Cyborg 2-A ✅ shared a comment of this post/conversation

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) via Cory Doctorow

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:31:18 -0400 last edited: Sat, 20 Aug 2022 00:31:29 -0400 from mastodon

The AI Art Apocalypse. Is the future for many Artists looking bleak, with AI's like DALL-E 2 on the rise?

https://alexanderwales.com/the-ai-art-apocalypse/

Hacker News discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32486133

#art #artwork #artist #AI #DALLE #poll

Yes, I am very worried

19 Votes | 18%

No, Artists will accomodate

65 Votes | 60%

Something else, I'll explain..

9 Votes | 8%

Just show me the results

15 Votes | 14%

Poll has ended.

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:34:58 -0400

@Humane Tech Now I think ai art will definetely fill a role that artists currently occupy, but it wont replace artists entirely.

I think things like concept art and minimalistic corporate art can effectively be replicated by machine learning, but it cant really come up with new ideas just from the way it works.

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:36:11 -0400

@Humane Tech Now also I think everyone is in a bit of a honeymoon phase with AI art at the moment.

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:44:09 -0400 from mastodon

@Protodrew ???? agree on the honeymoon phase. It gives me the jitters in my stomach when I think of the implications if these AI services mature further. And the commercial potential for those offering them is enormous. The best services just happen to be delivered by.. :drumroll: ye olde Big Tech giants again, further cementing their dominance in society.

Art is just *one* field where AI will disrupt. Writing may be near disruption too, and online support desks (think LaMDA), etc. Programming??

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:56:27 -0400

@Humane Tech Now yeah its honestly hilarious because eliminating things like low level support jobs would be a good thing in a society whos goal was to be good to its people. Instead its just another way for the mega rich to make more money.

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:57:02 -0400

@Humane Tech Now idk how much of me thinking various fields wont be that affected is just wishful thinking but I hope im right

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 01:03:36 -0400 from mastodon

@Protodrew ???? with an aging population, workers retiring, more elderly care needed there are many arguments that help promote the widespread use of AI.

But this is also a double-edged sword. AI innovation being mega expensive the AI technologies and applications are in the hands of the elites. They need these technologies to retain control and status quo in a society that is increasingly clamoring for major changes.

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 01:06:28 -0400

@Humane Tech Now yeah obviously these things are only positives in an egalitarian society that seeks some sort of global prosperity. Not the greed fueled hellscape we live in right now

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 15:19:31 -0400 from mastodon

@Protodrew ???? @Humane Tech Now

the problem with eliminating "low end" in anything (art, tech, music journalism) with AI is it also eliminates the entry level career path for younger folk (and makes those who do have paying gigs in these fields guard them even harder - I'm already seeing this with the de-skilling of basic sysadmin tasks due to the rise of SaaS / cloudservices and medium size orgs reducing the size of their IT departments (if they have one at all these days)

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 17:27:21 -0400 from hometown

@Humane Tech Now

I think there are three things I'd use as a lens to consider this subject:

1. Walter Benjamin's essay - art in the age of mechanical reproduction.
2. Marcel Duchamp's readymades.
3. Roland Barthes essay - death of the author.

Initial thoughts are that Art is not the act of producing, it's an intervention into a social, cultural and political context. If you've ever been to a gallery and been bored to tears it's probably because the work doesn't belong or relate to your context in a meaningful way.

With that in mind, I think the program is the work of art in this case not the output, and it's very interesting. But it doesn't foreclose the possibility of other interventions.

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 02:17:32 -0400 from mastodon

@az agree.

When I say "art" I am thinking of the entire breadth of the field, where vast majority is not gallery- or museum-'worthy'. Yet it enlivens so many other works and content in our daily lives. It is where small artists earn modest incomes that impact will be felt. If these people can't earn income it increases barrier to entry and the artists-who-made-it becomes - as others have said - a more elitist in-group.

Jan Delta

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 00:23:03 -0400 from mastodon

@Humane Tech Now honestly i think it's complicated

one thing I've noticed having used it myself is that if you just want something and don't know what exactly it's really good (or if what you want is surreal or weird and doesn't need to conform to any rules)

but if you already have a specific vision it's really difficult to get it to really align with that, with a lot of smaller details often just being ignored, and if you're asking for more niche details or styles it often just doesn't come out properly at all

so with that said, i don't think it will kill artists, it's not going to negatively impact the many artists working on their own visions (and likely will be a net positive there, as it is at the end of the day just another tool), but i do believe it's going to make it a lot harder for artists to make a living doing commissions in an already tight industry, and it's going to make it a lot harder to break into that industry (and is likely also going to also make those who survive in it more elitist)

so if you're an artist and your thing is working on your own vision supported largely by things like patreon, or making commissions in a more niche community (especially those with specific details not easily recognized outside of the community) i think you will be fine

but if you're an artist doing more generic commissions (invisible art, background art, stock art, clip art, stock photos) then you probably should be cautious and prepare for things to get harder

i think the best way to describe AI art in a few words, is that it is the ultimate generic art generator, the AI is the collective average of art, so the more generic what you do is the more AI art is likely to impact you

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 02:10:09 -0400 from mastodon

@Jan Delta yes, I agree with you on these observations.

Since posting this I bumped into the #Midjourney #AI I hadn't heard of before. Thing is still in beta, and developed in a company with only 11 employees.

The works it generates blew me away. Here's their showcases: https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/

That stuff fits in categories you describe where people should worry. But this is still first generation result, v0.1.0 of what'll be possible.

Future elaborate toolsets may make mastery an apprentice job.

Terry Hancock

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 02:13:14 -0400 from mastodon

@Humane Tech Now

As I've remarked elsewhere, the AI art has got some nice qualities, but it's ultimately empty.

The computer feels nothing making it, and I can see that in the output.

What it does is to repeat cliches that it recognizes in the patterns of existing art.

This has its place: all artists make references to prior art. But the AI adds nothing new to that. It's like the reference in isolation, without the actual *art*.

It's useful to create artistic elements, but (so far?) that's it.

Terry Hancock

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 02:13:58 -0400 from mastodon

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 03:35:05 -0400 from mastodon

@Cory Doctorow's linkblog new book "Chokepoint Capitalism" seems to describe related phenomena to where these 'creative' AI's are operating and disrupting the artists' world.

From birdsite

: "What is "chokepoint capitalism?" It's when a multinational monopolist (or cartel) locks up audiences inside a system that they control, and uses that control to gouge artists, creating toll booths between creators and their audiences."

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/108839023213217547

Olm-e ☮️

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:36:25 -0400 from mastodon

@Humane Tech Now MIT is having an open course on how creators can profit from machine learning https://ali-design.github.io/deepcreativity/
and I still don't see robot painting on canvas replacing humans ; even @Quasimondo or @Sean M Puckett ???????? practice with robot painting/drawing shows how it is different from human practice.
BigCorp control of those tech and plundering the commons is a problem, not the tools in themselves imho. (I also used some for texture painting f.ex., it's helping, not replacing me)

Olm-e ☮️

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:39:42 -0400 from mastodon

@Humane Tech Now MIT is having an open course on how creators can profit from machine learning : https://ali-design.github.io/deepcreativity/
and I still don't see robot painting on canvas replacing humans ; even @Quasimondo or @Sean M Puckett ???????? practice with robot painting/drawing shows how it is different from human practice.

BigCorp control of those tech and plundering the commons is a problem, not the tools in themselves imho specially if used localy. I used some for texture painting f.ex., it's helping, not replacing me

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:45:00 -0400 from mastodon

@Olm-e ☮️ @Quasimondo @Sean M Puckett ????????

Actual oil painting and other techniques aren't ones to be disrupted anytime soon, I agree.

But if I sent a self-generated hi-res 8k #Midjourney AI image to a printer and hung it as painting in my living room, then I assume that indirectly costs an artist somewhere some income.

Both the plundering and the tools are the problem, I think. But not for every artist equally. Some will be hit much harder, some might benefit.. is my feeling as non-artist anyways.

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:45:55 -0400 from mastodon

@Olm-e ☮️ @Quasimondo @Sean M Puckett ????????

Oh, I wanted to add the Midjourney showcases I passed around across this thread. I found them quite mindblowing:

https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/

Olm-e ☮️

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:04:51 -0400 from mastodon

@Humane Tech Now also it appears Midjourney is not #GDPR compliant ... this could be a problem too : https://midjourney.gitbook.io/docs/privacy-policy (using discord, providing personal info to other for analysis, etc... )

Olm-e ☮️

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:46:04 -0400 from mastodon

@Humane Tech Now so the main problem here lies in the printer actually ;p

Shae M Puckett 🤖🖼

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:22:45 -0400 from mastodon

@Humane Tech Now @Olm-e ☮️ @Quasimondo AI generated art is always going to be generic art, as modified by a prompt. so if you're okay with a generic result -- one that anyone else might get giving the same prompt -- then it's not really art. It's when you get really specific about what you want, when you want to /commission/ a piece, that AI will always fall short of an human artist. Though there will be "prompt artists" emerging soon, I'm sure, who know how to talk to the AIs for a price.

Cyborg 2-A ✅

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:54:12 -0400 from libertious

I tried one and it appears to have a signature, although it's not easy to read. These are mashups i think. But I recall an argument whether human creativity is really mashups of what has already been seen.

smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:57:40 -0400 from mastodon

@Waitman Gobble

Ha! Wow. A signature. Could post this one to Hacker News titled "Does #Midjourney steal like #CoPilot does?".

Chris Dolunt

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:07:03 -0400 from mastodon

@Humane Tech Now Without artists to draw upon, the AI can't create anything. It needs human artists or it has no data.

Alice Ice

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 11:13:05 -0400 from friendica

@Humane Tech Now @Chris Dolunt Well... Why not feed it with the art itself created? Recursive AI Art!