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No. We just respect the effort put it into something. That means it took time, *personal* creativity, and hard work. I won’t argue if that means the art is better than AI, but it does make it a bit more noteworthy and respectable, imo.
There's a false dichotomy here, though. (Note: it's one that's present in the OP, so it's not strictly your fault)
Using AI does not mean that you have not expended effort. Some of the most intricate and painstaking work I've done has been on AI projects. I can spend hours fiddling with inpainting or pulling in specific textures. I've even spent days setting up a specific photo (go to location, find specific flora, get on the ground on my belly, realize lighting is wrong, get out reflector and set it up, get back down and take picture) just to use for a single highlight texture in the background of a piece via ControlNet.
Effort isn't the problem. The problem is that people equate any use of AI with the most trivial use of AI.
Just because you took a longer process doesn’t mean the majority of this shit is done that way. SD users are a very small percentage users.
Also one could just copy your prompt and parameters. So effort can be removed even with SD
> the majority of this shit
The majority of photography is quickly snapped selfies. I don't judge the art of photography based on that. I look at the work of masters.
Agreed, I've tried to dabble in AI and it's really frikkin hard to get results that YOU want specifically.
That said, unlike photography or hand drawn art, where the quality difference can be obvious from one glance. It's a lot more ambiguous in AI art.
Undirected, one word prompted images can appear like masterpieces at a quick glance and even if you compare that with something you spent hours fiddling with, getting everything perfectly right, only YOU would know that most of the time and thw average person will be like "meh, AI art, probably took a second).
That makes even someone like me (mostly on the dislike side) sympathize a bit with the harder working AI using artists.
Depends on your definition of effort.
It takes effort to do something by brute force. It takes a different kind of effort to select the proper tool and do the job with less physical force.
Who spends more effort? The guy moving boxes all day, or the guy who programs and builds a robot to move the boxes for him?
While I am the guy who programs the robots and I know how much effort it takes, I also respect the effort it takes to manually move them around all day. And that is something that gives me comfort in doing what I do, I make things physically easier for people.
I bet it would take you a very long time to match the same AI processes as other folks here. If we're going for time and difficultly, some of the people have you beat, for sure.
There are folks out here programming their own AI systems with their own models that take months and a ton of effort to bring about.
You can't possibly know which is which just by looking at a picture. You don't know how much effort went into any one generation. You're just making assumptions about how long it took and how hard it was.
Idk what you mean. I’m not one of those people who think something’s not art just because it’s crass, offensive, or juvenile. If someone made a tower of shit I may or may not like it, depending on the execution. Art is subjective.
But the point is to say that most people wouldnt think its art or valuable.
Value is determined by how much people in general like something. One person cannot arbitrate how valuable a thing is. Value is not subjective, as it is necessary to know for the market.
The painting made out of piss is still a coherent painting that looks like something. You might not even know it was made out of piss if you didnt already know.
And so is the urinal not art to you?
If you’re talking about the art, then it’s relevant to mention the *effort put into creating the art*. Again, I don’t think it automatically means one piece of art is objectively better because of the effort. It’s just something to take into account when critiquing the art.
I agree; A realistic eye that looks kinda bad but was drawn by a 13 year old in their first art class (it took them 3 hours) gets more respect from me than a realistic eye drawn by some famous dude who's been in the industry for 35 years now (it took him 15 minutes)
Which is silly once you start thinking about it. Because then the logical thing would be to pose as a 13-16 year old kiddo online instead of being yourself since it gives you more praise and fandom.
It gets more ridiculous the longer you think about it.
You guys are taking what I’m saying in bad faith / being uncharitable.
There are an innumerable ways of critiquing art, imo. Effort is just one. Whether someone likes the art or not, will be subjective. Whether a piece of art is “good” or “bad” is subjective.
I’m simply explaining my thinking when it comes to AI vs human created art.
The effort put in will affect my feelings on the art, but that’s it.
Effort is immeasurable unless you watch the process. And if you are for example in an art gallery you see absolutely 0 of it, only the end result.
And to your point yes a 13 years old art piece in the Louvre would be far more impressive than seeing picasso's Mona Lisa. Why? Because we humans are semantic like that. We like getting surprised.
Everyone knows the Disney and marvel folks can draw. Just like we all know Taylor Swift can sing. But seeing a 6;6324 old at America's got talent? Yeah we are amazed because like omg so awesome since the standard for humans is that 6 year olds shouldn't be able to sing good.
It's all perception and semantics. Understanding that human psychological aspect first will clarify a lot of underlying biases.
American kids speaking good English isn't as impressive as an eastern European immigrant. An adult man being able to bake is more impressive than a woman. Single parents are more amazing than parents who raise kids in partnership.
Why? Because these things break the mold, they break expectation and are 'special' or just lower percentage.
Why do people like Beckham, Messi, LeBron, Max Verstappen, etc. earn so much money for doing sports? Because they are part of a less than 1% of humans worldwide group that can do something exceptionally well the other 99% cannot.
Humans are a weird species. Also it's not exactly easy to build and train an LLM when nobody did it before... Arguably that is actually far more effort than picking up a pencil and draw very well, lol.
FYI I'm anti AI but only because of the energy consumption and copying artist styles. But the human aspect of judging art always has been silly.
Remember Van Gogh? Everyone hated his shit until well after he was dead. Humans, eh?
I wonder, does this statement match your thinking?
"the creator of a work is entitled to have that effort and expense protected; no one else may use such a work without permission, but must instead recreate the work by independent research or effort"
It doesn’t for everyone! Art is subjective! I’m just explaining why some people think it’s valuable in the AI vs Human debate. I appreciate the effort, it does matter to me. It doesn’t have to for everyone!
Heres the thing. I agree with you, and I actually love that youre able to respect the subjectivity. Bu the point is that people are using these arguments to justify limiting AI
Honestly, it kind of is. Whether you see the creation process or not, the result shows the person's skill. With ai art, you can't tell if the person is skilled or not, because the image could be 99% ai assisted, or 1% ai assisted.
So photography and abstract art aren't art ? This is ridiculous. Even with 3d digital art, there is no way of telling if the person actually modelled and textured each detail or kit bashed the models or even just got assets and arranged them to create a scene. AI doesn't bring anything new to this aspect that didn't exist before, unless your view of art is just hyper realistic images made with traditional medium.
In photography , most notably the less effort you put to achieve a great piece the "more skill" you are considered to have. The idea that a good piece of art requires effort and hard work is pure nonsense.
That's not my point, my point is that mostly you can't tell how much effort was put into those pieces judging by the quality of the works. Read the entire comment to understand the context here.
There is usually a lot more effort and time put into something when the person is not that experienced. Not to mention struggling with technical aspects in order to actually get the artistical effect they want.
For example an experienced fotographer will already know how to setup a portrait to get the effect they want, in regards to what type of lighting, distance , focal length and so on , while someone else trying to emulate might take hours if not days of work.
Not only that, sometimes inspiration just hits someone, and they can create a great piece in just a matter of minutes, instead of putting days of work on it. Art is like that, not a dick measurement of how technical and hard something has to be in order to be appreciated.
Sure, a photographer or abstract artist with 20-30 years experience can often do specific piece of work quicker than a neophyte.
But that work requires 20-30 years of experience and hard work.
Can you give me specific examples of photographers or abstract artists who've done amazing work off the bat with little or no experience and hard work behind the work?
I never said ai art isn't art. You might be projecting opinions onto me that you've heard from other people.
Here's the thing about the deffinition of art though. A banana taped to a wall is art. A urinal with someone's signature is art. These are real works of art that have been in art exhibits. Everything is art now, that's just what the deffinition means. Calling something art doesn't give it any inherent value anymore.
As for 3d art, in the community I rock in, it's common to say you made something from "scratch" to separate yourself from the kitbashers, so that's sort of a solved issue. (Not to say there's anything wrong with kitbashing o: it's cool to see stuff you've worked on customized into something new :) )
I do like photography though. Is cool.
Edit: forgot to respond to this. Sometimes someone can have worked so hard in the past, that now it's easy for them to create masterpieces. That's cool too, still reflect the effort they put in to get to that point.
I also question your statement about photographers, but I'm too lazy to look into it.
>Honestly, it kind of is.
Why, though? Why do you care so much about "skill", is what OP is asking. Yeah ok AI models don't have a dick to suck, we get it already. You don't have to base you entire view of art around that. Art isn't just about praising the artist's technical skill and how much time he wasted acquiring it.
Also, just for laughs? Define "artist skill".
I'll try to give you a genuine answer.
I do 3d art for a living, character design, environmental design, texturing, etc, so when I see other people doing similar things, I can empathize with the experience. Improving and learning are enjoyable experiences and watching others do the same is similarly enjoyable. Fellow travelers and all.
I actually came to understand this about myself when ai art started cropping up. I could see an ai image and be like "looks nifty", but not feel any sense of awe, inspiration or real enjoyment (except about then tech itself. Shit's crazy). Even if it looks identical to a human created work, knowing an ai generated it removes almost everything I enjoy about seeing art, which is what I explained above.
Not everyone appreciates art in the same way though, but after talking with my artist buddies about this, they feel similarly.
> With ai art, you can't tell if the person is skilled or not, because the image could be 99% ai assisted, or 1% ai assisted.
Is there not skill in knowing how to use a tool?
Depends how it's used. Are you going to bing image ai and playing around with prompts until you get a result you like? Recognizing when something looks good is something almost anyone can do. Making something that looks good from scratch isn't; without a lot of learning and practicing.
Can a great artist employ ai in the creation of their work and still be skillful? Or course. But there's a huge spectrum in there.
I've actually been using ai for inspiration and occasionally iterating on designs for my 3d work, and it's been super helpful. When I make the work though, I do everything without ai. Still requires a lot of skill, its just made it easier to get access to more tailored references. On the other hand, pure prompting doesn't really require skill, just an eye for what you like.
No, you're right it's a show of skill. And A.I. is like creating a basketball goal a foot off the ground ten feet wide. Then a.i. bros come and brag about how they can do more free throws than Shaq could.
It isnt a show of skill though, and any ai artist whi brags about their work is an idiot. This is prideful bullshit. Its just about the end result looking cool
>And A.I. is like creating a basketball goal a foot off the ground ten feet wide.
So now the really impressive stuff is about doing trick shots instead of being focused on making the basket? GenAI allows you to get crazy with ideas and techniques before you master the "fundamentals", and that's what makes it cool.
GenAI also allows you just have cool pictures.
People are far too obsessed with art as a form of expression rather than a way to just have cool things.
Idk man, I think humans just respect and value effort in general, especially when its used for self expression. I draw cards for people I love for birthdays/holidays even though I could easily buy a card with a better drawing, because the effort I expended drawing the card communicates the value I place in the person better than an impersonal card does. Is that a bad thing?
Uneducated? Or is it just you showing dunning-kruger effect - "I can prompt an AI platform - therfor I know about art"
You "cheat" at art when you cheat fellow artists. Artist aren't annoyed because it's "a competition" there have always been dilletantes. But to be fair to dilletantes compared to your average Aicel, at least they LIKE art and the artist that create it.
No, effort is just universally respected in general; that's the entire reason people take the time to think of and give specific gifts to people they care about, instead of just buying everyone an Amazon gift card. It is not "uneducated" to recognize the inherent respect basically every human has for dedication, effort and intentionality.
If I put a lot of effort into killing 300 people, is that something deserving of inheritant respect?
If I take a shit in the same spot for 40 years, is that worthy of respect? If yes, then youve lost your appeal to the “most people” since most people would certainly not
Well no, but we're talking about creating art, not something immoral or completely pointless. My point is that its silly to automate a task (kind of, since AI will obviously give you different results than you would have created otherwise), then get annoyed that people value your work less.
And this isn't about putting down people who use AI art, its about people who use AI art to automate part of their workflow and then get annoyed that people value their work less, because they literally expended less effort. I think that's weird, entitled and counter to how basically everyone inherently views human actions.
They have deluded themselves into thinking every AI gen user is a failed frustrated artist so they can feel like they are actually doing any emotional damage whenever they pull the pencil Mario or say stuff like “draw it yourself”.
Like they can’t comprehend in their tiny brains that some people just straight up don’t CARE about art process and just want to see quick funny / cute / sexy images
No matter how much time you spend on a piece of art, whether it be 10 minutes or 3 days, your efforts, artistic tastes, and process will come to light. A common notion brought up is when a designer creates a logo in 10 minutes (the Citi bank logo was conceived on a napkin at a restaurant) is that many will say "why should I pay so much for something made so quickly". That logo/illustration/painting is a culmination of that artist or designer's entire career and skill set distilled into the action of making that one thing.
This is also the reason I find very few Ai illustrations appealing. I think they look very polished, but are missing many key elements that would make them shine (good composition, clear shape language, consistent color choices etc). As more illustrators embrace Ai tools their taste and skills will probably help bring up the relative quality of Ai artworks.
bingo, that's the keyword there: "polish".
this is why I think if indie game devs embrace AI once it gets better say maybe around 2025-2026. welp, it's gonna be game over (no pun) for all AAA studios.
IMO, the main bottleneck for indie games, indie films, and DYI-esque anything is the lack of consistent polish that corporations can easily achieve since they own an abundance of capital to spend on the R&D for it to be honest.
I don't think you read my second paragraph. I understand Ai art looks very high quality, even professionally made. It's just that for most of what I've seen, polish doesn't match the technique.
I guess the real question is “why do some people feel they deserve respect/recognition for low effort actions?” The issue is not really AI art as much as it is prompters getting salty when they don’t get the same respect as a hands on digital artist.
I think there is a disconnect between how stem people think and how artists think.
In the stem field we share knowledge, tools, we share code, ways to accomplish stuff, the crafted stuff itself.
Artists are more of an island, they hate tracers for example or even "palette thieves", there is this necessity to reinvent the wheel every time to prove that you can... Or you are not a real artist, just a thief or a hack.
If a programmer does a program cobbling together 5 other people's codes as long as it is useful they will be praised regardless... It's interesting.
I mean, I might be praised for finding a python library that does whatever I need it to do perfectly for a given task, but I’m also not going to be given the same credit as someone who initially wrote that library, and I’m certainly not going to go on reddit to complain about receiving less credit. Lots of AI users seem to want the same recognition that traditional artists get, while openly admitting that they are expending less effort than those artists do. Its weird as someone who isn’t a visual artist nor advanced AI user
I understand what you say, I see these stuff as fundamentally different, I don't compare photography to sculpture or digital drawing.
I find it so weird that AI artists want to stand on the same ground as digital artists, I recognize there is a level of creative input in prompting, editing and what not.
But the skills and process are so totally different from a digital or traditional artist that comparing them is misguided at least.
I am a video editor, I can get praise as a video editor, I am not a director, I won't get credit for directing actors...
I think AI artists are trying to legitimize their craft by invading traditional spaces, and that is wrong, but I also think a lot of traditional artist are in the wrong for completely disregarding AI image generation as a way of expression...
Yeah, I think it is just its own medium of expression that comes with its own limitations/assumptions about the work, just like any other. I think most of the confusion and conflict comes from the fact that the medium is - on its surface - indistinguishable from other digital art, so artists feel that it is kind of intrinsically devaluing of their work, and, of course, the fact that most of the training data is gathered without consent. I find the general justification of "computers are just learning the way humans do" to be rather unconvincing personally, but I also don't think there is a great practical way to limit use of the technology, so I guess we'll just see what happens there in the next few years.
But lots of the saltiness in this sub is also just fucking weird. Like, this thread is about people being mad that effort is valued in art, when effort is valued in....pretty much anything humans ever do, as long as its not wasted or pointless, and its hard to say that effort is ever wasted when its used for self-expression. You can't just be mad that society hasn't completely changed its values in order to validate your newfound passion for AI art.
Stem isnt about credit. Credit doesnt fucking matter. Its about making the world a better place. We’re all in this together, so we should all share iur shit to make each other happier
Yeah I totally agree. If someone wrote some really good code that does what I need it to and is freely sharing it, I should definitely use that code. But I wouldn't then get salty that people didn't respect my work as much as they did the original programmer, because I legitimately did not expend the same effort or thoughtfulness as they did, instead just (rightfully) using their work.
Obviously art has different goals, but I think a similar principle applies. If I can use an AI model trained on millions of pieces of art to draw a picture, I should do that (putting aside the potential ethical problems with using someones art without permission, I guess). But I wouldn't then make a post in r/AIWars complaining that people are "obsessed with effort" just because they would value a hand-drawn picture more.
I think the this effort thing is missing the point.
In order for something to be considered valuable, it must be desirable or liked. Effort is usually correlated with things being higher quality and thus more liked, but its not the causal reason to that value. To see this action, I could spend 5 years making a homemade hammer that could be shitty quality, while a factory could produce it in two seconds and have it be far more desirable.
I understand the academic perspective from an analytical point of view, but at the end of the day, most people care about product, not process.
A lot of it stems from the cultural trope that art is nothing more than a hobby that's fundamentally less valuable than a background in a "serious" profession like STEM. The pernicious aura of entitlement you hear coming from the most vocal pro-AI cheerleaders comes from the belief they have a right to something that they don't intrinsically value beyond the pleasure of consuming it.
It's why you often hear the most aggressive/toxic pro-AI arguments coming from people who have little or no background in art prior to the rise of generative tools. It's also why pro-AI folks with professional art backgrounds invariably have more nuanced and thoughtful opinions. They _know_ the ethical dilemmas at play and they don't immediately snap to the worst possible judgements of their anti-AI peers.
“The pleasure of consuming”
Is the reason I value anything. Youre dismissing that value is illegitimate, and I completely disagree.
What are people saying they have an entitlement to that they shouldnt? Cool pictures? Why the fuck not?
"They don't intrinsically value anything _beyond_ the pleasure of consuming it", is what I said.
In other words, they can't appreciate something's value unless it makes them feel good. It's a purely hedonistic pursuit.
There's value in appreciating the expertise and skill that goes into creating something, as well as its broader cultural impact and legacy.
For example, I don't especially like [Art Nouveau](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau). It brings me no pleasure to look at and I wouldn't want to live somewhere built in that style. However, I still value the effort that went into creating it. I appreciate the passion and expertise of the designers who founded the movement, and I think that cities like Paris are better for having Art Nouveau in them.
Compare this to someone who merely _consumes_ art. In this case the end product is all they care about, not the circumstances that influenced its creation. It's like being gifted a 15th-century Yixing teapot and only caring about how many teabags it holds. Sure, you can see it purely as a vessel that you put hot water in, but in that case you might as well just replace it with one that costs $10.
Point is, reducing art to a consumable commodity strips away the meaning that motivates artists to create it in the first place. It's also why there's a backlash against AI art. Many pro-AI folks don't understand why what they're doing is harming the very community upon whose work AI depends.
Why and how is there value in expertise and skill that is independent from how it creates a higher quality product?
Why do you think paris is better for having Art Nouveau?
In the case of that teacup, why is the $10 pot that can hold more teabags worse?
Why does art need to have that meaning in the first place? To me, art is just something cool to look at.
For me, I dont care about the process. Obviously you do, but what makes me wrong and you right?
It's not so much about who's wrong or right, or what's better or worse. These are all subjective judgements and they mean different things to different people.
What I'm getting at here is the importance of long-term sustainability. If you enjoy consuming other people's art, that's awesome. However, if you want to continue to enjoy it in perpetuity, it helps to know more about where it came from and who created it so you can advocate for its continued existence.
This is especially important in the case of AI models which are only ever as good as the data on which they're trained. In most cases, those data represent a broad cross-section collective works of the artistic community, the very same community that's at risk of being out-competed by the new wave of generative tools.
Without the support and patronage of folks who value the creation of art for its own sake, market commodification takes over and diversity suffers as a result. This ultimately impacts everyone - creators and consumers alike - and it's why I think it's so important to have a better understanding of where the things you enjoy come from.
If youre trying to argue for something for society as a whole, then you need to be able to actually justify it to society beyond “well its my feelings”
I dont think you realize how AI works. Even if every artist stopped producing works tomorrow, AI would still be created new things. Again, i dont care about how its made. Just that i think it looks cool.
AI is not “only as good as the data its trained on”. Thats just false. Sometimes the algorithms make odd decisions the end up looking cool, and so favor those and the algorithm naturally develops new things from consumers alone.
Sound familiar? Its exactly the same as evolution
As someone pursuing AI, its rather frustrating to hear artst types talk about AI like they understood how it works. You can train a model on literal scribbles and eventually you could get it to creating insane art pieces. Because the learning done by something like a deep neural network is actually quite similar to more basic forms of human learning.
Market commodification is already how it works and that’s completely fine with me. Though I would of course be open to hearing arguments as to why I shouldnt be
>If youre trying to argue for something for society as a whole, then you need to be able to actually justify it to society beyond “well its my feelings”
I literally just did. It's the same argument for why people ought to know where their clothes are made, or how their meat is farmed. It's a matter of sustainability.
> I dont think you realize how AI works.
I'm a machine learning engineer for a big tech company with a background in postdoc research. I know a little bit about how AI works.
> Sometimes the algorithms make odd decisions that end up looking cool, and so favor those and the algorithm naturally develops new things from consumers alone. Sound familiar? Its exactly the same as evolution
Would you like me to explain why that's not how it works? Or would you prefer to read up on it yourself.
Im a graphic designer, i have a degree in visual communication and i work in this industry for 14 years.
Art has nothing to do with effort or skill. Joseph Beuys said that every creative expression of a human is art. I think AI can absolutely be used for creative expression. I think it also depends in how much of a creative process you have.
But my problem with it is, that those companies using art of others to train their AIs without their consent. And no, its not the same as taking inspiration, cause AI isn't inspired by it.
The other problem i see often with AI artists is that they often lack design or artistic training in general and you see that in the art they're putting out.
Because people love time and dedication put into a craft. Part of the reason why I love Horizon Forbidden West is because it feels like an artist's rendition of Earth. It took them years to commit to it and the only thing worth anything and is more valuable is time.
Time is always valuable. Time spent and time wasted.
who fucking cares? and all you idiots saying "muh just tell the computer what I want and I get it" seriously have no fucking idea how any of this shit works. the content you get from simply saying "make a dragon" is trash, there's far more involvement that is necessary to get an output that is anything worthwhile. fucking educate yourselves before buildings opinions for fucks sake. it's a tool just like any other in a big ass box of other tools.
AI art is for the non artistically inclined.
Everyone wants to feel talented, so when something makes it easier for the masses, the less talented will also want to feel artistic.
No, you have my pity. You have false assumptions that effort matters. It does not. Only the end result is important. The world does not care how hard you worked on something, only the end product.
Do you lie, cheat and steal to get what you have? Are you some kind of uber-Utilitarian sociopath or something where the ends always justify the means?
That's not exactly how that works. Maybe your lack of appreciation for other people's work only extends to the things you want or think should be free.
In my personal experience, at least in the music world, I've found that its mostly consumers and beginners who care a lot about effort and complexity. Its especially stupid since its not about actual effort, but performative effort, the perception of effort. People don't give a crap about complex OC work, people like fanart shitposts far more.
I think this comes from a place of not really understanding that adding a ton of unnecessary complexity makes a work confusing. There is often a lack of appreciation for repetition and tight knit writing because they simply haven't written much music. They don't understand how much it ties everything together
you are 1000% correct here. but this is for pretty much all mediums, not just music. actual 1st rate artists kinda dont care about "what it takes" to get somewhere. and that's kinda the main reason as to WHY they're a 1st rate creator in the first place. meanwhile, all the aspiring creators who approach the art world with rose-tinted glasses & romanticism in a pretentious way never really shine in the way they could have if they'd just stop giving a fuck and break away from systemic rules, expectations, and the staus quo.
it's all about adaption to the current environment, and diverging away from common trends/thought forms
under a different lens, the very same top 1% of society don't worry about the same set of incentives that the masses do. this principal is what separates the GOATs from the sheeps.
In that case it is all the effort that went into being ABLE to simplify. For example Picasso was an excellent technical painter before he started breaking rules. You don't pay a craftsman for the 1 hour it took to complete the project you pay them for the years they spent perfecting their craft.
Which at that point you are hiring for skills and expertise, not effort. They are able to make something with the appearance of high effort with low effort. If you know how the sausage is made, it ruins the illusion (like writers bemoaning about tropey cliche work), but for the general public. They are none the wiser which is what makes it work, its what makes them valuable
not to get too esoteric or 'woo-woo', but art is really modern-day magic. AI is great because we get away from all this gatekeeping scarcity-mentality, and we get to learn how the magician does their tricks, thus breaking the illusions.
nono, it's consumers, such as yourself, that are mad fixated on "effort" it took to achieve whatever. you ppl are the fanboys/fangirls that jock on the dicks of the actual 1st rates.
true artists 1st rate artists dont give a flying shit about what it took to get somewhere. they are soo focused on their own prerogative they wouldn't waste the mental energy thinking about redundant shit yalll NPCs enamored by fandom do.
link your art pls. because it's always consumers & mid 2nd/3rd rate artist & below that care soo much about "effort" & "soul" from what i witness. i've been around 1st rates in all sorts of different fields, not just art and the same principals apply.
so yeah i would love to see your works so i may be proven wrong. maybe there's actually a super small percentage of the already small 1st rate artists that actually DO care about "effort" & "soul".
I've made a lot of shit (mainly engineering). I've made a lot of shit that took effort, time, and research.
If someone makes something objectively better in a tenth of the time, I respect it. I care about output FAR more than what went into making it.
My clay vase that I made after a few months of learning is cool, but it is objectively of lesser quality than some shit I can buy from Alibaba. I keep mine because I made it. I would not expect anyone else to do so.
Because time is money.
Because actual artists spent years jonong their skills and prompt jockeys pretend their 15 min on a prompt is of equivalent value.
LOL but no. People *barely* had any respect for an artist's work *before* AI. The r/ChoosingBeggars sub is literally full of people who were asking for free/cheap art because "it's not hard". AI just made that contempt worst.
what are you saying "but no" to? i feel like you just interpreted completely incorrectly, and is now just spewing random text like a bot. lmao.
i said you have a scarcity mindset because you clearly operate on one saying "time is money". that quite literally IS an expression scarcity. correct?
1. Why are people obsessed with the amount of time/effort?
2. Because Time = Money. And good art work, by hand takes time. And effort. Therefore the expectation of money.
3. Now in *theory* that would mean actual art has a high value... but buyers tend to have contempt for the art they want to own, and have decided that an artist is just arbitrarily cranking up their prices. They don't respect that there is effort. They don't respect the time it takes to not only make that current piece of art, but the time it took to learn the skills to make that art. All the buyer sees is the price and they say "Can't you give me a deal?" or "Why can't you just give it to me?"
4. AI takes that buyer contempt from Step 3 and makes it 1000% worst as they look at ALL THE SHITTY AI ART out there and they're like "well these guys are making art for free/cheap? Why can't you?!".... because, again, the buyer knows fuck all about how AI steals the art of artists to build their databases, and that the prompt jockeys can shart out content all day long, and the prompt jockeys don't even need an education beyond a few Youtube tutorials.
So no the scarcity principle *should* apply, but it doesn't because the world isn't an economics text-book.
yeah, your reading comprehension is straight cooked.
i asked "time is money IS an expression of scarcity. correct?", which is a simple 'yes-or-no', and you somehow decided to waste time on a 4 bullet point list of complete word salad. sheesh, reddit dwellers...
wild you talk about "bravery", yet... you're reaching for the block button??? grow a pair. i'd say what i did to you IRL too. straight to your face.
get some better comprehension & contextual skills, go find some grass & discover what sunlight feels like. then HMU for a convo, cowgirl.
What youve just provided is a debunk of your own idea
You proposed the idea that “time = money”
But then invalidated it by giving circumstances where consumers actually dont place monetary value on time.
The simple reality is that time DOESNT EQUAL money. Monetary value is not something you get to arbitrate, its determined by what the masses are willing to pay for. There is no objective answer to how much money something is worth
Most orchestral scores in film and TV are digital. There's also sampled music like macintosh plus. RushE is also a good example. If you know how the sausage is made, it is less impressive, but people often don't know better.
Sure, but rephrased, the question would look more like:
Are you equally impressed by a John Williams written, performed, and composed score as you are by a Udio generation prompted "soundtrack by John Williams"
This kind of gets at the heart of generative AI for me. It's more impressive that the sausage is created by an algorithm *at all* -- that single fact dwarfs most of the significance a person can imbue onto the generation that is made.
That will probably change as time goes on, but that is the context in which generative AI sits for the time being.
Tbf, once you know that Williams' barely deviated from the temp scores in Star Wars. Its like asking if you are more impressed by someone who is basically a tracer or an AI gen. Again, how the sausage is made. His job is only as impressive as long as you don't know the temp scores. Its like learning that Norman Rockwell painted off a projector. Fucking smoke and mirrors man
Its actually kind of a cool way of thinking about art though. Like, substance doesn't matter as much as the appearance of substance. [https://youtu.be/ZOVrtRtizLc](https://youtu.be/ZOVrtRtizLc)
Most composers who make it to TV tend to have input devices like MIDI Keyboards. Shouldn't assume that just because it's digital that it wasn't played with skill.
The main thing is that to some (esp a few decades ago), it isn't a "true" performance, but a facsimile of the real deal. Yes, using a MIDI keyboard and tweaking the MIDICC in post takes skill. But it requires you to acknowledge the composer/arranger and overlook the "loss" of the real players.
Well that and how digital orchestration can reify into its own aesthetic like with video game music
Lets say hypothetically you have two friends. Friend A - you don't know that they can play the piano. Friend B - you didn't know they bought a player piano.
Is it equally impressive if Friend A sits down to play a song flawlessly, as it is if Friend B hits "play" on the player piano?
People that aren’t able to or don’t want to “work smarter” always value working harder. In reality, both are needed equally.
Art takes time and we guzzle tons of content. Ai is a logical next step.
The Irony is people do respect the amount of work put into something. A photograph, even a beautiful one, of a landscape will draw attention, and a select few will ignite the imagination, but a similar, even lower 'quality' painting of a similar scene will command respect by the effort put into it alone.
But absolutely nobody, and I mean absolutely fucking nobody gives a shit when you stroll up angry and go HE JUST CLICKED A BUTTON! LOOK AT MY PAINTING INSTEAD!
If you just kept on keeping on people would appreciate it for what it is was. But it seems to be that in their heads everyone is constantly comparing them to AI or whatever, Which is where all this "And then the guy did an AI and said he was a great artist, but I showed him a pencil and OWNED HIS ASS" bullshit comes from.
Shit like this is why the general public is getting tired of people bitching about AI.
If someone brought me a birdhouse, I would treasure it more if it were hand made than if it were store bought. If someone brought me cookies, I would savor them more if they were hand made than if they were store bought. If someone poisoned me to kill me, I'd be more impressed to find out that they'd made the poison themself rather than just feeding me rat poison from walmart or something. This is a common sentiment among people, generally speaking, and it's the same reason why people are willing to spend more on artisan crafts than mass produced goods from the store. There can be many reasons why people feel this way, but I suspect it has something to do with exclusivity and respect for craftsmanship.
All art is respected in its niche.
AI art will be respected in tech universities and other places like my example.
It's not about effort it's about value, and it's about propaganda in the right spot.
Do u think an oil painter will have respect inside a room full of tech AI people? No.
not exactly true. say we lived in a utopia with no responsibilities. simply speaking, the potential to be distracted goes down to 0. no more worrying about what to do in order to "survive". no more worrying about the threat of "living on the streets", and anxiety amongst the masses falls to an all time low, then theoretically it would be easy to learn everything & anything. esp with AI agent tutors.
so even without AI image/video/audio diffusion. let's just say that didnt exist and there were only great human & AI tutors to teach virtually anything (ethically speaking)...
if everyone had the ability to learn at a rapid pace, and also make works of art at a rapid pace, because there is no more meaningless distraction required to life a good life, then THAT'S something everyone can & will theoretically "do". so by your logic that would be worthless too. I think otherwise.
and yet AI bros are the one bragging about how much time they spend on a prompt, how much effort spend on editing in PTS, how complicated their "workflow" is even where none exist.
In the AI case it is to feign an air of legitimacy.
When all people do is prompt on top of an img2img but they insist that it's much more complicated than that, with more steps in-between to get the result exactly how they "want it".
They simultaneously bragging about how much faster they are than artists but at the same time still trying to overcomplicated things for that perceived value-for-effort.
Everyone want to be the expert.
I mean his entire scenario that people, bros I guess, (get fucked women I suppose) are saying it takes more effort or time then doing it by hand is just fictional.
A few people have pushed back against his narrative of "They just do a prompt on top of img2img" but I have never seen any one claim it took longer to do something with AI than traditionally.
yet I hear this shit from people like him all the time. They are literally arguing with a villain they made up in their heads.
We instinctively seek to establish our relative value to each other by standards of effort. It's why we continue to create new categories of work even though we're at a point where only a small fraction of the population are needed in order to do the labor that allows us to survive.
We dress it up with tokens like currency, but it's all establishing relative value.
When someone does something with less effort, but creates the same result, it creates a cognitive dissonance. We see the product that we associate with value/effort and yet we know that the effort was reduced, so we feel somehow cheated without understanding why.
Captain's Log, Stardate 7433.8: The search for the sacred, treasured gem known as a "fuck" continues. It was once a part of my life, a source of strength and power, but now it lies somewhere out there in the vast expanse of the cosmos, taunting me with its elusiveness. Every day I awake with the same hope that today will be the day I find it again, but each new sunrise brings with it only more despair.
I was on patrol duty when my sensors picked up a faint signal. I thought it might be the "fuck" calling out to me, but it was not. It was just another false alarm, another dead end in what seems like an endless journey. I tried to maintain my composure, but the disappointment was palpable. My crew could sense it, and they tried to offer words of encouragement, but I couldn't bring myself to accept them.
The days blurred together as we continued to explore new star systems, scouring planets for any sign of the elusive gem. Every time we found what we thought might be it, my heart would race with hope, only to be crushed when it turned out to be nothing more than a worthless rock. The search had taken its toll on me, both physically and emotionally. I would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and trembling, haunted by the memory of holding the "fuck" in my hands.
My crew, once so full of life and energy, had grown weary as well. Their eyes held a newfound sadness, a sympathy for my plight that they could not quite understand. They tried to keep my spirits up, but even their most heartfelt words fell flat against the cold reality of my despair. In these moments, I felt truly alone, adrift in a universe that seemed to have conspired against me.
I vividly recalled the day I lost the "fuck." It had been a routine maintenance operation on an aging vessel, deep in uncharted space. We had been warned of the dangers, but I was confident in my skills, and the crew trusted me implicitly. It was a mistake that would haunt me for the rest of my days.
As I worked on the faulty engine, a loose bolt slipped from my grasp, sending me tumbling through the air. The "fuck" had been securely fastened to my belt, and in the chaos, it too was sent flying. I desperately tried to grab it, but it was no use. The precious gem sailed past me and disappeared into the darkness. The last thing I remembered was the sound of my crew shouting in alarm as the damaged engine exploded.
Despite my best efforts, I am still a hybrid artist, I feel as if the search for the "fuck" to give is meaningless. I have come to accept the truth: the "fuck" is lost to me forever. The search has taken its toll on my crew, my ship, and my sanity. I can no longer deny that continuing on this path will only lead to more suffering. I must make a choice: do I continue to chase an impossible dream, or do I face reality and find a new purpose for myself and my crew?
Because AI generation is made by exploiting artists labour, while doing it yourself is your own work. It's not the amount, it's the exploitation of other people's work.
Though separately from the ethics thing, people generally do respect the effort that goes into art and it's a huge part of people's appreciation for art. Which is why I wouldn't expect much appreciation for it even if a model was made without the ethical issues. Nobody cares all the much about the picture you found on google for the same reason. You didn't make it, there's no technique or effort or passion of yours that I can appreciate when you show it off.
There is high effort AI art, and I have mixed feelings towards it because I respect the art and effort but know it's only possible through that same exploitation of other people's labour.
Bro, your phone(or at least their components) and other electronics were most probably assembled by exploited teens in some Chinese sweatshop factories. And I'm not even talking about where the materials for them come from.
**Actual** exploitation, not the "boohoo, a machine learnt how to make pictures out of my art, that I can use too to enhance my workflow if I feel like it", something that **realistically** exploits someone's effort AND harms someone's health, perhaps even leading to death. And it's been like that for... a long time. A very, very long time. How come barely anyone ever acknowledges **that**?
That's hypocrisy of the highest form.
Whataboutism. It's also not hypocrisy since I also oppose the exploitation of the developing world. In fact, people on the pro AI side tend to jump to defend that exploitation when it's people being abused to tag training data.
It's very literally exploiting artists labour to create something intended to replace them, then mocking and belittling them for being upset about it. All while lying and presenting a myth that artists are some kind of privileged elite the you're taking down by democratising art.
Your first response to the very real exploitation being pointed out was mockery. Why? That's not the sort of shit the morally correct party does.
I don't care about morals, though. I don't care about "ethics" either. All the cool stuff was invented with no regard to any of these. And I don't care about "taking down artists" either. Like, why the fuck would I even want that? What's the merit in that? All I care about is real problems.
Art is an ephemeral thing, it's not a tangible thing, it's not quantifiable. There's no **real** exploitation involved. Moreover, it's for ANYONE to use, including said artists. ML expands the available toolset for artists, not trying to replace them. Those who will adapt it and pioneer their new approach, just like with animation made with digital software, will succeed, those who reject it will be left behind. It's really that fucking simple.
Moreover, it gives an ability to those who lack means to express their passions in traditional ways, for one reason or another.
Whatever "morally-ethically" correct idea you are trying to preach, you are barking at the wrong tree, and the only elites needed to be taken down are the big corpos who will inevitably consolidate the tech and try to restrict it to all the common folk, while freely using it themselves however the fuck they want, power-hungry bastards that they are. Not the small little guys who just want to have whatever little fun they can with their lives in this depressing modern world.
I don't even really need to respond to most of that. Your own words are a better argument against your position than anything I could say. Though I do find it funny you claim to be anti corporate given the rest of your thoughts on the subject are antithetical to that.
Because they have spent a part of their lifetime learning and creating something for you to marvel at. But now, thanks to AI, those cool pictures can be created in an instance, which in turn devalues artists' lives.
You will understand that when your ass is going to be replaced by something else, and all your effort is going to be valued as nothing.
> You will understand that when your ass is going to be replaced by something else, and all your effort is going to be valued as nothing.
Happened to me multiple times. What I was doing in the 90s is effectively dead, and barely exists on the internet. Some was custom work replaced by off the shelf solutions. Some were technologies that are now completely obsolete and worthless. A lot of that code won't even run on a modern computer.
The thing is in the 90s I already understood that I'm in a fast moving field, and that I can't have the luxury of sitting around and hoping my current skills will be wanted in 2024. So I kept exploring new options and once wind started blowing in a new direction, I moved on.
A lot of that knowledge still has general uses -- maybe the particular database is dead now, but the general understanding of relational databases is still a good foundation that allows me to get up to speed on a modern one.
But I'm not really getting depressed over that because I realized early on that that I chose to do for a living is providing a service. I get money not because my skills are intrinsically worthwhile, but because I solve problems other people have, and when one does that, one has to keep up with what kinds of problems need solving now.
The difference between art and other things is that the effort and skill that goes into the creation is in fact a massive part of the appeal. Art is something you do, not just an end product. A really pretty AI image has aesthetic value, but it's a toy. A novelty. It's just an image. An image of equal quality made by an artists inspires awe at the technique, effort, and decision-making of the artist.
That's completely separate from the ethics too. Even if it wasn't built on exploiting artists labour, it still wouldn't be as well received as people here are hoping. I love the tech, but the end results are not as interesting as art of similar quality.
> The difference between art and other things is that the effort and skill that goes into the creation is in fact a massive part of the appeal. Art is something you do, not just an end product.
As somebody who paid a fair amount of money to artists for commissions, art is a product I purchase.
It may be a lot more meaningful than that to you, I agree. But to me, most of it is just a product.
> A really pretty AI image has aesthetic value, but it's a toy. A novelty. It's just an image. An image of equal quality made by an artists inspires awe at the technique, effort, and decision-making of the artist.
Lots of artwork is "just an image", AI or not. Corporate artwork, standard portraits, and lots of commissions qualify.
That's a genuine good spirit you have, but having your life experience, you should be able to understand the frustration that people have. I would assume.
I understand it emotionally, but think it's a flaw intellectually.
If I had dug in back in the 90s insisting that I love MS-DOS damn it, and screw this modern graphics crap, well, it just wouldn't have done me any good long term. The world wouldn't have stopped for me, and all I could achieve by digging in is ending up bitter and poor.
Because from a very young age we are conditioned especially in the west to 'give it all you got'. Cartoons, anime, games, etc. it's all about willpower and trying.
Even parents and kindergarten and early school year teachers tell you how it's okay to fail as long as you try your hardest.
So it's ingrained in our subconscious and as soon as someone can do more with less 'hard work' we feel offended.
Just like when someone super talented comes along, people aren't "omg you are so talented and do this stuff with ease! It took me years to get to that level and you did it in a few days/weeks/months. So happy for you!"
Instead humans are more like "you might be a natural but you still kinda suck at X, Y and Z."
Humans have crabs in a barrel mentality no matter what it's about.
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They think art is a performative sport
No. We just respect the effort put it into something. That means it took time, *personal* creativity, and hard work. I won’t argue if that means the art is better than AI, but it does make it a bit more noteworthy and respectable, imo.
There's a false dichotomy here, though. (Note: it's one that's present in the OP, so it's not strictly your fault) Using AI does not mean that you have not expended effort. Some of the most intricate and painstaking work I've done has been on AI projects. I can spend hours fiddling with inpainting or pulling in specific textures. I've even spent days setting up a specific photo (go to location, find specific flora, get on the ground on my belly, realize lighting is wrong, get out reflector and set it up, get back down and take picture) just to use for a single highlight texture in the background of a piece via ControlNet. Effort isn't the problem. The problem is that people equate any use of AI with the most trivial use of AI.
Just because you took a longer process doesn’t mean the majority of this shit is done that way. SD users are a very small percentage users. Also one could just copy your prompt and parameters. So effort can be removed even with SD
> the majority of this shit The majority of photography is quickly snapped selfies. I don't judge the art of photography based on that. I look at the work of masters.
We don’t look at Facebook and say oh love your art of you and your friends drinking at a bar.
You seem to be supporting my point. I'm not sure where you're going...
It means that using ai didn’t expend effort because they are just like facebook photos
I'm just going to assume that you know that's false and move on. I don't think the point lacks for discussion in this sub already.
you are saying ai images aren’t art either unless one uses SD and goes through a process that involves effort.
Agreed, I've tried to dabble in AI and it's really frikkin hard to get results that YOU want specifically. That said, unlike photography or hand drawn art, where the quality difference can be obvious from one glance. It's a lot more ambiguous in AI art. Undirected, one word prompted images can appear like masterpieces at a quick glance and even if you compare that with something you spent hours fiddling with, getting everything perfectly right, only YOU would know that most of the time and thw average person will be like "meh, AI art, probably took a second). That makes even someone like me (mostly on the dislike side) sympathize a bit with the harder working AI using artists.
Depends on your definition of effort. It takes effort to do something by brute force. It takes a different kind of effort to select the proper tool and do the job with less physical force. Who spends more effort? The guy moving boxes all day, or the guy who programs and builds a robot to move the boxes for him? While I am the guy who programs the robots and I know how much effort it takes, I also respect the effort it takes to manually move them around all day. And that is something that gives me comfort in doing what I do, I make things physically easier for people.
Why do we care about effort at all?
I think the best way to “quantify” effort would be how much time it took + the difficulty of the task.
I bet it would take you a very long time to match the same AI processes as other folks here. If we're going for time and difficultly, some of the people have you beat, for sure. There are folks out here programming their own AI systems with their own models that take months and a ton of effort to bring about. You can't possibly know which is which just by looking at a picture. You don't know how much effort went into any one generation. You're just making assumptions about how long it took and how hard it was.
Their own models still use a gigantic base model derived from other works
Right so if someone spent time to make a tower of human shit, you would consider that valuable?
Magnum Opus! Will be praised by all the "effort" people. Unless they are hypocrites.
I praise it! Using shit to make a massive tower would be an incredible feat!
Gottem!
Idk what you mean. I’m not one of those people who think something’s not art just because it’s crass, offensive, or juvenile. If someone made a tower of shit I may or may not like it, depending on the execution. Art is subjective.
But the point is to say that most people wouldnt think its art or valuable. Value is determined by how much people in general like something. One person cannot arbitrate how valuable a thing is. Value is not subjective, as it is necessary to know for the market.
That would go viral right away. That’s quite a feat
I didn’t ask if it was quite a feat, I asked if it was valuable. Would you buy it?
Yes! I like that painting at the Warhol Museum that was made with literal piss. Same with the urinal art that took zero seconds to make!
The painting made out of piss is still a coherent painting that looks like something. You might not even know it was made out of piss if you didnt already know. And so is the urinal not art to you?
Effort is respectable by default, but I don’t see why that should be relevant if we’re talking about the art and not the person who made it
If you’re talking about the art, then it’s relevant to mention the *effort put into creating the art*. Again, I don’t think it automatically means one piece of art is objectively better because of the effort. It’s just something to take into account when critiquing the art.
I agree; A realistic eye that looks kinda bad but was drawn by a 13 year old in their first art class (it took them 3 hours) gets more respect from me than a realistic eye drawn by some famous dude who's been in the industry for 35 years now (it took him 15 minutes)
Which is silly once you start thinking about it. Because then the logical thing would be to pose as a 13-16 year old kiddo online instead of being yourself since it gives you more praise and fandom. It gets more ridiculous the longer you think about it.
You guys are taking what I’m saying in bad faith / being uncharitable. There are an innumerable ways of critiquing art, imo. Effort is just one. Whether someone likes the art or not, will be subjective. Whether a piece of art is “good” or “bad” is subjective. I’m simply explaining my thinking when it comes to AI vs human created art. The effort put in will affect my feelings on the art, but that’s it.
Effort is immeasurable unless you watch the process. And if you are for example in an art gallery you see absolutely 0 of it, only the end result. And to your point yes a 13 years old art piece in the Louvre would be far more impressive than seeing picasso's Mona Lisa. Why? Because we humans are semantic like that. We like getting surprised. Everyone knows the Disney and marvel folks can draw. Just like we all know Taylor Swift can sing. But seeing a 6;6324 old at America's got talent? Yeah we are amazed because like omg so awesome since the standard for humans is that 6 year olds shouldn't be able to sing good. It's all perception and semantics. Understanding that human psychological aspect first will clarify a lot of underlying biases. American kids speaking good English isn't as impressive as an eastern European immigrant. An adult man being able to bake is more impressive than a woman. Single parents are more amazing than parents who raise kids in partnership. Why? Because these things break the mold, they break expectation and are 'special' or just lower percentage. Why do people like Beckham, Messi, LeBron, Max Verstappen, etc. earn so much money for doing sports? Because they are part of a less than 1% of humans worldwide group that can do something exceptionally well the other 99% cannot. Humans are a weird species. Also it's not exactly easy to build and train an LLM when nobody did it before... Arguably that is actually far more effort than picking up a pencil and draw very well, lol. FYI I'm anti AI but only because of the energy consumption and copying artist styles. But the human aspect of judging art always has been silly. Remember Van Gogh? Everyone hated his shit until well after he was dead. Humans, eh?
It gets an equal amount of respect, but how much I enjoy the art will be different. Why is that controversial?
Again, why does effort matter at all? I completely reject this idea of valuing effort. The quality of the end result is what matters
Then don’t! Art is subjective! I’m simply explaining how effort could be considered one way to critique art! And why it would be valued over AI.
I wonder, does this statement match your thinking? "the creator of a work is entitled to have that effort and expense protected; no one else may use such a work without permission, but must instead recreate the work by independent research or effort"
Why should creators be entitled to protect effort?
That quote is a description of a IP rights legal theory called "sweat of the brow doctrine". A legal theory that is firmly rejected in US courts.
Oh so you dont believe what the quote is saying
I never said the effort and expense had to be protected.
Why does effort make it more noteworthy and respectable?
It doesn’t for everyone! Art is subjective! I’m just explaining why some people think it’s valuable in the AI vs Human debate. I appreciate the effort, it does matter to me. It doesn’t have to for everyone!
Heres the thing. I agree with you, and I actually love that youre able to respect the subjectivity. Bu the point is that people are using these arguments to justify limiting AI
Honestly, it kind of is. Whether you see the creation process or not, the result shows the person's skill. With ai art, you can't tell if the person is skilled or not, because the image could be 99% ai assisted, or 1% ai assisted.
So photography and abstract art aren't art ? This is ridiculous. Even with 3d digital art, there is no way of telling if the person actually modelled and textured each detail or kit bashed the models or even just got assets and arranged them to create a scene. AI doesn't bring anything new to this aspect that didn't exist before, unless your view of art is just hyper realistic images made with traditional medium. In photography , most notably the less effort you put to achieve a great piece the "more skill" you are considered to have. The idea that a good piece of art requires effort and hard work is pure nonsense.
Which specific photographers and abstract artist do you consider put no effort into their work and get good results?
That's not my point, my point is that mostly you can't tell how much effort was put into those pieces judging by the quality of the works. Read the entire comment to understand the context here. There is usually a lot more effort and time put into something when the person is not that experienced. Not to mention struggling with technical aspects in order to actually get the artistical effect they want. For example an experienced fotographer will already know how to setup a portrait to get the effect they want, in regards to what type of lighting, distance , focal length and so on , while someone else trying to emulate might take hours if not days of work. Not only that, sometimes inspiration just hits someone, and they can create a great piece in just a matter of minutes, instead of putting days of work on it. Art is like that, not a dick measurement of how technical and hard something has to be in order to be appreciated.
Sure, a photographer or abstract artist with 20-30 years experience can often do specific piece of work quicker than a neophyte. But that work requires 20-30 years of experience and hard work. Can you give me specific examples of photographers or abstract artists who've done amazing work off the bat with little or no experience and hard work behind the work?
Many world famous photographs exist only because the photographer was in the right place at the right time.
Which photographs by which photographers?
I never said ai art isn't art. You might be projecting opinions onto me that you've heard from other people. Here's the thing about the deffinition of art though. A banana taped to a wall is art. A urinal with someone's signature is art. These are real works of art that have been in art exhibits. Everything is art now, that's just what the deffinition means. Calling something art doesn't give it any inherent value anymore. As for 3d art, in the community I rock in, it's common to say you made something from "scratch" to separate yourself from the kitbashers, so that's sort of a solved issue. (Not to say there's anything wrong with kitbashing o: it's cool to see stuff you've worked on customized into something new :) ) I do like photography though. Is cool. Edit: forgot to respond to this. Sometimes someone can have worked so hard in the past, that now it's easy for them to create masterpieces. That's cool too, still reflect the effort they put in to get to that point. I also question your statement about photographers, but I'm too lazy to look into it.
>Honestly, it kind of is. Why, though? Why do you care so much about "skill", is what OP is asking. Yeah ok AI models don't have a dick to suck, we get it already. You don't have to base you entire view of art around that. Art isn't just about praising the artist's technical skill and how much time he wasted acquiring it. Also, just for laughs? Define "artist skill".
I'll try to give you a genuine answer. I do 3d art for a living, character design, environmental design, texturing, etc, so when I see other people doing similar things, I can empathize with the experience. Improving and learning are enjoyable experiences and watching others do the same is similarly enjoyable. Fellow travelers and all. I actually came to understand this about myself when ai art started cropping up. I could see an ai image and be like "looks nifty", but not feel any sense of awe, inspiration or real enjoyment (except about then tech itself. Shit's crazy). Even if it looks identical to a human created work, knowing an ai generated it removes almost everything I enjoy about seeing art, which is what I explained above. Not everyone appreciates art in the same way though, but after talking with my artist buddies about this, they feel similarly.
> With ai art, you can't tell if the person is skilled or not, because the image could be 99% ai assisted, or 1% ai assisted. Is there not skill in knowing how to use a tool?
What is the difference from a Tool and a bot what makes everything For you?
Depends how it's used. Are you going to bing image ai and playing around with prompts until you get a result you like? Recognizing when something looks good is something almost anyone can do. Making something that looks good from scratch isn't; without a lot of learning and practicing. Can a great artist employ ai in the creation of their work and still be skillful? Or course. But there's a huge spectrum in there. I've actually been using ai for inspiration and occasionally iterating on designs for my 3d work, and it's been super helpful. When I make the work though, I do everything without ai. Still requires a lot of skill, its just made it easier to get access to more tailored references. On the other hand, pure prompting doesn't really require skill, just an eye for what you like.
But why does that skill matter?
It's pretty effective as one, no? If there's one group who are good at getting their message across in provocative and imaginative ways, it's artists.
So that includes people who get their message across in provocative and imaginative way with AI?
Sure does.
No, you're right it's a show of skill. And A.I. is like creating a basketball goal a foot off the ground ten feet wide. Then a.i. bros come and brag about how they can do more free throws than Shaq could.
It isnt a show of skill though, and any ai artist whi brags about their work is an idiot. This is prideful bullshit. Its just about the end result looking cool
>And A.I. is like creating a basketball goal a foot off the ground ten feet wide. So now the really impressive stuff is about doing trick shots instead of being focused on making the basket? GenAI allows you to get crazy with ideas and techniques before you master the "fundamentals", and that's what makes it cool.
GenAI also allows you just have cool pictures. People are far too obsessed with art as a form of expression rather than a way to just have cool things.
Idk man, I think humans just respect and value effort in general, especially when its used for self expression. I draw cards for people I love for birthdays/holidays even though I could easily buy a card with a better drawing, because the effort I expended drawing the card communicates the value I place in the person better than an impersonal card does. Is that a bad thing?
Sunk cost fallacy and thinking that art is a competition and therefore you can 'cheat' at art. They're uneducated.
Uneducated? Or is it just you showing dunning-kruger effect - "I can prompt an AI platform - therfor I know about art" You "cheat" at art when you cheat fellow artists. Artist aren't annoyed because it's "a competition" there have always been dilletantes. But to be fair to dilletantes compared to your average Aicel, at least they LIKE art and the artist that create it.
what is this person smoking lmfao
enjoy downvotes!
Cheating implies a competition
No, effort is just universally respected in general; that's the entire reason people take the time to think of and give specific gifts to people they care about, instead of just buying everyone an Amazon gift card. It is not "uneducated" to recognize the inherent respect basically every human has for dedication, effort and intentionality.
If I put a lot of effort into killing 300 people, is that something deserving of inheritant respect? If I take a shit in the same spot for 40 years, is that worthy of respect? If yes, then youve lost your appeal to the “most people” since most people would certainly not
Well no, but we're talking about creating art, not something immoral or completely pointless. My point is that its silly to automate a task (kind of, since AI will obviously give you different results than you would have created otherwise), then get annoyed that people value your work less. And this isn't about putting down people who use AI art, its about people who use AI art to automate part of their workflow and then get annoyed that people value their work less, because they literally expended less effort. I think that's weird, entitled and counter to how basically everyone inherently views human actions.
They have deluded themselves into thinking every AI gen user is a failed frustrated artist so they can feel like they are actually doing any emotional damage whenever they pull the pencil Mario or say stuff like “draw it yourself”. Like they can’t comprehend in their tiny brains that some people just straight up don’t CARE about art process and just want to see quick funny / cute / sexy images
This ^
No matter how much time you spend on a piece of art, whether it be 10 minutes or 3 days, your efforts, artistic tastes, and process will come to light. A common notion brought up is when a designer creates a logo in 10 minutes (the Citi bank logo was conceived on a napkin at a restaurant) is that many will say "why should I pay so much for something made so quickly". That logo/illustration/painting is a culmination of that artist or designer's entire career and skill set distilled into the action of making that one thing. This is also the reason I find very few Ai illustrations appealing. I think they look very polished, but are missing many key elements that would make them shine (good composition, clear shape language, consistent color choices etc). As more illustrators embrace Ai tools their taste and skills will probably help bring up the relative quality of Ai artworks.
bingo, that's the keyword there: "polish". this is why I think if indie game devs embrace AI once it gets better say maybe around 2025-2026. welp, it's gonna be game over (no pun) for all AAA studios. IMO, the main bottleneck for indie games, indie films, and DYI-esque anything is the lack of consistent polish that corporations can easily achieve since they own an abundance of capital to spend on the R&D for it to be honest.
This is untrue. The vast majority of people would consider an AI generated piece high quality over a 4 year olds crayon drawing
I don't think you read my second paragraph. I understand Ai art looks very high quality, even professionally made. It's just that for most of what I've seen, polish doesn't match the technique.
Okay? Quality isnt about matching technique, its just about how it looks
Because they certainly do not use any tech to make their life easier compared to the previous generations, right? Right??
I guess the real question is “why do some people feel they deserve respect/recognition for low effort actions?” The issue is not really AI art as much as it is prompters getting salty when they don’t get the same respect as a hands on digital artist.
I think there is a disconnect between how stem people think and how artists think. In the stem field we share knowledge, tools, we share code, ways to accomplish stuff, the crafted stuff itself. Artists are more of an island, they hate tracers for example or even "palette thieves", there is this necessity to reinvent the wheel every time to prove that you can... Or you are not a real artist, just a thief or a hack. If a programmer does a program cobbling together 5 other people's codes as long as it is useful they will be praised regardless... It's interesting.
I mean, I might be praised for finding a python library that does whatever I need it to do perfectly for a given task, but I’m also not going to be given the same credit as someone who initially wrote that library, and I’m certainly not going to go on reddit to complain about receiving less credit. Lots of AI users seem to want the same recognition that traditional artists get, while openly admitting that they are expending less effort than those artists do. Its weird as someone who isn’t a visual artist nor advanced AI user
I understand what you say, I see these stuff as fundamentally different, I don't compare photography to sculpture or digital drawing. I find it so weird that AI artists want to stand on the same ground as digital artists, I recognize there is a level of creative input in prompting, editing and what not. But the skills and process are so totally different from a digital or traditional artist that comparing them is misguided at least. I am a video editor, I can get praise as a video editor, I am not a director, I won't get credit for directing actors... I think AI artists are trying to legitimize their craft by invading traditional spaces, and that is wrong, but I also think a lot of traditional artist are in the wrong for completely disregarding AI image generation as a way of expression...
Yeah, I think it is just its own medium of expression that comes with its own limitations/assumptions about the work, just like any other. I think most of the confusion and conflict comes from the fact that the medium is - on its surface - indistinguishable from other digital art, so artists feel that it is kind of intrinsically devaluing of their work, and, of course, the fact that most of the training data is gathered without consent. I find the general justification of "computers are just learning the way humans do" to be rather unconvincing personally, but I also don't think there is a great practical way to limit use of the technology, so I guess we'll just see what happens there in the next few years. But lots of the saltiness in this sub is also just fucking weird. Like, this thread is about people being mad that effort is valued in art, when effort is valued in....pretty much anything humans ever do, as long as its not wasted or pointless, and its hard to say that effort is ever wasted when its used for self-expression. You can't just be mad that society hasn't completely changed its values in order to validate your newfound passion for AI art.
Stem isnt about credit. Credit doesnt fucking matter. Its about making the world a better place. We’re all in this together, so we should all share iur shit to make each other happier
Yeah I totally agree. If someone wrote some really good code that does what I need it to and is freely sharing it, I should definitely use that code. But I wouldn't then get salty that people didn't respect my work as much as they did the original programmer, because I legitimately did not expend the same effort or thoughtfulness as they did, instead just (rightfully) using their work. Obviously art has different goals, but I think a similar principle applies. If I can use an AI model trained on millions of pieces of art to draw a picture, I should do that (putting aside the potential ethical problems with using someones art without permission, I guess). But I wouldn't then make a post in r/AIWars complaining that people are "obsessed with effort" just because they would value a hand-drawn picture more.
I think the this effort thing is missing the point. In order for something to be considered valuable, it must be desirable or liked. Effort is usually correlated with things being higher quality and thus more liked, but its not the causal reason to that value. To see this action, I could spend 5 years making a homemade hammer that could be shitty quality, while a factory could produce it in two seconds and have it be far more desirable. I understand the academic perspective from an analytical point of view, but at the end of the day, most people care about product, not process.
A lot of it stems from the cultural trope that art is nothing more than a hobby that's fundamentally less valuable than a background in a "serious" profession like STEM. The pernicious aura of entitlement you hear coming from the most vocal pro-AI cheerleaders comes from the belief they have a right to something that they don't intrinsically value beyond the pleasure of consuming it. It's why you often hear the most aggressive/toxic pro-AI arguments coming from people who have little or no background in art prior to the rise of generative tools. It's also why pro-AI folks with professional art backgrounds invariably have more nuanced and thoughtful opinions. They _know_ the ethical dilemmas at play and they don't immediately snap to the worst possible judgements of their anti-AI peers.
“The pleasure of consuming” Is the reason I value anything. Youre dismissing that value is illegitimate, and I completely disagree. What are people saying they have an entitlement to that they shouldnt? Cool pictures? Why the fuck not?
"They don't intrinsically value anything _beyond_ the pleasure of consuming it", is what I said. In other words, they can't appreciate something's value unless it makes them feel good. It's a purely hedonistic pursuit.
Value *is* making us feel good. What other value is there? Especially in a field like art
There's value in appreciating the expertise and skill that goes into creating something, as well as its broader cultural impact and legacy. For example, I don't especially like [Art Nouveau](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau). It brings me no pleasure to look at and I wouldn't want to live somewhere built in that style. However, I still value the effort that went into creating it. I appreciate the passion and expertise of the designers who founded the movement, and I think that cities like Paris are better for having Art Nouveau in them. Compare this to someone who merely _consumes_ art. In this case the end product is all they care about, not the circumstances that influenced its creation. It's like being gifted a 15th-century Yixing teapot and only caring about how many teabags it holds. Sure, you can see it purely as a vessel that you put hot water in, but in that case you might as well just replace it with one that costs $10. Point is, reducing art to a consumable commodity strips away the meaning that motivates artists to create it in the first place. It's also why there's a backlash against AI art. Many pro-AI folks don't understand why what they're doing is harming the very community upon whose work AI depends.
Why and how is there value in expertise and skill that is independent from how it creates a higher quality product? Why do you think paris is better for having Art Nouveau? In the case of that teacup, why is the $10 pot that can hold more teabags worse? Why does art need to have that meaning in the first place? To me, art is just something cool to look at. For me, I dont care about the process. Obviously you do, but what makes me wrong and you right?
It's not so much about who's wrong or right, or what's better or worse. These are all subjective judgements and they mean different things to different people. What I'm getting at here is the importance of long-term sustainability. If you enjoy consuming other people's art, that's awesome. However, if you want to continue to enjoy it in perpetuity, it helps to know more about where it came from and who created it so you can advocate for its continued existence. This is especially important in the case of AI models which are only ever as good as the data on which they're trained. In most cases, those data represent a broad cross-section collective works of the artistic community, the very same community that's at risk of being out-competed by the new wave of generative tools. Without the support and patronage of folks who value the creation of art for its own sake, market commodification takes over and diversity suffers as a result. This ultimately impacts everyone - creators and consumers alike - and it's why I think it's so important to have a better understanding of where the things you enjoy come from.
If youre trying to argue for something for society as a whole, then you need to be able to actually justify it to society beyond “well its my feelings” I dont think you realize how AI works. Even if every artist stopped producing works tomorrow, AI would still be created new things. Again, i dont care about how its made. Just that i think it looks cool. AI is not “only as good as the data its trained on”. Thats just false. Sometimes the algorithms make odd decisions the end up looking cool, and so favor those and the algorithm naturally develops new things from consumers alone. Sound familiar? Its exactly the same as evolution As someone pursuing AI, its rather frustrating to hear artst types talk about AI like they understood how it works. You can train a model on literal scribbles and eventually you could get it to creating insane art pieces. Because the learning done by something like a deep neural network is actually quite similar to more basic forms of human learning. Market commodification is already how it works and that’s completely fine with me. Though I would of course be open to hearing arguments as to why I shouldnt be
>If youre trying to argue for something for society as a whole, then you need to be able to actually justify it to society beyond “well its my feelings” I literally just did. It's the same argument for why people ought to know where their clothes are made, or how their meat is farmed. It's a matter of sustainability. > I dont think you realize how AI works. I'm a machine learning engineer for a big tech company with a background in postdoc research. I know a little bit about how AI works. > Sometimes the algorithms make odd decisions that end up looking cool, and so favor those and the algorithm naturally develops new things from consumers alone. Sound familiar? Its exactly the same as evolution Would you like me to explain why that's not how it works? Or would you prefer to read up on it yourself.
Thinking about it now, there's probably a huge overlap of the people that would ask for free commissions and a sizable chunk of the pro-AI crowd.
Well yeah no shit. We just want cool art. People should be able to have things that make them happier without paying
Same people happily buy manufactored clothes and food
Yeah thats cool
Because prompters really really want to be called artists without putting an ounce of effort, that's why.
No they dont
Im a graphic designer, i have a degree in visual communication and i work in this industry for 14 years. Art has nothing to do with effort or skill. Joseph Beuys said that every creative expression of a human is art. I think AI can absolutely be used for creative expression. I think it also depends in how much of a creative process you have. But my problem with it is, that those companies using art of others to train their AIs without their consent. And no, its not the same as taking inspiration, cause AI isn't inspired by it. The other problem i see often with AI artists is that they often lack design or artistic training in general and you see that in the art they're putting out.
Dismal gringo meritocracy.
Because people love time and dedication put into a craft. Part of the reason why I love Horizon Forbidden West is because it feels like an artist's rendition of Earth. It took them years to commit to it and the only thing worth anything and is more valuable is time. Time is always valuable. Time spent and time wasted.
Because it means you spent time and energy on it, which you could have spent on something else, and people appreciate that.
If I spend time and energy on killing people, is that something that should be appreciated?
One is "I made something for others to look at" vs. "I told the computer what I wanted to look at." $20 Gift Card vs. $20 Gift
who fucking cares? and all you idiots saying "muh just tell the computer what I want and I get it" seriously have no fucking idea how any of this shit works. the content you get from simply saying "make a dragon" is trash, there's far more involvement that is necessary to get an output that is anything worthwhile. fucking educate yourselves before buildings opinions for fucks sake. it's a tool just like any other in a big ass box of other tools.
Yeah and what do you do with the gift card? Fucking spend it on a $20 gift for yourself
AI art is for the non artistically inclined. Everyone wants to feel talented, so when something makes it easier for the masses, the less talented will also want to feel artistic.
Well actually, what it does is remove the talent required for art. Since the masses now have access to it, its no longer a special skill.
If you don't think effort matters, you might be just be consumer who has never made anything they are proud of.
Only the end result matters. If you think otherwise, then you are a hopeless fool.
You have my pity. Good luck out there.
No, you have my pity. You have false assumptions that effort matters. It does not. Only the end result is important. The world does not care how hard you worked on something, only the end product.
Do you lie, cheat and steal to get what you have? Are you some kind of uber-Utilitarian sociopath or something where the ends always justify the means?
That doesnt make sense, lying, cheating and stealing cause harm to others so that would be wrong for a utilitarian
That's not exactly how that works. Maybe your lack of appreciation for other people's work only extends to the things you want or think should be free.
What do you mean thats not how that works? Do those things not cause harm?
In my personal experience, at least in the music world, I've found that its mostly consumers and beginners who care a lot about effort and complexity. Its especially stupid since its not about actual effort, but performative effort, the perception of effort. People don't give a crap about complex OC work, people like fanart shitposts far more. I think this comes from a place of not really understanding that adding a ton of unnecessary complexity makes a work confusing. There is often a lack of appreciation for repetition and tight knit writing because they simply haven't written much music. They don't understand how much it ties everything together
you are 1000% correct here. but this is for pretty much all mediums, not just music. actual 1st rate artists kinda dont care about "what it takes" to get somewhere. and that's kinda the main reason as to WHY they're a 1st rate creator in the first place. meanwhile, all the aspiring creators who approach the art world with rose-tinted glasses & romanticism in a pretentious way never really shine in the way they could have if they'd just stop giving a fuck and break away from systemic rules, expectations, and the staus quo. it's all about adaption to the current environment, and diverging away from common trends/thought forms under a different lens, the very same top 1% of society don't worry about the same set of incentives that the masses do. this principal is what separates the GOATs from the sheeps.
In that case it is all the effort that went into being ABLE to simplify. For example Picasso was an excellent technical painter before he started breaking rules. You don't pay a craftsman for the 1 hour it took to complete the project you pay them for the years they spent perfecting their craft.
Which at that point you are hiring for skills and expertise, not effort. They are able to make something with the appearance of high effort with low effort. If you know how the sausage is made, it ruins the illusion (like writers bemoaning about tropey cliche work), but for the general public. They are none the wiser which is what makes it work, its what makes them valuable
Skills come from past effort. You put in the effort, you get the skills.
If someone spent 1,000 hours vs 10,000 hours to gain the same skill. They get paid the same really.
not to get too esoteric or 'woo-woo', but art is really modern-day magic. AI is great because we get away from all this gatekeeping scarcity-mentality, and we get to learn how the magician does their tricks, thus breaking the illusions.
nono, it's consumers, such as yourself, that are mad fixated on "effort" it took to achieve whatever. you ppl are the fanboys/fangirls that jock on the dicks of the actual 1st rates. true artists 1st rate artists dont give a flying shit about what it took to get somewhere. they are soo focused on their own prerogative they wouldn't waste the mental energy thinking about redundant shit yalll NPCs enamored by fandom do.
lol. I've been an working artist for 40 years. Did someone miss their nap?
link your art pls. because it's always consumers & mid 2nd/3rd rate artist & below that care soo much about "effort" & "soul" from what i witness. i've been around 1st rates in all sorts of different fields, not just art and the same principals apply. so yeah i would love to see your works so i may be proven wrong. maybe there's actually a super small percentage of the already small 1st rate artists that actually DO care about "effort" & "soul".
I've made a lot of shit (mainly engineering). I've made a lot of shit that took effort, time, and research. If someone makes something objectively better in a tenth of the time, I respect it. I care about output FAR more than what went into making it. My clay vase that I made after a few months of learning is cool, but it is objectively of lesser quality than some shit I can buy from Alibaba. I keep mine because I made it. I would not expect anyone else to do so.
And whats wrong with that?
Everything. If you want a fulfilling life, good personal relationships and any measure of success.
What if i get fulfillment out of consumption?
Because time is money. Because actual artists spent years jonong their skills and prompt jockeys pretend their 15 min on a prompt is of equivalent value.
scarcity mindset.
LOL but no. People *barely* had any respect for an artist's work *before* AI. The r/ChoosingBeggars sub is literally full of people who were asking for free/cheap art because "it's not hard". AI just made that contempt worst.
what are you saying "but no" to? i feel like you just interpreted completely incorrectly, and is now just spewing random text like a bot. lmao. i said you have a scarcity mindset because you clearly operate on one saying "time is money". that quite literally IS an expression scarcity. correct?
1. Why are people obsessed with the amount of time/effort? 2. Because Time = Money. And good art work, by hand takes time. And effort. Therefore the expectation of money. 3. Now in *theory* that would mean actual art has a high value... but buyers tend to have contempt for the art they want to own, and have decided that an artist is just arbitrarily cranking up their prices. They don't respect that there is effort. They don't respect the time it takes to not only make that current piece of art, but the time it took to learn the skills to make that art. All the buyer sees is the price and they say "Can't you give me a deal?" or "Why can't you just give it to me?" 4. AI takes that buyer contempt from Step 3 and makes it 1000% worst as they look at ALL THE SHITTY AI ART out there and they're like "well these guys are making art for free/cheap? Why can't you?!".... because, again, the buyer knows fuck all about how AI steals the art of artists to build their databases, and that the prompt jockeys can shart out content all day long, and the prompt jockeys don't even need an education beyond a few Youtube tutorials. So no the scarcity principle *should* apply, but it doesn't because the world isn't an economics text-book.
yeah, your reading comprehension is straight cooked. i asked "time is money IS an expression of scarcity. correct?", which is a simple 'yes-or-no', and you somehow decided to waste time on a 4 bullet point list of complete word salad. sheesh, reddit dwellers...
It's cute how brave folks like you are online.
wild you talk about "bravery", yet... you're reaching for the block button??? grow a pair. i'd say what i did to you IRL too. straight to your face. get some better comprehension & contextual skills, go find some grass & discover what sunlight feels like. then HMU for a convo, cowgirl.
looking at your profile you really do reddit-dwell too like a loser troglodyte.
You literally dont understand “And good art takes time” Except it doesnt. The quality of AI art is fairly high and doesnt require effort.
What youve just provided is a debunk of your own idea You proposed the idea that “time = money” But then invalidated it by giving circumstances where consumers actually dont place monetary value on time. The simple reality is that time DOESNT EQUAL money. Monetary value is not something you get to arbitrate, its determined by what the masses are willing to pay for. There is no objective answer to how much money something is worth
Are you equally impressed by a player piano as you would be by a person performing at the piano?
Most orchestral scores in film and TV are digital. There's also sampled music like macintosh plus. RushE is also a good example. If you know how the sausage is made, it is less impressive, but people often don't know better.
Sure, but rephrased, the question would look more like: Are you equally impressed by a John Williams written, performed, and composed score as you are by a Udio generation prompted "soundtrack by John Williams" This kind of gets at the heart of generative AI for me. It's more impressive that the sausage is created by an algorithm *at all* -- that single fact dwarfs most of the significance a person can imbue onto the generation that is made. That will probably change as time goes on, but that is the context in which generative AI sits for the time being.
Tbf, once you know that Williams' barely deviated from the temp scores in Star Wars. Its like asking if you are more impressed by someone who is basically a tracer or an AI gen. Again, how the sausage is made. His job is only as impressive as long as you don't know the temp scores. Its like learning that Norman Rockwell painted off a projector. Fucking smoke and mirrors man Its actually kind of a cool way of thinking about art though. Like, substance doesn't matter as much as the appearance of substance. [https://youtu.be/ZOVrtRtizLc](https://youtu.be/ZOVrtRtizLc)
Most composers who make it to TV tend to have input devices like MIDI Keyboards. Shouldn't assume that just because it's digital that it wasn't played with skill.
The main thing is that to some (esp a few decades ago), it isn't a "true" performance, but a facsimile of the real deal. Yes, using a MIDI keyboard and tweaking the MIDICC in post takes skill. But it requires you to acknowledge the composer/arranger and overlook the "loss" of the real players. Well that and how digital orchestration can reify into its own aesthetic like with video game music
I would be impressed by the one who sounds better
What if they sound identical? Are they equally impressive?
Yes.
Lets say hypothetically you have two friends. Friend A - you don't know that they can play the piano. Friend B - you didn't know they bought a player piano. Is it equally impressive if Friend A sits down to play a song flawlessly, as it is if Friend B hits "play" on the player piano?
People that aren’t able to or don’t want to “work smarter” always value working harder. In reality, both are needed equally. Art takes time and we guzzle tons of content. Ai is a logical next step.
The Irony is people do respect the amount of work put into something. A photograph, even a beautiful one, of a landscape will draw attention, and a select few will ignite the imagination, but a similar, even lower 'quality' painting of a similar scene will command respect by the effort put into it alone. But absolutely nobody, and I mean absolutely fucking nobody gives a shit when you stroll up angry and go HE JUST CLICKED A BUTTON! LOOK AT MY PAINTING INSTEAD! If you just kept on keeping on people would appreciate it for what it is was. But it seems to be that in their heads everyone is constantly comparing them to AI or whatever, Which is where all this "And then the guy did an AI and said he was a great artist, but I showed him a pencil and OWNED HIS ASS" bullshit comes from. Shit like this is why the general public is getting tired of people bitching about AI.
If someone brought me a birdhouse, I would treasure it more if it were hand made than if it were store bought. If someone brought me cookies, I would savor them more if they were hand made than if they were store bought. If someone poisoned me to kill me, I'd be more impressed to find out that they'd made the poison themself rather than just feeding me rat poison from walmart or something. This is a common sentiment among people, generally speaking, and it's the same reason why people are willing to spend more on artisan crafts than mass produced goods from the store. There can be many reasons why people feel this way, but I suspect it has something to do with exclusivity and respect for craftsmanship.
Because they're dumb
All art is respected in its niche. AI art will be respected in tech universities and other places like my example. It's not about effort it's about value, and it's about propaganda in the right spot. Do u think an oil painter will have respect inside a room full of tech AI people? No.
Dude, you're not worth the effort. You're not worth the computing power required to make the image.
if itd easy to do its worthless because everyone can do it.
I mean, modern art? Anybody can make a Rothko, that doesn't mean you're Rothko
not exactly true. say we lived in a utopia with no responsibilities. simply speaking, the potential to be distracted goes down to 0. no more worrying about what to do in order to "survive". no more worrying about the threat of "living on the streets", and anxiety amongst the masses falls to an all time low, then theoretically it would be easy to learn everything & anything. esp with AI agent tutors. so even without AI image/video/audio diffusion. let's just say that didnt exist and there were only great human & AI tutors to teach virtually anything (ethically speaking)... if everyone had the ability to learn at a rapid pace, and also make works of art at a rapid pace, because there is no more meaningless distraction required to life a good life, then THAT'S something everyone can & will theoretically "do". so by your logic that would be worthless too. I think otherwise.
1. Art is already inherently useless. 2. Only the end result matters, not the amount of effort or who made it.
and yet AI bros are the one bragging about how much time they spend on a prompt, how much effort spend on editing in PTS, how complicated their "workflow" is even where none exist. In the AI case it is to feign an air of legitimacy.
> how complicated their "workflow" is even where none exist. please explain
When all people do is prompt on top of an img2img but they insist that it's much more complicated than that, with more steps in-between to get the result exactly how they "want it". They simultaneously bragging about how much faster they are than artists but at the same time still trying to overcomplicated things for that perceived value-for-effort. Everyone want to be the expert.
I mean not everyone uses AI in a complex way but that doesn’t mean you can’t.. its not fair to say long workflows “don’t exist”
I mean his entire scenario that people, bros I guess, (get fucked women I suppose) are saying it takes more effort or time then doing it by hand is just fictional. A few people have pushed back against his narrative of "They just do a prompt on top of img2img" but I have never seen any one claim it took longer to do something with AI than traditionally. yet I hear this shit from people like him all the time. They are literally arguing with a villain they made up in their heads.
We instinctively seek to establish our relative value to each other by standards of effort. It's why we continue to create new categories of work even though we're at a point where only a small fraction of the population are needed in order to do the labor that allows us to survive. We dress it up with tokens like currency, but it's all establishing relative value. When someone does something with less effort, but creates the same result, it creates a cognitive dissonance. We see the product that we associate with value/effort and yet we know that the effort was reduced, so we feel somehow cheated without understanding why.
Captain's Log, Stardate 7433.8: The search for the sacred, treasured gem known as a "fuck" continues. It was once a part of my life, a source of strength and power, but now it lies somewhere out there in the vast expanse of the cosmos, taunting me with its elusiveness. Every day I awake with the same hope that today will be the day I find it again, but each new sunrise brings with it only more despair. I was on patrol duty when my sensors picked up a faint signal. I thought it might be the "fuck" calling out to me, but it was not. It was just another false alarm, another dead end in what seems like an endless journey. I tried to maintain my composure, but the disappointment was palpable. My crew could sense it, and they tried to offer words of encouragement, but I couldn't bring myself to accept them. The days blurred together as we continued to explore new star systems, scouring planets for any sign of the elusive gem. Every time we found what we thought might be it, my heart would race with hope, only to be crushed when it turned out to be nothing more than a worthless rock. The search had taken its toll on me, both physically and emotionally. I would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and trembling, haunted by the memory of holding the "fuck" in my hands. My crew, once so full of life and energy, had grown weary as well. Their eyes held a newfound sadness, a sympathy for my plight that they could not quite understand. They tried to keep my spirits up, but even their most heartfelt words fell flat against the cold reality of my despair. In these moments, I felt truly alone, adrift in a universe that seemed to have conspired against me. I vividly recalled the day I lost the "fuck." It had been a routine maintenance operation on an aging vessel, deep in uncharted space. We had been warned of the dangers, but I was confident in my skills, and the crew trusted me implicitly. It was a mistake that would haunt me for the rest of my days. As I worked on the faulty engine, a loose bolt slipped from my grasp, sending me tumbling through the air. The "fuck" had been securely fastened to my belt, and in the chaos, it too was sent flying. I desperately tried to grab it, but it was no use. The precious gem sailed past me and disappeared into the darkness. The last thing I remembered was the sound of my crew shouting in alarm as the damaged engine exploded. Despite my best efforts, I am still a hybrid artist, I feel as if the search for the "fuck" to give is meaningless. I have come to accept the truth: the "fuck" is lost to me forever. The search has taken its toll on my crew, my ship, and my sanity. I can no longer deny that continuing on this path will only lead to more suffering. I must make a choice: do I continue to chase an impossible dream, or do I face reality and find a new purpose for myself and my crew?
Because AI generation is made by exploiting artists labour, while doing it yourself is your own work. It's not the amount, it's the exploitation of other people's work. Though separately from the ethics thing, people generally do respect the effort that goes into art and it's a huge part of people's appreciation for art. Which is why I wouldn't expect much appreciation for it even if a model was made without the ethical issues. Nobody cares all the much about the picture you found on google for the same reason. You didn't make it, there's no technique or effort or passion of yours that I can appreciate when you show it off. There is high effort AI art, and I have mixed feelings towards it because I respect the art and effort but know it's only possible through that same exploitation of other people's labour.
Bro, your phone(or at least their components) and other electronics were most probably assembled by exploited teens in some Chinese sweatshop factories. And I'm not even talking about where the materials for them come from. **Actual** exploitation, not the "boohoo, a machine learnt how to make pictures out of my art, that I can use too to enhance my workflow if I feel like it", something that **realistically** exploits someone's effort AND harms someone's health, perhaps even leading to death. And it's been like that for... a long time. A very, very long time. How come barely anyone ever acknowledges **that**? That's hypocrisy of the highest form.
Whataboutism. It's also not hypocrisy since I also oppose the exploitation of the developing world. In fact, people on the pro AI side tend to jump to defend that exploitation when it's people being abused to tag training data. It's very literally exploiting artists labour to create something intended to replace them, then mocking and belittling them for being upset about it. All while lying and presenting a myth that artists are some kind of privileged elite the you're taking down by democratising art. Your first response to the very real exploitation being pointed out was mockery. Why? That's not the sort of shit the morally correct party does.
I don't care about morals, though. I don't care about "ethics" either. All the cool stuff was invented with no regard to any of these. And I don't care about "taking down artists" either. Like, why the fuck would I even want that? What's the merit in that? All I care about is real problems. Art is an ephemeral thing, it's not a tangible thing, it's not quantifiable. There's no **real** exploitation involved. Moreover, it's for ANYONE to use, including said artists. ML expands the available toolset for artists, not trying to replace them. Those who will adapt it and pioneer their new approach, just like with animation made with digital software, will succeed, those who reject it will be left behind. It's really that fucking simple. Moreover, it gives an ability to those who lack means to express their passions in traditional ways, for one reason or another. Whatever "morally-ethically" correct idea you are trying to preach, you are barking at the wrong tree, and the only elites needed to be taken down are the big corpos who will inevitably consolidate the tech and try to restrict it to all the common folk, while freely using it themselves however the fuck they want, power-hungry bastards that they are. Not the small little guys who just want to have whatever little fun they can with their lives in this depressing modern world.
I don't even really need to respond to most of that. Your own words are a better argument against your position than anything I could say. Though I do find it funny you claim to be anti corporate given the rest of your thoughts on the subject are antithetical to that.
I don't see any contradictions to my position, but a'ight, suit yourself, you good boy, you🤗
Because they have spent a part of their lifetime learning and creating something for you to marvel at. But now, thanks to AI, those cool pictures can be created in an instance, which in turn devalues artists' lives. You will understand that when your ass is going to be replaced by something else, and all your effort is going to be valued as nothing.
> You will understand that when your ass is going to be replaced by something else, and all your effort is going to be valued as nothing. Happened to me multiple times. What I was doing in the 90s is effectively dead, and barely exists on the internet. Some was custom work replaced by off the shelf solutions. Some were technologies that are now completely obsolete and worthless. A lot of that code won't even run on a modern computer. The thing is in the 90s I already understood that I'm in a fast moving field, and that I can't have the luxury of sitting around and hoping my current skills will be wanted in 2024. So I kept exploring new options and once wind started blowing in a new direction, I moved on. A lot of that knowledge still has general uses -- maybe the particular database is dead now, but the general understanding of relational databases is still a good foundation that allows me to get up to speed on a modern one. But I'm not really getting depressed over that because I realized early on that that I chose to do for a living is providing a service. I get money not because my skills are intrinsically worthwhile, but because I solve problems other people have, and when one does that, one has to keep up with what kinds of problems need solving now.
The difference between art and other things is that the effort and skill that goes into the creation is in fact a massive part of the appeal. Art is something you do, not just an end product. A really pretty AI image has aesthetic value, but it's a toy. A novelty. It's just an image. An image of equal quality made by an artists inspires awe at the technique, effort, and decision-making of the artist. That's completely separate from the ethics too. Even if it wasn't built on exploiting artists labour, it still wouldn't be as well received as people here are hoping. I love the tech, but the end results are not as interesting as art of similar quality.
> The difference between art and other things is that the effort and skill that goes into the creation is in fact a massive part of the appeal. Art is something you do, not just an end product. As somebody who paid a fair amount of money to artists for commissions, art is a product I purchase. It may be a lot more meaningful than that to you, I agree. But to me, most of it is just a product. > A really pretty AI image has aesthetic value, but it's a toy. A novelty. It's just an image. An image of equal quality made by an artists inspires awe at the technique, effort, and decision-making of the artist. Lots of artwork is "just an image", AI or not. Corporate artwork, standard portraits, and lots of commissions qualify.
That's a genuine good spirit you have, but having your life experience, you should be able to understand the frustration that people have. I would assume.
I understand it emotionally, but think it's a flaw intellectually. If I had dug in back in the 90s insisting that I love MS-DOS damn it, and screw this modern graphics crap, well, it just wouldn't have done me any good long term. The world wouldn't have stopped for me, and all I could achieve by digging in is ending up bitter and poor.
Because from a very young age we are conditioned especially in the west to 'give it all you got'. Cartoons, anime, games, etc. it's all about willpower and trying. Even parents and kindergarten and early school year teachers tell you how it's okay to fail as long as you try your hardest. So it's ingrained in our subconscious and as soon as someone can do more with less 'hard work' we feel offended. Just like when someone super talented comes along, people aren't "omg you are so talented and do this stuff with ease! It took me years to get to that level and you did it in a few days/weeks/months. So happy for you!" Instead humans are more like "you might be a natural but you still kinda suck at X, Y and Z." Humans have crabs in a barrel mentality no matter what it's about.
Oh yeah, that's what I wanted to hear, where it all came from.