloting the ML model will never know just how original the output is, so they can't be prosecuted unless the use of the ML model itself is covered, regardless of output.

^This

by EffortlessFury @, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 15:56 (436 days ago) @ ZackDark

This is exactly why AI-generated content is such a complex topic. The trained dataset is the launderer. The user of the generator has no idea whether what they're using is okay to use or not. The only way to avoid this issue is to only train on content that one has permission to use.

In the case of A/V, the human mind and body is the launderer, but the human element introduces so much variance that it rarely results in the ability to mimic. Those who can mimic are either lucky or have worked to earn it, and a human's right to exercise their abilities is equivalent to another human's. With these generators, you have a computer mimicking a human and is able to do so with precision.

The human element, and the rights a human has, are what make mimicry "ok." The introduction of AI poses a completely new ethical problem to be solved, and is not perfectly equivalent to the existing human-human paradigm.

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A human does it on purpose

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 17:17 (435 days ago) @ ZackDark

A human simply piloting the ML model will never know just how original the output is, so they can't be prosecuted unless the use of the ML model itself is covered, regardless of output.

Then we have our answer.

If it's too much of a liability to use AI, companies just won't.

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A human does it on purpose

by cheapLEY @, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 18:38 (435 days ago) @ Cody Miller

You have a highly optimistic view of capitalism in general and this country’s ability (or desire) to actually regulate it specifically.

They’ll use the hell out of it until they get caught, then when they do get caught, they’ll pay a measly fine, consider it the cost of doing business, lobby to get the law changed so they can use it, and they’ll ensure wages remain stagnant the whole time while citing increased costs.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 20:13 (437 days ago) @ Cody Miller

If you DO value human effort when evaluating art, then you clearly have nothing to fear. The response to AI art, particularly those which have won competitions and had their awards rescinded, proves you aren't really at risk of being replaced, doesn't it?

People aren't worried about having their artistic sensibilities questioned--they're worried about their fucking jobs.

Concept artists? Who needs 'em, just fire up Midjourney! Will it be good? Not for some amount of time, no, but since when has that ever stopped capitalist pigs from doing it anyway and then firing people just because they fucking can?

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 20:31 (437 days ago) @ cheapLEY

If you DO value human effort when evaluating art, then you clearly have nothing to fear. The response to AI art, particularly those which have won competitions and had their awards rescinded, proves you aren't really at risk of being replaced, doesn't it?


People aren't worried about having their artistic sensibilities questioned--they're worried about their fucking jobs.

Concept artists? Who needs 'em, just fire up Midjourney! Will it be good? Not for some amount of time, no, but since when has that ever stopped capitalist pigs from doing it anyway and then firing people just because they fucking can?

I mean, that kind of worry is just trying to fight the coming tide. Every tech innovation puts some group out of work. It's just impossible to fight so adaptation is required.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 10:56 (436 days ago) @ Cody Miller

If you DO value human effort when evaluating art, then you clearly have nothing to fear. The response to AI art, particularly those which have won competitions and had their awards rescinded, proves you aren't really at risk of being replaced, doesn't it?


People aren't worried about having their artistic sensibilities questioned--they're worried about their fucking jobs.

Concept artists? Who needs 'em, just fire up Midjourney! Will it be good? Not for some amount of time, no, but since when has that ever stopped capitalist pigs from doing it anyway and then firing people just because they fucking can?


I mean, that kind of worry is just trying to fight the coming tide. Every tech innovation puts some group out of work. It's just impossible to fight so adaptation is required.

Or so you say until EditorGPT is a thing. I'm not looking forward to the human element being pushed off the stage. It's not worked well so far. Look at it from the perspective of human interaction. The more digital and less analog we are, the meaner we are.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 11:06 (436 days ago) @ Kermit

Or so you say until EditorGPT is a thing. I'm not looking forward to the human element being pushed off the stage. It's not worked well so far. Look at it from the perspective of human interaction. The more digital and less analog we are, the meaner we are.

Don't you think that attitude, which is shared by a lot of people, is why humans will always desire art made by other humans?

If EditorGPT becomes a thing, then I predict it will be widely used in things like commercials or corporate / industrial videos, while humans will still cut movies.

But if it turns out audiences don't care whether a human edited a film? Then they've spoken, and I'll find a new career.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 11:27 (436 days ago) @ Cody Miller

That’s the most depressing thing I’ve read today.

Who cares if commercial editors lose their jobs, it’s not like they’re working on movies. Fuck ‘em!

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 12:19 (436 days ago) @ cheapLEY

That’s the most depressing thing I’ve read today.

Who cares if commercial editors lose their jobs, it’s not like they’re working on movies. Fuck ‘em!

It's the reality of the situation.

Commercials - generally seen as commerce and not art.
Commercial editors - more expensive per day than narrative editors

So, I predict they'll be on the chopping block first. No value judgement, just a reflection of facts.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 06:30 (436 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It stinks that people put a lot of time and effort into their art and a 5 second prompt of text takes the win. It also stinks how many business will host a "design our logo" contest instead of paying a designer to do it.


Contests like that do stink.

But I'm not sure AI art does.

To me, gauging the quality of a work by effort has always seemed misguided. That would imply that a savant who can effortlessly conjure drawings somehow has less valuable work than someone who works incredibly hard at it over time. It makes no sense to me - the aesthetics of the final image are all that matter. I don't think people really care either - if they did every entry into an art contest would include exhaustive documentation of the process of creation. But they don't. They just look at the image.

If you DO value human effort when evaluating art, then you clearly have nothing to fear. The response to AI art, particularly those which have won competitions and had their awards rescinded, proves you aren't really at risk of being replaced, doesn't it?

My worry about AI art is going to be about who controls the algorithms. A big corporation? No bueno. Open source and democratic? Now we are talking.

My worry is about how reductive it is. It regurgitates existing ideas mashed together in often sub-par ways while threatening the livelihood of people who come up with genuinely unique new ideas.

What happens when this makes it unsustainable for the human artists to create new ideas? We'll have no new ideas. Just an uncanny valley that roughly mirrors what we have seen.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 07:45 (436 days ago) @ kidtsunami

My worry is about how reductive it is. It regurgitates existing ideas mashed together in often sub-par ways while threatening the livelihood of people who come up with genuinely unique new ideas.

What happens when this makes it unsustainable for the human artists to create new ideas?

If what you say above is true, then there's no worry. A human artist will always have something valuable: originally. So if that's all the AI is doing, then it doesn't threaten artists at all by your own argument.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 08:10 (436 days ago) @ Cody Miller

My worry is about how reductive it is. It regurgitates existing ideas mashed together in often sub-par ways while threatening the livelihood of people who come up with genuinely unique new ideas.

What happens when this makes it unsustainable for the human artists to create new ideas?


If what you say above is true, then there's no worry. A human artist will always have something valuable: originally. So if that's all the AI is doing, then it doesn't threaten artists at all by your own argument.

How could someone possibly support a career in art if a large part of what they make money on is consumed by a sub-par (but still "enough") product to get to the point where they can create something unique and interesting.

It's like the example above where you posit that if computers end up replacing your job because they could do it better that's fine, you'd find a different career.

I don't know how to explain to you, they won't replace you because they produce a better product, they'll do it because they'll be cheaper producing a worse but "acceptable" product. And humanity will suffer a net loss because yes we'll have more of everything, but it'll become more and more mediocre as it trends toward homogenous dreck.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by cheapLEY @, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 09:18 (436 days ago) @ kidtsunami

I don't know how to explain to you, they won't replace you because they produce a better product, they'll do it because they'll be cheaper producing a worse but "acceptable" product. And humanity will suffer a net loss because yes we'll have more of everything, but it'll become more and more mediocre as it trends toward homogenous dreck.

That’s the goal. Those dumbfucks doing the endless Seinfeld AI thing on twitch said as much. Their grand vision is what if AI could just generate endless amounts of “Netflix quality” shows. Why watch 5 seasons of something made by humans when you could get 700 seasons of some wholly AI created thing?

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 09:31 (436 days ago) @ kidtsunami

It's like the example above where you posit that if computers end up replacing your job because they could do it better that's fine, you'd find a different career.

I don't know how to explain to you, they won't replace you because they produce a better product, they'll do it because they'll be cheaper producing a worse but "acceptable" product. And humanity will suffer a net loss because yes we'll have more of everything, but it'll become more and more mediocre as it trends toward homogenous dreck.

This is called capitalism, and it literally affects every single job and skill human beings do. When was the last time you had someone make your shoes by hand? "Good enough" is basically the end stage of all labor and goods.

Sounds like your real problem is with the system itself. I might even agree with that!

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 11:39 (435 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It's like the example above where you posit that if computers end up replacing your job because they could do it better that's fine, you'd find a different career.

I don't know how to explain to you, they won't replace you because they produce a better product, they'll do it because they'll be cheaper producing a worse but "acceptable" product. And humanity will suffer a net loss because yes we'll have more of everything, but it'll become more and more mediocre as it trends toward homogenous dreck.


This is called capitalism, and it literally affects every single job and skill human beings do. When was the last time you had someone make your shoes by hand? "Good enough" is basically the end stage of all labor and goods.

Sounds like your real problem is with the system itself. I might even agree with that!

Yeah, that IS what I have an issue with. And I'm just saying this is an acceleration of the existing systems. And it's worth while to point at it and go "oh this isn't good".

AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by EffortlessFury @, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 08:39 (436 days ago) @ Cody Miller

My worry is about how reductive it is. It regurgitates existing ideas mashed together in often sub-par ways while threatening the livelihood of people who come up with genuinely unique new ideas.

What happens when this makes it unsustainable for the human artists to create new ideas?


If what you say above is true, then there's no worry. A human artist will always have something valuable: originally. So if that's all the AI is doing, then it doesn't threaten artists at all by your own argument.

This assumes that the average consumer can tell the difference or cares. If a significant chunk of a game's budget can be cut down and they can still make a major difference in profit (even if sales do go down somewhat), there is no incentive to fund actual artists, especially when these other products can undercut the "normally made" products in price and still make a larger margin of profit.

Theoretically, human made art (including movies and games) will become a true luxury, and that definitely suppresses the creation of new works.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 09:50 (436 days ago) @ EffortlessFury
edited by Cody Miller, Thursday, February 09, 2023, 09:57

This assumes that the average consumer can tell the difference or cares.

Art for commercial purposes is not exempt from market forces. If consumers genuinely do not care, then the market has spoken. You don't get to demand to keep making money just because you worked for years to develop your skill and you think it isn't fair. Either start creating art that consumers DO notice the difference in, cater to a niche market that DOES, or don't expect to make money off of your art.

Whether this (capitalism) is a good thing or not is kind of what we should be asking ourselves. AI art is just an extension of capitalist principles to get the most for the least as a business.

AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by EffortlessFury @, Sunday, February 12, 2023, 03:11 (433 days ago) @ Cody Miller

This assumes that the average consumer can tell the difference or cares.


Art for commercial purposes is not exempt from market forces. If consumers genuinely do not care, then the market has spoken. You don't get to demand to keep making money just because you worked for years to develop your skill and you think it isn't fair. Either start creating art that consumers DO notice the difference in, cater to a niche market that DOES, or don't expect to make money off of your art.

Whether this (capitalism) is a good thing or not is kind of what we should be asking ourselves. AI art is just an extension of capitalist principles to get the most for the least as a business.

Yeah, obviously your point makes sense if you accept whatever makes "capitalism go brrrr better" as okay, and believe that the only acceptable/fair way to solve any troublesome byproducts of capitalism is the complete eradication of capitalism. Otherwise, any measures taken are wrenches thrown into what normally makes sense for the status quo of the system.

Also, I may be misremembering, but aren't you a proponent of game preservation? By your own argument, if a company is not compelled preserve their games by capitalist principles, then we have no right to ask for it or push for work arounds in the system to enable it, no?

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, February 13, 2023, 12:18 (431 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

Also, I may be misremembering, but aren't you a proponent of game preservation? By your own argument, if a company is not compelled preserve their games by capitalist principles, then we have no right to ask for it or push for work arounds in the system to enable it, no?

A company is under no obligation to preserve anything, that is correct. However if people take it upon themselves to do so if the company does not, well that's not really imposing on the company now is it? We even build this into the law - when copyright expires anyone is now free to copy and preserve a work completely legally.

Nothing about the capitalist principles driving the creation of cheap AI art is impinging upon artist's freedom at all. You can still create and release your art as before. The only difference is the response to it by those viewing it, which you don't have a right to control.

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AI Created Image won TWAB AOTW

by cheapLEY @, Monday, February 13, 2023, 12:38 (431 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Nothing about the capitalist principles driving the creation of cheap AI art is impinging upon artist's freedom at all. You can still create and release your art as before. The only difference is the response to it by those viewing it, which you don't have a right to control.

It's a deeper issue than how people respond to AI art.

“We need the wider solutions offered by the Luddites themselves at the time, who thought about the potential good outcome of the industrial revolution — a world where mass-production works for everyone, not mostly for the people who own the factories. Forgive me for reaching for the ‘fully automated luxury communism’ button, but it is a very shiny button (and, of course, bright red).

“In a world where most artists were not struggling to make ends meet as it is, because all people’s basic needs were met (which isn’t impossible in the slightest), an AI making something using your work as an input would be close to harmless, if not fascinating in itself. Until we fix the world around it, this stuff and all its potential is doomed to be hated, recognised (correctly) as a thief of the work people do to survive

This is from an article posted over a Polygon that I just read today. That sort of sums up my feelings about the whole thing. AI art in a vacuum is absolutely a cool thing. It's interesting, at the very least. AI art in our dogshit capitalistic system fucking sucks.

Hits the nail on the head.

by EffortlessFury @, Tuesday, February 14, 2023, 18:35 (430 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Nothing about the capitalist principles driving the creation of cheap AI art is impinging upon artist's freedom at all. You can still create and release your art as before. The only difference is the response to it by those viewing it, which you don't have a right to control.


It's a deeper issue than how people respond to AI art.

“We need the wider solutions offered by the Luddites themselves at the time, who thought about the potential good outcome of the industrial revolution — a world where mass-production works for everyone, not mostly for the people who own the factories. Forgive me for reaching for the ‘fully automated luxury communism’ button, but it is a very shiny button (and, of course, bright red).

“In a world where most artists were not struggling to make ends meet as it is, because all people’s basic needs were met (which isn’t impossible in the slightest), an AI making something using your work as an input would be close to harmless, if not fascinating in itself. Until we fix the world around it, this stuff and all its potential is doomed to be hated, recognised (correctly) as a thief of the work people do to survive


This is from an article posted over a Polygon that I just read today. That sort of sums up my feelings about the whole thing. AI art in a vacuum is absolutely a cool thing. It's interesting, at the very least. AI art in our dogshit capitalistic system fucking sucks.

Honestly, this conversation feels like it near perfectly mirrors the two perspectives portrayed in that comic.

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