I’ve always been confused about this train of thought, because it seems to justify the opposite of what it’s trying to say.
I mean, if the argument is people will use whatever garbage they have on hand to make art… presumably that includes generative AI? Look, I lived through four decades of people making art out of ASCII. My bar for acceptance for this stuff is really low. You give people a thing that makes pictures in any way and you’ll get a) pictures of dicks and b) pictures of other things.
I don’t think GenAI will kill human art for the same reasons I don’t think AI art is even in competition with human art. I may be moved or impressed by a generated image, but it’ll be for different reasons and in different scales than I’m… eh… moved and impressed by hot dragon rock lady here. Just like I can be impressed by the artistry in a photo but not for the same reasons I’m impressed by an oil painting. Different media, different forms of expression, different skill sets.
I think the argument is that an AI “artist” is incapable of creating art. Their “tool” does the work for them. Whereas other artists use digital tools but as just that - tools. The art comes from the artist.
That depends on what they’re doing. If they’re entering a prompt and rolling with what they get out of it, then sure.
If they’re inputting a prompt and refining it with solely AI tools then meeeh, that starts to fade a little. I’d ask why someone is spending hours going back and forth with an AI instead of doing some of it manually, but it’s hard to tell one way or the other from the final output.
If they’re inputting a prompt, refining it with AI tools and heavily editing what comes out in image editing software that’s approaching some strange digital mixed media weirdness I don’t think we have particularly good intuitions for.
If they’re inputting a prompt and using the output as some building block like a texture on a 3D model or for a content aware fill in photo editing or for a brush or a stamp I genuinely have no mental model for what impact that has in my assessment of the “meaning” or “effort” going into a piece, if I’m being perfectly honest.
Reductionism isn’t serving us particularly well on this one. Makes the pushback feel poorly informed and excessively dogmatic.
Typing a prompt still isn’t making art. If you look at art, everything has intent behind it, nothing is random, everyone has their own style that evolves. Like if you’re drawing a meadow, there are lots of choices you make in the progress, like what plants you draw, in what style, in what stage, are any of them damaged for example. Art isn’t just about the end result, it’s the process itself.
Typing a prompt is describing an image, not making it.
Nothing will kill art itself, GenAI will simply be incorporated as another tool
Killing the ability to make money from art AND the bs that corporations are pulling in regards to AI, profit and making line go up is what people are mad about, but that anger is constantly misplaced leading to lines of thought like this lol
I don’t understand why generative AI will kill making money from art. As you said, it’s just a tool.
If an artist can make a web comic in a fraction of the time they used to, they can multiply their output and thus possibly sell to more. A good gen AI artist would also be a good prompt engineer, which would also mean an expanded skillset. Game developers, architects, engineers, could also speed up their work to hit the ground running instead of doing a bunch of repetitive stuff.
Everybody has to adapt to AI. Adapt or die, it’s quite simple.
I don’t understand why generative AI will kill making money from art. As you said, it’s just a tool.
If an artist can make a web comic in a fraction of the time they used to, they can multiply their output and thus possibly sell to more.
You’re presenting the scenario of an artist using a tool to create more art. I think the concern is someone who would have hired an artist uses the tool themselves to make art instead of hiring the artist. Hence the comment @cm0002@lemmy.world made that GenAI won’t kill art, but it will kill the ability to make money from art.
This isn’t a new thing that just started with GenAI though. Entire professions of commercial art evaporated with the introduction of computers. How many typesetters were employed by major newspapers around the world 50 years ago? With the introduction of computers the number has drastically reduced. This is also true of graphic artists that used to work all day over a light box, waxer, and Exacto knife. Now all of that is done with far fewer people in a computer. I don’t see how GenAI different from those technologies and how they impacted artist jobs.
If a process that takes 10 weeks for producing an animated movie/show now only takes 1 week, that’s a significant reduction in production timeline meaning more can be produced, or that time can be used to improve other production tasks
Not under capitalism. It means 10x the poverty for artists, which was already made fun of as an underpaying career path…
You ignorant lot are truly pathetic. Educate yourselves on the Luddites and the guilded age for starters… An increase in productivity is not as black and white under capitalism.
You’re thinking of art in terms of a product. It’s not. Art is an expression of creativity. People drawn to it will do it just because they can. They make money from it because capitalism doesn’t give them many other opportunities to provide a basic living.
“Adapt or die” is a cute phrase when it’s not being applied to yourself.
Using AI to generate the things that are in my head is still an expression of creativity, is it not? Some people use paintbrushes, some people use computer aided design and let it be printed or built by others, some people use AI. Why aren’t those expressions of creativity?
Adapt or die is a fact of life. We all have to adapt to change, if I didn’t have to, I’d be perfect. I’m nowhere near perfect. Neither are artists.
Yes. Not at the expense of other forms of art, though.
Which art forms are dying because of AI?
Because you decided it is. Society does not have to be built that way.
I didn’t decide anything, it’s just life. Move or get left behind. It’s how nature works. That’s just evolution. You don’t have to like it, but it’s a fact.
Maybe ask artists who have their work stolen to feed AI models that then take their job.
Does the death of an artist kill an art form? As you said, art is an expression of creativity. That is expressed in many ways. People have created art before AI and they will continue creating art after. Art isn’t just painting, or drawing, or acting, of sculpting, it can be found in sports, in engineering, in science, in the kitchen, on the playground, in our words, in our expressions, in fact it is everywhere around us. Attributing the death of creative expression to AI is misrepresenting the infinite ways it can be expressed.
Again, this is a problem because capitalism made it one.
I disagree, it’s a problem because people don’t want to evolve.
We are not nature.
We are a part of nature, or you claiming we are unnatural? What even is unnatural? Viruses modify host cells and subvert them to become virus factories, is that unnatural? Monkeys, crows, turtles, dolphins, ants, and a host of other animals use tools to achieve myriad goals.
We can make different decisions besides brutal evolutionary pressure.
Everything is constantly changing. Everything is “evolutionary pressure”. We are in no way unique in our existence. As a species, we aren’t special.
We do decide that. Because progress will not be stopped. If we’d let people’s jobs stand in the way of progress we’d still be picking berries naked in the woods.
Progress does not at all require an “adapt or die” mindset. Not at all. And it’d still be barbaric if we did. More barbaric than picking berries naked in the woods.
In the absence of needing to use skills to make a living, I have no problem with AI art. In a hypothetical anarchist mutual aid society, people could make art with whatever methods they prefer. Some might create AI models to make art because they’re interested in that sort of thing. Others will make art in the traditional ways, also because they’re interested in that sort of thing. There doesn’t have to be tension between the two, and their basic needs are all there.
When people have to use their skills to make a living, though, then there’s a problem. So many of the places that were paying artists are now whipping something out with an AI model. That leaves artists without a way to cover their basic needs at all.
I’ve always been confused about this train of thought, because it seems to justify the opposite of what it’s trying to say.
I mean, if the argument is people will use whatever garbage they have on hand to make art… presumably that includes generative AI? Look, I lived through four decades of people making art out of ASCII. My bar for acceptance for this stuff is really low. You give people a thing that makes pictures in any way and you’ll get a) pictures of dicks and b) pictures of other things.
I don’t think GenAI will kill human art for the same reasons I don’t think AI art is even in competition with human art. I may be moved or impressed by a generated image, but it’ll be for different reasons and in different scales than I’m… eh… moved and impressed by hot dragon rock lady here. Just like I can be impressed by the artistry in a photo but not for the same reasons I’m impressed by an oil painting. Different media, different forms of expression, different skill sets.
I think the argument is that an AI “artist” is incapable of creating art. Their “tool” does the work for them. Whereas other artists use digital tools but as just that - tools. The art comes from the artist.
The thing is, an AI ‘artist’ isn’t making art. They are generating images with no real meaning or effort put into them.
That depends on what they’re doing. If they’re entering a prompt and rolling with what they get out of it, then sure.
If they’re inputting a prompt and refining it with solely AI tools then meeeh, that starts to fade a little. I’d ask why someone is spending hours going back and forth with an AI instead of doing some of it manually, but it’s hard to tell one way or the other from the final output.
If they’re inputting a prompt, refining it with AI tools and heavily editing what comes out in image editing software that’s approaching some strange digital mixed media weirdness I don’t think we have particularly good intuitions for.
If they’re inputting a prompt and using the output as some building block like a texture on a 3D model or for a content aware fill in photo editing or for a brush or a stamp I genuinely have no mental model for what impact that has in my assessment of the “meaning” or “effort” going into a piece, if I’m being perfectly honest.
Reductionism isn’t serving us particularly well on this one. Makes the pushback feel poorly informed and excessively dogmatic.
Typing a prompt still isn’t making art. If you look at art, everything has intent behind it, nothing is random, everyone has their own style that evolves. Like if you’re drawing a meadow, there are lots of choices you make in the progress, like what plants you draw, in what style, in what stage, are any of them damaged for example. Art isn’t just about the end result, it’s the process itself.
Typing a prompt is describing an image, not making it.
You did not read the whole post you’re responding to, did you?
It’s not often that you can see the exact moment an actual human brain ran out of token space, but here we are.
Finish Him!
Dragging a mouse isn’t making art. Dragging a live mouse could be, PETA wouldn’t like it though.
Nothing will kill art itself, GenAI will simply be incorporated as another tool
Killing the ability to make money from art AND the bs that corporations are pulling in regards to AI, profit and making line go up is what people are mad about, but that anger is constantly misplaced leading to lines of thought like this lol
I don’t understand why generative AI will kill making money from art. As you said, it’s just a tool.
If an artist can make a web comic in a fraction of the time they used to, they can multiply their output and thus possibly sell to more. A good gen AI artist would also be a good prompt engineer, which would also mean an expanded skillset. Game developers, architects, engineers, could also speed up their work to hit the ground running instead of doing a bunch of repetitive stuff.
Everybody has to adapt to AI. Adapt or die, it’s quite simple.
You’re presenting the scenario of an artist using a tool to create more art. I think the concern is someone who would have hired an artist uses the tool themselves to make art instead of hiring the artist. Hence the comment @cm0002@lemmy.world made that GenAI won’t kill art, but it will kill the ability to make money from art.
This isn’t a new thing that just started with GenAI though. Entire professions of commercial art evaporated with the introduction of computers. How many typesetters were employed by major newspapers around the world 50 years ago? With the introduction of computers the number has drastically reduced. This is also true of graphic artists that used to work all day over a light box, waxer, and Exacto knife. Now all of that is done with far fewer people in a computer. I don’t see how GenAI different from those technologies and how they impacted artist jobs.
If 1 person can make 10x the art, then 1 person can do the job of 10, meaning 9 people are out of work.
Or it means 10x the art in the world.
If a process that takes 10 weeks for producing an animated movie/show now only takes 1 week, that’s a significant reduction in production timeline meaning more can be produced, or that time can be used to improve other production tasks
Not under capitalism. It means 10x the poverty for artists, which was already made fun of as an underpaying career path…
You ignorant lot are truly pathetic. Educate yourselves on the Luddites and the guilded age for starters… An increase in productivity is not as black and white under capitalism.
You’re thinking of art in terms of a product. It’s not. Art is an expression of creativity. People drawn to it will do it just because they can. They make money from it because capitalism doesn’t give them many other opportunities to provide a basic living.
“Adapt or die” is a cute phrase when it’s not being applied to yourself.
Using AI to generate the things that are in my head is still an expression of creativity, is it not? Some people use paintbrushes, some people use computer aided design and let it be printed or built by others, some people use AI. Why aren’t those expressions of creativity?
Adapt or die is a fact of life. We all have to adapt to change, if I didn’t have to, I’d be perfect. I’m nowhere near perfect. Neither are artists.
Yes. Not at the expense of other forms of art, though.
Because you decided it is. Society does not have to be built that way.
Which art forms are dying because of AI?
I didn’t decide anything, it’s just life. Move or get left behind. It’s how nature works. That’s just evolution. You don’t have to like it, but it’s a fact.
Maybe ask artists who have their work stolen to feed AI models that then take their job. Again, this is a problem because capitalism made it one.
We are not nature. We can make different decisions besides brutal evolutionary pressure.
Does the death of an artist kill an art form? As you said, art is an expression of creativity. That is expressed in many ways. People have created art before AI and they will continue creating art after. Art isn’t just painting, or drawing, or acting, of sculpting, it can be found in sports, in engineering, in science, in the kitchen, on the playground, in our words, in our expressions, in fact it is everywhere around us. Attributing the death of creative expression to AI is misrepresenting the infinite ways it can be expressed.
I disagree, it’s a problem because people don’t want to evolve.
We are a part of nature, or you claiming we are unnatural? What even is unnatural? Viruses modify host cells and subvert them to become virus factories, is that unnatural? Monkeys, crows, turtles, dolphins, ants, and a host of other animals use tools to achieve myriad goals.
Everything is constantly changing. Everything is “evolutionary pressure”. We are in no way unique in our existence. As a species, we aren’t special.
We do decide that. Because progress will not be stopped. If we’d let people’s jobs stand in the way of progress we’d still be picking berries naked in the woods.
Progress does not at all require an “adapt or die” mindset. Not at all. And it’d still be barbaric if we did. More barbaric than picking berries naked in the woods.
You’re right, it doesn’t need to be die, but saving jobs isn’t the way. Universal basic income is.
In the absence of needing to use skills to make a living, I have no problem with AI art. In a hypothetical anarchist mutual aid society, people could make art with whatever methods they prefer. Some might create AI models to make art because they’re interested in that sort of thing. Others will make art in the traditional ways, also because they’re interested in that sort of thing. There doesn’t have to be tension between the two, and their basic needs are all there.
When people have to use their skills to make a living, though, then there’s a problem. So many of the places that were paying artists are now whipping something out with an AI model. That leaves artists without a way to cover their basic needs at all.
Progress leaves many professions behind. It’s lamentable, but a price worth paying.
Which is nice to say when your profession isn’t the one on the chopping block.
I’m a programmer. It is.
I’m also a programmer. No, we’re not at risk.
Right now AI is just about useful enough to refresh my own knowledge or do some advanced copy paste. You think that’s where it stops?