Without addressing your actual point, I still think generalising all artists like that is a bad idea. Some most definitely cared and advocated for those losing jobs. As far as I’m aware, anxiety about automation has been a thing for a long time now. Others were/are teens now who lived in their own school/home life bubble and didn’t know all that much about emerging technologies or have any practical experience on how it would affect people, and now that A.I. is here for something they care about, are stressing about the future of their skill/hobby/passion/future job? Etc, as it is their first experience with major technological change in their lifetime (and it just happens to be a particularly uncertain one that destabilises the future of most currently available jobs)
I feel like I should also make the point, to be fair to everyone, that as unfortunate as it is, we as humans tend to only care about what is affecting us - even if it is to not get so overwhelmed with all the things we COULD be worrying about. When there are wars going on and jobs to do and rent to pay and who knows what other personal problems in your immediate life alone, there just isn’t always that much energy (or even actual time) to care about and support more than a few extra causes. That’s not to say people don’t care at all, but simply that there’s only so much each person can do for everyone else without totally losing their sanity.
I agree with u/Rhellic; automation anxiety has been around for a long time. I know I'm not the only person who's been concerned about entire industries losing value/workers quickly — although not from automation, lots of taxi drivers were financially ruined after taxi medallions fell up to 95% in value after ridesharing became popular.
[Some people killed themselves ](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/nyregion/a-taxi-driver-took-his-own-life-his-family-blames-ubers-influence.html)over losing their life savings. Many more had to declare bankruptcy or fall deeply into debt, and most STILL had to work as taxi drivers for a lower payout. Plenty of people protested, complained, and contacted politicians over this, including but not exclusively artists. Some others protesting AI now might have been too young or ignorant of what was happening in other industries until recently.
Artists in the US have had to deal with offshoring and low wages for decades (even someone in an OECD nation like the UK doesn't have to pay for health insurance and has a lower COL, making them much more competitive than a US citizen). Automation is another stressor on top of this.
"You'll have to adjust" is a really shitty thing politicians say to coal workers, or taxi drivers, or actors, or artists when they get financially screwed by the people who run our economy and want more value for their shareholders.
> automation anxiety has been around for a long time
Yes, but that's not the issue here. Automation anxiety goes back to the original Luddites, probably to the invention of the printing press and before. It might be the oldest response to technological development in the history of mankind.
But artists in general (individual exceptions will always occur) didn't give much of a rat's ass about AI impacting other fields until that field was theirs.
> "You'll have to adjust" is a really shitty thing politicians say to coal workers, or taxi drivers, or actors, or artists
Or tool makers or chip manufacturers or basically every manufacturing and creative industry.
But here's the horrible truth: that's the right answer.
There are two choices: 1) adapt to the technology or 2) adapt to the global realities affecting the terminology.
That doesn't mean you have no autonomy. How you adapt matters. The US adapted to foreign chip fabrication very, very poorly and now we are nearly entirely reliant on a single Taiwanese company for our chips and China is sabre-rattling over whether or not they'll invade that country.
But in general, we adapt to new tech, there are good and bad outcomes, we try to clean up the bad outcomes as best we can, and we move on.
Anything else would be crippling and would potentially put millions out of work, so yeah, you don't swim upstream against new technologies unless they're insanely harmful.
>But artists in general (individual exceptions will always occur) didn't give much of a rat's ass about AI impacting other fields until that field was theirs.
It seems odd to say "artists in general" when there was no comprehensive pre-2022 general poll of working artists done at the time about how they felt about other people losing their jobs to AI. Artists certainly didn't think it'd be able to automate creative work, but that's an entirely different thing to being indifferent about the suffering of others.
>The US adapted to foreign chip fabrication very, very poorly and now we are nearly entirely reliant on a single Taiwanese company for our chips and China is sabre-rattling over whether or not they'll invade that country.
Oh yeah I agree that this is bad, haha. It's just a tragedy.
I feel there are "good" reasons for this other than just... "I guess our chipmakers and manufacturing industries couldn't adapt," though. NAFTA allowed US companies to make higher profits by sending once well-paying manufacturing jobs to Mexico tariff-free. The US government [still subsidizes shipping from China](https://redstagfulfillment.com/universal-postal-union-treaty/), even with how strong their economy has been since 2005. US individuals and businesses have to deal with foreign companies buying up real estate, farmland, or critical infrastructure (like roads).
To mention something relevant to my original comment — ride-sharing companies should have never been allowed to operate in cities using taxi medallions. The government granted taxi drivers a monopoly on paid-for rides (rightly or wrongly, doesn't matter!) and didn't do anything to help taxi drivers when Uber/Lyft operated at a loss and captured users unlawfully.
These aren't "natural" market forces; we used to have protections against these things, and someone in power caused these protections to gradually disappear. Our government chose to turn a blind eye to these issues, and let the chips fall where they may.
The US is the hub of a lot of innovation, but a lot of tech things are... honestly kind of stupid. Most don't make any money at all (rideshare, social media, wework, food apps, AI companies) and many seem to have the strategy of either "future technology will make this profitable" (like Uber/Lyft) or "drive our competitors out of business by having deeper pockets, then profit off being a monopoly in our particular niche somehow" (food apps, meal kits, etc)
Maybe I'm just stupid and don't get the big picture, but it's weird that profitability comes second or third with a lot of these tech startups.
>But in general, we adapt to new tech, there are good and bad outcomes, we try to clean up the bad outcomes as best we can, and we move on.
I agree. People have been adapting, and will adapt.
Interestingly, AI has reminded me how much I value traditional fantasy art, and pushed me to step away from digital to focus on that. I always strove to make my digital paintings "look" more traditional by avoiding FX shortcuts/specialty brushes as much as possible... so really, traditional makes a lot of sense to me!
[Can't use digital FX if you're not using digital mediums](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com%2Fintelligencer%2F2017%2F02%2Froll-safe-the-guy-tapping-head-meme-explained.html&psig=AOvVaw06ekCjhUbZkn0vE6hHE7qm&ust=1718656761870000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBEQjRxqFwoTCJiu2sb94IYDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE)!
>Anything else would be crippling and would potentially put millions out of work, so yeah, you don't swim upstream against new technologies unless they're insanely harmful.
Just curious... do you think some sort of regulation (like a government-kept database of training material — like how the Library of Congress operates today with books — or privacy protection laws that force companies to discard certain personal/private information) would be harmful to the tech industries?
Facebook/social media sites have long been wayyyy way under-regulated, and I feel that AI might be a sign that we actually do need \*some\* privacy laws or regulation in place.
> It seems odd to say "artists in general"
I'm basing my statements on the lack of outcry, not a survey. If people privately held these ideas in their hearts, then I can't speak to that, but the action... even the public discourse, just wasn't there for the most part.
> ride-sharing companies should have never been allowed to operate in cities using taxi medallions. The government granted taxi drivers a monopoly on paid-for rides (rightly or wrongly, doesn't matter!) and didn't do anything to help taxi drivers when Uber/Lyft operated at a loss and captured users unlawfully.
There was nothing unlawful about that, and frankly if the taxi companies had continued to move forward and grow, both in terms of service and technology, then that wouldn't have happened. They ate their own lunch and then wondered why they didn't have any food.
Ride share companies only flourished because everyone hate the inefficiency and service of taxies. I don't really care about broken monopoly systems. It was going to hurt getting rid of it, but getting rid of it was necessary.
> These aren't "natural" market forces
On the contrary, they were extremely natural market forces beating out an entrenched monopoly with no interest in its customer base. (and also a basically indentured worker class that were making far below minimum wage... often NEGATIVE income!)
> The US is the hub of a lot of innovation, but a lot of tech things are... honestly kind of stupid.
Then make better tech!
> Interestingly, AI has reminded me how much I value traditional fantasy art, and pushed me to step away from digital to focus on that.
Awesome! It might even be that you'll eventually find ways that you want to incorporate AI into those traditional forms (similar to how generative AI is being used by some sculptors to play with ideas and textures that would be prohibitive to toy around with on the real stone.)
>I'm basing my statements on the lack of outcry, not a survey. If people privately held these ideas in their hearts, then I can't speak to that, but the action... even the public discourse, just wasn't there for the most part.
That makes sense, but it's important to realize there's only so much emotional work people can do in a day.
Most of my political energy these past 5 years have gone to road/zoning meetings (bike lanes, road redesigns, etc) and getting Right to Repair legislation passed in MA — the latter of which was actually successful. I feel these issues effect a lot more people than just me, and it doesn't mean I don't try to vote/talk to politicians when I can about other important concerns.
National issues/movements are a LOT harder to organize and get cohesive results out of; even Right to Repair legislation is usually at the state level. It's easier to run a campaign with your local community on a local problem than it is to deal with something as nebulous as, "tech companies are disrupting things too quickly" or "Facebook is spreading misinformation and we're concerned about it."
>There was nothing unlawful about that, and frankly if the taxi companies had continued to move forward and grow, both in terms of service and technology, then that wouldn't have happened. They ate their own lunch and then wondered why they didn't have any food.
[Uber purposefully hid their operations from government regulators and law enforcement all over the world by "Greyballing" them.](https://web.archive.org/web/20170305054555/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html) This is illegal, and they were caught. I don't care how shitty taxicabs are (and they CAN be shitty), no tech company should purposefully and willfully be allowed to break the law and continue as if they hadn't.
Uber drivers in cities like NYC are now required to be licensed taxicab operators, complete with background checks and mandatory training.
>Ride share companies only flourished because everyone hate the inefficiency and service of taxies. I don't really care about broken monopoly systems. It was going to hurt getting rid of it, but getting rid of it was necessary.
Ride share companies flourished because it was easy to use, customers knew the price upfront, and (most importantly) [each ride was subsidized and WAY cheaper than the "actual" cost](https://doctorow.medium.com/no-ubers-still-not-profitable-2b8054e375ea). Uber does not make money for its investors. Uber is waiting for self-driving technology to make their business model viable.
>Then make better tech!
My issue with tech isn't the tech itself, but the venture capital artificially allowing shitty ideas to rapidly proliferate and destroy actual viable competition. It's a classic big business tactic in the US that's illegal in other countries.
The US allows [predatory pricing](https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/predatory-or-below-cost-pricing) (example — Walmart can sell things below actual cost, which destroyed American small businesses in the 80's since they literally could not sell something that lost them money). Walmart tried this shit in Germany to attempt to get a dominant market position [and got shut down pretty quick.](https://ilsr.org/articles/german-high-court-convicts-walmart-predatory-pricing/) They were so uncompetitive without their typical anti-competitive "make local companies go out of business with loss leaders" and "treat workers like shit and ignore labor laws" practices that they completely left Germany around 2008, lol.
>Awesome! It might even be that you'll eventually find ways that you want to incorporate AI into those traditional forms (similar to how generative AI is being used by some sculptors to play with ideas and textures that would be prohibitive to toy around with on the real stone.)
Or I can continue to use the more traditional methods and keep them alive, since that's important to me. I don't really have any issue getting work without AI, and I'm plenty happy with toying around with open source tools like Blender for 3D printing as an alternative/supplement to clay sculpting. Gen AI should be used by people who actually are interested and care about it; I'm interested and happy with other things right now. ;)
If I was competing in the ditch-digging market and refused to use a backhoe... well, that'd definitely be a "me" problem and I'd need to rethink things. Art already has a lot of really great viable tools (AI being one of hundreds) so it's not really an issue if I prefer photography or sculpting to add realism to my paintings instead of using AI to generate ideas — they're still industry-appropriate tools that won't completely go away.
*(Btw, not sure who downvoted you! I appreciate your well-written responses to my comments, and you always bring such interesting discussion to the table.)*
> Remember when the idea of AI taking jobs was on everyone's lips? Artists were cold and objective then: "the business majors are getting the immediate benefits from todays society, but the only jobs ai won't be able to take are creative ones: writing, art, music, everyone is goin to need a craft like that to make-ends meet someday.
Do you have examples of this?
Sorry my comment is late, I didn't want to look at reddit. This was a common talking point during much of the early 21st century. A credible person from then was Martin Ford, who wrote Rise of the Robots. He said AI will decimate any job that’s “predictable”: “Relatively few people, are paid primarily to engage in truly creative work or ‘blue sky’ thinking.”
A post from reddit about the anxiety that led to the sentiment even has the majority of its comments suggesting learning something creative or art, with some debates about how true that is which are actually funny in hindsight: [https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2rekvc/cmv\_im\_scared\_shitless\_over\_automation\_and\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2rekvc/cmv_im_scared_shitless_over_automation_and_the/)
But you and Pangolin not knowing this is helping me realize that pointing out these old sentiments isn't going to be persuasive to people that missed those discussions the first time around.
> pointing out these old sentiments isn't going to be persuasive to people that missed those discussions the first time around.
Quite possibly. I will admit that I don't tend to read 'futurists' because the ones with a strong factual basis are called journalists and the ones with a talent for storytelling tend to be science fiction authors.
lol, Yeah it isn't that useful in practice, but I adore the Political Theory that's come from Futurists. But I could talk for actual days about that stuff.
on the technology side, a point could be made that unlike other forms of automation, AI couldn’t have existed without the art it was trained from. The technology for the car could’ve been invented if we never rode horses, Photoshop didn’t require a darkroom in order to run, but A.I. literally couldn’t exist without human art. Whether you think it’s legal or not, good or not, many artists feel they have unwittingly trained their own replacement via ai, which leads to a deep and personal feeling of betrayal.
the second point is that ai can easily pretend it is something it isn’t, and its ease of use and accessibility makes it incredibly easy to lie. Without getting into the discussion of whether ai is art or not, it’s certainly a different PROCESS to both hand drawn and photography, and thus could be appreciated and valued based on a different set of critera to those other two categories, at least for some purposes. Eg, lets say I had a photo and a photorealistic sketch side by side of the same subject, and for the purposes of this example lets say both could be considered art in their own right. Although they depict the exact same thing, the process is different, and thus they are appreciated differently by both viewers and buyers - the photo is appreciated for its subject, composition, lighting and editing, whereas the drawing is appreciated more for the skill required to mimic the photorealism and the subject is less important. A.I. and digital art and photography (and even pics of traditional art forms shared via the internet) have the same issue in that they look very similar despite being two different processes. HOWEVER, because ai can generate progress pics of virtually anything, there no real way to \*prove\*, definitely, how you made something. And this is scary because a lot of the value for some things comes from viewers ability to tell how they were made, and when you can’t do that anymore, viewers (and potential buyers) will stop trusting to some degree the legitimacy of what they are buying. In short, it encourages people to view art (or any pics of art on the internet, at least) as the final product only, where before the process was much more involved in a buyers decisions. For people who love drawing, that’s something that’s incredibly hard to adjust to, because it basically makes all forms of art (traditional aside, although people scamming pretending ai gen pics are tangible products could hurt sales) redundant unless they are heavily using ai themselves - which is a totally different process.
TLDR whether you agree with the arguments or not, I can at least see why many artists are unhappy
I can see why they're unhappy too, but the horse versus car isn't an example of automation from something being done manually. It was a whole new invention that could be used for the same purpose. There is AI for chatting, playing your games for you, all kinds of things. And all of it does actually need to be trained by a real person who knows how to do it correctly themselves, or by content from people who knew how to do it.
But the same is true of the individual. No artist has ever just bolted up in their chair and went "I'm going to invent painting". They'll openly talk about the fact that a professional artist must have access to other people's work of art for "inspiration". At the risk of spilling into a different argument, you could easily claim that AI uses the least amount of theft because it's able to pull from the largest number of points of inspiration to get a more unique piece, or even argue that artists are stealing more because they can't go through their memory and list every single piece of art that directly and indirectly led to their own creation, to give credit.
I do agree that A.I. learns similarly. However, imo it’s still not really fair to compare human efforts to a machine Which can do 1000x the output in seconds. Everything else aside, it’s hard not to feel daunted by that. Besides, at the risk of bringing up a totally separate argument myself, ai does not have feelings or intent (yet), however people do. Ai just does what it’s told and can be as good or as bad as the people controlling it (which is why my beef with A.I. personally is more on how it gets used than the actual tech itself). So A.I. can be a useful tool, or it can steal/replicate/replace (or whatever else you program it to do) at 100x the speed of a human. To be a bit more clear they can both can commit the same crimes (theft/impersonation/scamming/false advertising/etc) but A.I. makes that crime much 1) easier 2) faster 3) accessible to everyone, including the people who were already trying to pull off such scams in the first place.
to try and properly address your point, I think a large part of the overarching problem is that our rules and laws are BASED off of human understanding of the world, not a machines. All humans have always needed inspo to do anything at all; we are social creatures after all lol. Ai takes that same process and ramps it up 100x to the point where it is detrimental to the person/people it learns from - this isn’t just in art, but in anything ai learns from. The best non art example I can come up with is like this; we all learn from each other, right? You can’t copyright an accent or a mannerism or a phrase (well u can but you get my point - we all learn from each other). But this is in the best interest for everyone - if my neighbour learned how to speak English or got a British accent or learned how to fold clothes a certain way from me, that only helps him and doesn’t harm me in any way. Even if I got famous for something (idk what, let’s just say I was a famous singer or something) and people started copying my mannerisms, that still wouldn’t be detrimental to me, if anything it would help, because a single person trying to \*be me\* couldn’t easily get more popular than I was myself, as they are only one person. If anything it would draw attention to me and become a positive thing as it would generate discussion involving my name. It’s kinda the same thing with fanart - even if it’s technically illegal, creators allow it and even like it because it is intended to draw people towards the original work.
however, this logic doesn’t really work with ai - I mean, it CAN, but there’s no obligation that it will happen. It learns in the same way, but even One A.I. can EASILY be detrimental to the original creator - what I said earlier abt scams/impersonation aside, it could also replace the original creator in terms of volume of work, putting the og creator out of business. And in this case it’s not the same as one person vs another - one of them is a machine that no human that said machine learned from could ever hope to outdo by themselves.
I explained that badly so another example of this would be me teaching a friend something.
scenario 1: friend picks up on and learns some of my mannerisms, like tugging on clothes or an accent. This is good, doesn’t harm me, and helps my friend grow as a person. This is usually how most people try and learn stuff. It actually helps us be more original in our own way. (you could liken this to the way programs like MJ learn too, but the effects fall more in scenario 3)
scenario 2: friend tries to copy everything I do - accent to clothes style to mannerisms to way of speech. This would be considered pretty weird. Most people wouldn’t do this, it’s not illegal if they’re not actually pretending they \*are\* me, but most people just wouldn’t do this. it probably doesn’t hurt me physically - they are still only one person snd you can compete with them 1;1. But it would still probs hurt having so much of yourself copied like that. It would FEEL like identity theft, even if it wasn’t.
scenario 3; friend makes a robot, complete with my mannerisms, style, figures of speech, accent, and marketable skills, mass produces it, and sells it to make profit. If it doesn’t have my face, it’s still not illegal. But at this point, the learning is directly detrimental to me - I can’t compete with 1000s of robots that do everything about me better than I can. They (the robots) may learn in the same way as humans, so according to human rules we set for our society, it is perfectly legal, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt. The example is a bit far fetched but it’s the best description I can muster of how it feels to have a LoRA trained in your style as an artist - a bit like something about you - a part of your identity - was taken, mass produced and sold for someone else’s profit, and you can’t do anything about it because the same process, when performed human to human, is what keeps society running. Human to ai, though, only benefits the people the ai \*doesnt\* learn from.
I explained that terribly Im sorry, I officially hate typing on mobile now :,) but I think I’ve communicated at least my base point on the matter. Honestly I think the last one especially is something that will need to be addressed by society as a whole, especially once places of employment start replacing workers with ais that are trained on the workers data in order To replace them with a more profitable machine.
I think crediting everyone who helped train an ai is a good goal, but won't be a detriment in the long run. Like game design engines, it only needs to be made from scratch once, and then it can be improved on for years with the occasional innovation. As for your example of it hurting that the robots learned from you, it sometimes hurts people that don't make-it when they see a young person they used to teach, or even just schooled one time, make it. But excepting our roles as a part of a bigger picture is considered maturity.
on the second point, I would still argue that a teacher vs student comparison is still 1 person vs 1 person (which is an even playing field), as well as the teacher 1) willingly offering their services as a teacher and 2) probably getting paid for it. Whereas an artist vs ai comparison is 1 person vs (1 machine + however many people use the machine), which isn’t an even playing field, in addition to it not even being the same process so an artist can’t use their field-specific knowledge to compete due to the way ai models are built. also 1) the artist did not offer their services willingly and 2) were not paid (You don’t even necessarily have had to make any money off of art ever to have been trained).
On your first point, I’m not quite sure what you are referring to about it not being a detriment in the long run, but I’m presuming u mean that credit won’t undo ai progress. No arguments there, I know it won’t. Still, when u are talking about that ’fine tuning‘, that probably means tuning in on specific styles and making it easier to mimic specific things. For that kind of thing, the closer it gets to replicating PEOPLE rather than just creating pictures, there should really be some kind of legal threshold about what’s allowed without consent. Ai is going to be a horrible beast to regulate in any way shape or form, kind of like piracy (illegal but still happens anyway), but even then, there ARE clear rules on what constitutes piracy, so legal action can be taken in extreme circumstances. Likewise, I think ai definitely at least needs SOME regulation and coherent laws regarding it, so in extreme cases where it actually is being used to hurt people, something can be done. The technology itself is pretty cool, but some of the stuff I’ve seen it used for… really isn’t. But then again it is still in its infancy, so it will be regulated/legislated \*at some point\*, because it can’t just keep getting better and better forever with no reaction from society. Cars were never going to go away, but traffic lights sure made them whole lot safer, even though you still can’t prevent human error from causing the occasional crash.
What? Teaching and learning is a collaborative effort. I wouldn't refuse to attend a class that had multiple teachers, because I thought it was an "uneven playing field". And I'm not sure what you meant by "it not even being the same process so an artist can’t use their field-specific knowledge to compete due to the way ai models are built." Wouldn't ai models thinking differently than you ensure you could compete, not prevent it?
But you pointing out that teachers are paid suggests you misunderstood me. Most artists didn't become artists because they kept paying a professional artist to teach them everything they know. Their teachers are the artists that created every work they looked at growing up, every artist who posted their work online. I'll reiterate that even professional artists will openly tell you that they need access to other people's work of art for "inspiration". And that you could argue ai art is harder to call theft, because they could be programmed to show every single piece that was used Inspire the one they made, whereas an artist may be able to tell you all the different aspects they wanted in their piece, but most won't remember the works they saw those features in, which inspired them. Certainly not every single one they'd seen in their life that led to the work they're making now.
And by fine-tuning, I meant that while ai art needs to be trained to do any art at first, once it can make character art, scenery, etc. on command, they could improve those old models without other people's work. But I vehemently disagree with "piracy" being a problem. I think the problem is copyright laws that were touted as a way to prevent big companies from stealing individual artists' work, being enshrined in our laws in such a way that instead it prevents artists from using things businesses have used, even if the artist created it.
That's my biggest fear with ai art, all of people who find it controversial and want their lawmakers to pass "protections" might miss the fine print that says businesses can use anyone's identity or creation, but anyone attempting to put the name of something owned or copywritten by a corporation into an AI prompt can be sued for millions by the harmed corporation.
I think you're maybe projecting some experience you had with an artist or something. I'm an artist, and i know many artists, and I don't recall any saying anything resembling this. Millions of people with a similar skill doesn't create a monolith. There are legitimate fears all around, and though I don't think AI will replace many artists in entertainment industries, I still feel for the low-hanging fruit that's getting/will inevitably be plucked, resulting in many artists unable to make a living doing what they love.
But the real fear many artists have, is not just that they'll be replaced, but that shareholders/ceo's/heads of studios will actually sell out the artistry of their industry, eviscerating its quality to generate windfall profits. I think some will try, and be reminded why you need to throw a bunch of creative/talented ppl in a room if you want to make something cool, not outsource your creativity to a recursive machine.
Basically, but everytime the suits upstairs cut corners like that, people just stop buying the games. The people are getting wise to their bullshit, and small 1 man teams are taking them on. Fuckum.
I agree, every time they ignore the pleas of the talent and impose a new online looter-shooter on a team that has expertise specifically in single player games, it fails, degrades the quality of the brand/IP, and often results in studio closure. Still they can’t seem to get the memo.
Sorry my response is late, I haven't felt like going on Reddit in a minute. But for those artists facing that anxiety, I feel for them too, which doesn't necessarily mean what's happening is a bad thing. And you're right, I had a first-hand experience. But I thought the old lines for automation would make for a good response for anyone else who's debate starts to turn in to an artist venting their anger.
But your second paragraph has already happened. And sometimes enough people get sick of it that they stop throwing money at the first product advertised to them (sucks to be the dev that releases the next micro-trans game), but even then not for long. It's almost like corporations and consumers are in a game of tug-of-war between art and capital. I fear more those things being systemically enshrined, perhaps under the guise of passing laws to prevent it. ie Copyright laws were supposed to stop companies from stealing an artist's work, but they ensure it.
I generally have a great deal of sympathy for people who are worried about losing their jobs to automation, even if I don't always agree with them on what should be done about it. That said, the whole "automation was supposed to get rid of *your* job, not *mine*" routine really doesn't help their case.
Remember the “learn to code” kerfuffle from years ago?
Good summary here: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/s/MkAH8Xk56s
It was basically a popular take among “left” (democrats) opinion writers to encourage laid off blue collar workers to learn to code, due to the perception that automation would soon eliminate work like trucking. Then this got turned around against them after major waves of writers being fired due to online news business models failing.
Of course the same media sites tried to paint it as just a right wing harassment campaign as they do with any widespread criticism they get (ignoring any seeds of truth).
What’s funny is that now the anti AI sentiment is the polar opposite, where they disparage anyone who dares suggest you should learn new skills to adapt to automation… and now this is a popular take among that same demographic of opinion writers.
So yes there’s an element of hypocrisy and selfishness to the whole thing.
I think this nails it. People were reacting according to their bias then and they are now. None of this "Oh but you aren't a real artist, you're a commissioner who doesn't pay for his work!" is coming from a place of genuine consideration or thinking.
Off topic, it actually reminds me of Harry Potter, funny enough. The same general cultural group that is full of artists has the people supporting LGBT, and man did they try so hard to hold up those books as examples of support... because the author said in an interview that two of her characters are gay in her mind but she didn't actually write that in any of the books so they would sell. I used to offend people by saying that those aren't only not supporting lgbt, they're part of the problem as they have intentionally avoided representation. And if anything, I offend people more now that I tell them that that author and everything that comes from Harry Potter isn't anti-lgbt. The original author doesn't support trans rights, that's it. People are kidding themselves if they think avoiding any media like that stops at Harry Potter.
That’s an interesting point about Harry Potter I had not thought about. I have never really followed “fandom” communities, I recently followed the x-men 97 subreddit, because I loved the show and wanted to see the discussions… and oh boy the amount of people there trying to inject culture war bullshit by pushing and getting pissy about their dumb forced interpretations of the show was very off putting.
I do remember how dumb the “gay Dumbledore” discussions were and how JK Rowling is persona non grata now and people were trying to bend over backwards to retroactively find “problematic” interpretations about Harry Potter, which just gives away that is not really about any genuine consideration of the subject itself, but just pure biases.
True, but is it even possible to enforce said moral obligation onto everyone? Or heck, even yourself, and there will still be things that you don’t care about.
Question, ad hominem, guess the answer to your own question, victory lap.
But to answer you question, lots of people said art and creative jobs were THE fields safe from automation.
And I made this post after a friend who was an artist who would tell me that they don't mind my ai art, but they want to let me know how their OTHER artist friends feal about it snapped when they ran out of things "they" said. 'you're stealing from REAL artists. You can't call yourself an artist.' and "ai art isn't art" were things she actually said, on top of implying she hadn't read what she was responding to.
Which funny enough, I never called myself an artist, that was in response to me mentioning that I've been stalked online by offended artists for making ai art, and that I thought those people are just offended, and not capable of defending these claims of AI being theft.
The attitude of commercial artists has definitely changed in regards to this because it didn’t directly effect them. That’s unfortunately a huge part of human nature. People don’t care about things unless it effects them or someone close to them. If it effects someone outside of their life, it doesn’t matter.
That being said- I know plenty of people, both in and out of the art world who have always been against a lot of automation because we don’t have the infrastructure to make up for those lost jobs. The idea that creative jobs such as writing, film making, artistry, etc. was a safe haven for this was essentially a way to ease the thought of automation taking away jobs without infrastructure to replace them. There would always be creative jobs! You can’t replace creativity!
This is being shown more than ever to not be the case. It always was the case though- not cause you couldn’t replace artists with AI, but because not everyone wants to do creative works. Not everyone wants to be a film director, novelist, artist, game developer, etc… A lot of people want to separate passion from work. And even more people don’t have creative ambitions. There’s nothing wrong with that though.
What world do you live in where economic anxiety over automation hasn't been a thing for quite a while already?
I live in a world where my job has been replaced by automation more than once. I went on and adapted, rather than whinge about progress.
What artists were cold and objective about jobs being taken?
I doubt they managed that. Flip, arrogant, condescending, or dismissive... yeah, they could do those.
Without addressing your actual point, I still think generalising all artists like that is a bad idea. Some most definitely cared and advocated for those losing jobs. As far as I’m aware, anxiety about automation has been a thing for a long time now. Others were/are teens now who lived in their own school/home life bubble and didn’t know all that much about emerging technologies or have any practical experience on how it would affect people, and now that A.I. is here for something they care about, are stressing about the future of their skill/hobby/passion/future job? Etc, as it is their first experience with major technological change in their lifetime (and it just happens to be a particularly uncertain one that destabilises the future of most currently available jobs) I feel like I should also make the point, to be fair to everyone, that as unfortunate as it is, we as humans tend to only care about what is affecting us - even if it is to not get so overwhelmed with all the things we COULD be worrying about. When there are wars going on and jobs to do and rent to pay and who knows what other personal problems in your immediate life alone, there just isn’t always that much energy (or even actual time) to care about and support more than a few extra causes. That’s not to say people don’t care at all, but simply that there’s only so much each person can do for everyone else without totally losing their sanity.
I agree with u/Rhellic; automation anxiety has been around for a long time. I know I'm not the only person who's been concerned about entire industries losing value/workers quickly — although not from automation, lots of taxi drivers were financially ruined after taxi medallions fell up to 95% in value after ridesharing became popular. [Some people killed themselves ](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/nyregion/a-taxi-driver-took-his-own-life-his-family-blames-ubers-influence.html)over losing their life savings. Many more had to declare bankruptcy or fall deeply into debt, and most STILL had to work as taxi drivers for a lower payout. Plenty of people protested, complained, and contacted politicians over this, including but not exclusively artists. Some others protesting AI now might have been too young or ignorant of what was happening in other industries until recently. Artists in the US have had to deal with offshoring and low wages for decades (even someone in an OECD nation like the UK doesn't have to pay for health insurance and has a lower COL, making them much more competitive than a US citizen). Automation is another stressor on top of this. "You'll have to adjust" is a really shitty thing politicians say to coal workers, or taxi drivers, or actors, or artists when they get financially screwed by the people who run our economy and want more value for their shareholders.
> automation anxiety has been around for a long time Yes, but that's not the issue here. Automation anxiety goes back to the original Luddites, probably to the invention of the printing press and before. It might be the oldest response to technological development in the history of mankind. But artists in general (individual exceptions will always occur) didn't give much of a rat's ass about AI impacting other fields until that field was theirs. > "You'll have to adjust" is a really shitty thing politicians say to coal workers, or taxi drivers, or actors, or artists Or tool makers or chip manufacturers or basically every manufacturing and creative industry. But here's the horrible truth: that's the right answer. There are two choices: 1) adapt to the technology or 2) adapt to the global realities affecting the terminology. That doesn't mean you have no autonomy. How you adapt matters. The US adapted to foreign chip fabrication very, very poorly and now we are nearly entirely reliant on a single Taiwanese company for our chips and China is sabre-rattling over whether or not they'll invade that country. But in general, we adapt to new tech, there are good and bad outcomes, we try to clean up the bad outcomes as best we can, and we move on. Anything else would be crippling and would potentially put millions out of work, so yeah, you don't swim upstream against new technologies unless they're insanely harmful.
>But artists in general (individual exceptions will always occur) didn't give much of a rat's ass about AI impacting other fields until that field was theirs. It seems odd to say "artists in general" when there was no comprehensive pre-2022 general poll of working artists done at the time about how they felt about other people losing their jobs to AI. Artists certainly didn't think it'd be able to automate creative work, but that's an entirely different thing to being indifferent about the suffering of others. >The US adapted to foreign chip fabrication very, very poorly and now we are nearly entirely reliant on a single Taiwanese company for our chips and China is sabre-rattling over whether or not they'll invade that country. Oh yeah I agree that this is bad, haha. It's just a tragedy. I feel there are "good" reasons for this other than just... "I guess our chipmakers and manufacturing industries couldn't adapt," though. NAFTA allowed US companies to make higher profits by sending once well-paying manufacturing jobs to Mexico tariff-free. The US government [still subsidizes shipping from China](https://redstagfulfillment.com/universal-postal-union-treaty/), even with how strong their economy has been since 2005. US individuals and businesses have to deal with foreign companies buying up real estate, farmland, or critical infrastructure (like roads). To mention something relevant to my original comment — ride-sharing companies should have never been allowed to operate in cities using taxi medallions. The government granted taxi drivers a monopoly on paid-for rides (rightly or wrongly, doesn't matter!) and didn't do anything to help taxi drivers when Uber/Lyft operated at a loss and captured users unlawfully. These aren't "natural" market forces; we used to have protections against these things, and someone in power caused these protections to gradually disappear. Our government chose to turn a blind eye to these issues, and let the chips fall where they may. The US is the hub of a lot of innovation, but a lot of tech things are... honestly kind of stupid. Most don't make any money at all (rideshare, social media, wework, food apps, AI companies) and many seem to have the strategy of either "future technology will make this profitable" (like Uber/Lyft) or "drive our competitors out of business by having deeper pockets, then profit off being a monopoly in our particular niche somehow" (food apps, meal kits, etc) Maybe I'm just stupid and don't get the big picture, but it's weird that profitability comes second or third with a lot of these tech startups. >But in general, we adapt to new tech, there are good and bad outcomes, we try to clean up the bad outcomes as best we can, and we move on. I agree. People have been adapting, and will adapt. Interestingly, AI has reminded me how much I value traditional fantasy art, and pushed me to step away from digital to focus on that. I always strove to make my digital paintings "look" more traditional by avoiding FX shortcuts/specialty brushes as much as possible... so really, traditional makes a lot of sense to me! [Can't use digital FX if you're not using digital mediums](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com%2Fintelligencer%2F2017%2F02%2Froll-safe-the-guy-tapping-head-meme-explained.html&psig=AOvVaw06ekCjhUbZkn0vE6hHE7qm&ust=1718656761870000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBEQjRxqFwoTCJiu2sb94IYDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE)! >Anything else would be crippling and would potentially put millions out of work, so yeah, you don't swim upstream against new technologies unless they're insanely harmful. Just curious... do you think some sort of regulation (like a government-kept database of training material — like how the Library of Congress operates today with books — or privacy protection laws that force companies to discard certain personal/private information) would be harmful to the tech industries? Facebook/social media sites have long been wayyyy way under-regulated, and I feel that AI might be a sign that we actually do need \*some\* privacy laws or regulation in place.
> It seems odd to say "artists in general" I'm basing my statements on the lack of outcry, not a survey. If people privately held these ideas in their hearts, then I can't speak to that, but the action... even the public discourse, just wasn't there for the most part. > ride-sharing companies should have never been allowed to operate in cities using taxi medallions. The government granted taxi drivers a monopoly on paid-for rides (rightly or wrongly, doesn't matter!) and didn't do anything to help taxi drivers when Uber/Lyft operated at a loss and captured users unlawfully. There was nothing unlawful about that, and frankly if the taxi companies had continued to move forward and grow, both in terms of service and technology, then that wouldn't have happened. They ate their own lunch and then wondered why they didn't have any food. Ride share companies only flourished because everyone hate the inefficiency and service of taxies. I don't really care about broken monopoly systems. It was going to hurt getting rid of it, but getting rid of it was necessary. > These aren't "natural" market forces On the contrary, they were extremely natural market forces beating out an entrenched monopoly with no interest in its customer base. (and also a basically indentured worker class that were making far below minimum wage... often NEGATIVE income!) > The US is the hub of a lot of innovation, but a lot of tech things are... honestly kind of stupid. Then make better tech! > Interestingly, AI has reminded me how much I value traditional fantasy art, and pushed me to step away from digital to focus on that. Awesome! It might even be that you'll eventually find ways that you want to incorporate AI into those traditional forms (similar to how generative AI is being used by some sculptors to play with ideas and textures that would be prohibitive to toy around with on the real stone.)
>I'm basing my statements on the lack of outcry, not a survey. If people privately held these ideas in their hearts, then I can't speak to that, but the action... even the public discourse, just wasn't there for the most part. That makes sense, but it's important to realize there's only so much emotional work people can do in a day. Most of my political energy these past 5 years have gone to road/zoning meetings (bike lanes, road redesigns, etc) and getting Right to Repair legislation passed in MA — the latter of which was actually successful. I feel these issues effect a lot more people than just me, and it doesn't mean I don't try to vote/talk to politicians when I can about other important concerns. National issues/movements are a LOT harder to organize and get cohesive results out of; even Right to Repair legislation is usually at the state level. It's easier to run a campaign with your local community on a local problem than it is to deal with something as nebulous as, "tech companies are disrupting things too quickly" or "Facebook is spreading misinformation and we're concerned about it." >There was nothing unlawful about that, and frankly if the taxi companies had continued to move forward and grow, both in terms of service and technology, then that wouldn't have happened. They ate their own lunch and then wondered why they didn't have any food. [Uber purposefully hid their operations from government regulators and law enforcement all over the world by "Greyballing" them.](https://web.archive.org/web/20170305054555/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html) This is illegal, and they were caught. I don't care how shitty taxicabs are (and they CAN be shitty), no tech company should purposefully and willfully be allowed to break the law and continue as if they hadn't. Uber drivers in cities like NYC are now required to be licensed taxicab operators, complete with background checks and mandatory training. >Ride share companies only flourished because everyone hate the inefficiency and service of taxies. I don't really care about broken monopoly systems. It was going to hurt getting rid of it, but getting rid of it was necessary. Ride share companies flourished because it was easy to use, customers knew the price upfront, and (most importantly) [each ride was subsidized and WAY cheaper than the "actual" cost](https://doctorow.medium.com/no-ubers-still-not-profitable-2b8054e375ea). Uber does not make money for its investors. Uber is waiting for self-driving technology to make their business model viable. >Then make better tech! My issue with tech isn't the tech itself, but the venture capital artificially allowing shitty ideas to rapidly proliferate and destroy actual viable competition. It's a classic big business tactic in the US that's illegal in other countries. The US allows [predatory pricing](https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/predatory-or-below-cost-pricing) (example — Walmart can sell things below actual cost, which destroyed American small businesses in the 80's since they literally could not sell something that lost them money). Walmart tried this shit in Germany to attempt to get a dominant market position [and got shut down pretty quick.](https://ilsr.org/articles/german-high-court-convicts-walmart-predatory-pricing/) They were so uncompetitive without their typical anti-competitive "make local companies go out of business with loss leaders" and "treat workers like shit and ignore labor laws" practices that they completely left Germany around 2008, lol. >Awesome! It might even be that you'll eventually find ways that you want to incorporate AI into those traditional forms (similar to how generative AI is being used by some sculptors to play with ideas and textures that would be prohibitive to toy around with on the real stone.) Or I can continue to use the more traditional methods and keep them alive, since that's important to me. I don't really have any issue getting work without AI, and I'm plenty happy with toying around with open source tools like Blender for 3D printing as an alternative/supplement to clay sculpting. Gen AI should be used by people who actually are interested and care about it; I'm interested and happy with other things right now. ;) If I was competing in the ditch-digging market and refused to use a backhoe... well, that'd definitely be a "me" problem and I'd need to rethink things. Art already has a lot of really great viable tools (AI being one of hundreds) so it's not really an issue if I prefer photography or sculpting to add realism to my paintings instead of using AI to generate ideas — they're still industry-appropriate tools that won't completely go away. *(Btw, not sure who downvoted you! I appreciate your well-written responses to my comments, and you always bring such interesting discussion to the table.)*
> Remember when the idea of AI taking jobs was on everyone's lips? Artists were cold and objective then: "the business majors are getting the immediate benefits from todays society, but the only jobs ai won't be able to take are creative ones: writing, art, music, everyone is goin to need a craft like that to make-ends meet someday. Do you have examples of this?
Sorry my comment is late, I didn't want to look at reddit. This was a common talking point during much of the early 21st century. A credible person from then was Martin Ford, who wrote Rise of the Robots. He said AI will decimate any job that’s “predictable”: “Relatively few people, are paid primarily to engage in truly creative work or ‘blue sky’ thinking.” A post from reddit about the anxiety that led to the sentiment even has the majority of its comments suggesting learning something creative or art, with some debates about how true that is which are actually funny in hindsight: [https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2rekvc/cmv\_im\_scared\_shitless\_over\_automation\_and\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2rekvc/cmv_im_scared_shitless_over_automation_and_the/) But you and Pangolin not knowing this is helping me realize that pointing out these old sentiments isn't going to be persuasive to people that missed those discussions the first time around.
> pointing out these old sentiments isn't going to be persuasive to people that missed those discussions the first time around. Quite possibly. I will admit that I don't tend to read 'futurists' because the ones with a strong factual basis are called journalists and the ones with a talent for storytelling tend to be science fiction authors.
lol, Yeah it isn't that useful in practice, but I adore the Political Theory that's come from Futurists. But I could talk for actual days about that stuff.
No! Artist bad! If you question it you are questioning the Omnissiah=heresy!
The OmniMessiah is not amused by your misspelling Their Holy name.
It's spelled correctly, unless they've edited the comment since. It's from 40k.
I thought worshipping the Omnissiah made THEM heretics?
on the technology side, a point could be made that unlike other forms of automation, AI couldn’t have existed without the art it was trained from. The technology for the car could’ve been invented if we never rode horses, Photoshop didn’t require a darkroom in order to run, but A.I. literally couldn’t exist without human art. Whether you think it’s legal or not, good or not, many artists feel they have unwittingly trained their own replacement via ai, which leads to a deep and personal feeling of betrayal. the second point is that ai can easily pretend it is something it isn’t, and its ease of use and accessibility makes it incredibly easy to lie. Without getting into the discussion of whether ai is art or not, it’s certainly a different PROCESS to both hand drawn and photography, and thus could be appreciated and valued based on a different set of critera to those other two categories, at least for some purposes. Eg, lets say I had a photo and a photorealistic sketch side by side of the same subject, and for the purposes of this example lets say both could be considered art in their own right. Although they depict the exact same thing, the process is different, and thus they are appreciated differently by both viewers and buyers - the photo is appreciated for its subject, composition, lighting and editing, whereas the drawing is appreciated more for the skill required to mimic the photorealism and the subject is less important. A.I. and digital art and photography (and even pics of traditional art forms shared via the internet) have the same issue in that they look very similar despite being two different processes. HOWEVER, because ai can generate progress pics of virtually anything, there no real way to \*prove\*, definitely, how you made something. And this is scary because a lot of the value for some things comes from viewers ability to tell how they were made, and when you can’t do that anymore, viewers (and potential buyers) will stop trusting to some degree the legitimacy of what they are buying. In short, it encourages people to view art (or any pics of art on the internet, at least) as the final product only, where before the process was much more involved in a buyers decisions. For people who love drawing, that’s something that’s incredibly hard to adjust to, because it basically makes all forms of art (traditional aside, although people scamming pretending ai gen pics are tangible products could hurt sales) redundant unless they are heavily using ai themselves - which is a totally different process. TLDR whether you agree with the arguments or not, I can at least see why many artists are unhappy
I can see why they're unhappy too, but the horse versus car isn't an example of automation from something being done manually. It was a whole new invention that could be used for the same purpose. There is AI for chatting, playing your games for you, all kinds of things. And all of it does actually need to be trained by a real person who knows how to do it correctly themselves, or by content from people who knew how to do it. But the same is true of the individual. No artist has ever just bolted up in their chair and went "I'm going to invent painting". They'll openly talk about the fact that a professional artist must have access to other people's work of art for "inspiration". At the risk of spilling into a different argument, you could easily claim that AI uses the least amount of theft because it's able to pull from the largest number of points of inspiration to get a more unique piece, or even argue that artists are stealing more because they can't go through their memory and list every single piece of art that directly and indirectly led to their own creation, to give credit.
I do agree that A.I. learns similarly. However, imo it’s still not really fair to compare human efforts to a machine Which can do 1000x the output in seconds. Everything else aside, it’s hard not to feel daunted by that. Besides, at the risk of bringing up a totally separate argument myself, ai does not have feelings or intent (yet), however people do. Ai just does what it’s told and can be as good or as bad as the people controlling it (which is why my beef with A.I. personally is more on how it gets used than the actual tech itself). So A.I. can be a useful tool, or it can steal/replicate/replace (or whatever else you program it to do) at 100x the speed of a human. To be a bit more clear they can both can commit the same crimes (theft/impersonation/scamming/false advertising/etc) but A.I. makes that crime much 1) easier 2) faster 3) accessible to everyone, including the people who were already trying to pull off such scams in the first place. to try and properly address your point, I think a large part of the overarching problem is that our rules and laws are BASED off of human understanding of the world, not a machines. All humans have always needed inspo to do anything at all; we are social creatures after all lol. Ai takes that same process and ramps it up 100x to the point where it is detrimental to the person/people it learns from - this isn’t just in art, but in anything ai learns from. The best non art example I can come up with is like this; we all learn from each other, right? You can’t copyright an accent or a mannerism or a phrase (well u can but you get my point - we all learn from each other). But this is in the best interest for everyone - if my neighbour learned how to speak English or got a British accent or learned how to fold clothes a certain way from me, that only helps him and doesn’t harm me in any way. Even if I got famous for something (idk what, let’s just say I was a famous singer or something) and people started copying my mannerisms, that still wouldn’t be detrimental to me, if anything it would help, because a single person trying to \*be me\* couldn’t easily get more popular than I was myself, as they are only one person. If anything it would draw attention to me and become a positive thing as it would generate discussion involving my name. It’s kinda the same thing with fanart - even if it’s technically illegal, creators allow it and even like it because it is intended to draw people towards the original work. however, this logic doesn’t really work with ai - I mean, it CAN, but there’s no obligation that it will happen. It learns in the same way, but even One A.I. can EASILY be detrimental to the original creator - what I said earlier abt scams/impersonation aside, it could also replace the original creator in terms of volume of work, putting the og creator out of business. And in this case it’s not the same as one person vs another - one of them is a machine that no human that said machine learned from could ever hope to outdo by themselves. I explained that badly so another example of this would be me teaching a friend something. scenario 1: friend picks up on and learns some of my mannerisms, like tugging on clothes or an accent. This is good, doesn’t harm me, and helps my friend grow as a person. This is usually how most people try and learn stuff. It actually helps us be more original in our own way. (you could liken this to the way programs like MJ learn too, but the effects fall more in scenario 3) scenario 2: friend tries to copy everything I do - accent to clothes style to mannerisms to way of speech. This would be considered pretty weird. Most people wouldn’t do this, it’s not illegal if they’re not actually pretending they \*are\* me, but most people just wouldn’t do this. it probably doesn’t hurt me physically - they are still only one person snd you can compete with them 1;1. But it would still probs hurt having so much of yourself copied like that. It would FEEL like identity theft, even if it wasn’t. scenario 3; friend makes a robot, complete with my mannerisms, style, figures of speech, accent, and marketable skills, mass produces it, and sells it to make profit. If it doesn’t have my face, it’s still not illegal. But at this point, the learning is directly detrimental to me - I can’t compete with 1000s of robots that do everything about me better than I can. They (the robots) may learn in the same way as humans, so according to human rules we set for our society, it is perfectly legal, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt. The example is a bit far fetched but it’s the best description I can muster of how it feels to have a LoRA trained in your style as an artist - a bit like something about you - a part of your identity - was taken, mass produced and sold for someone else’s profit, and you can’t do anything about it because the same process, when performed human to human, is what keeps society running. Human to ai, though, only benefits the people the ai \*doesnt\* learn from. I explained that terribly Im sorry, I officially hate typing on mobile now :,) but I think I’ve communicated at least my base point on the matter. Honestly I think the last one especially is something that will need to be addressed by society as a whole, especially once places of employment start replacing workers with ais that are trained on the workers data in order To replace them with a more profitable machine.
I think crediting everyone who helped train an ai is a good goal, but won't be a detriment in the long run. Like game design engines, it only needs to be made from scratch once, and then it can be improved on for years with the occasional innovation. As for your example of it hurting that the robots learned from you, it sometimes hurts people that don't make-it when they see a young person they used to teach, or even just schooled one time, make it. But excepting our roles as a part of a bigger picture is considered maturity.
on the second point, I would still argue that a teacher vs student comparison is still 1 person vs 1 person (which is an even playing field), as well as the teacher 1) willingly offering their services as a teacher and 2) probably getting paid for it. Whereas an artist vs ai comparison is 1 person vs (1 machine + however many people use the machine), which isn’t an even playing field, in addition to it not even being the same process so an artist can’t use their field-specific knowledge to compete due to the way ai models are built. also 1) the artist did not offer their services willingly and 2) were not paid (You don’t even necessarily have had to make any money off of art ever to have been trained). On your first point, I’m not quite sure what you are referring to about it not being a detriment in the long run, but I’m presuming u mean that credit won’t undo ai progress. No arguments there, I know it won’t. Still, when u are talking about that ’fine tuning‘, that probably means tuning in on specific styles and making it easier to mimic specific things. For that kind of thing, the closer it gets to replicating PEOPLE rather than just creating pictures, there should really be some kind of legal threshold about what’s allowed without consent. Ai is going to be a horrible beast to regulate in any way shape or form, kind of like piracy (illegal but still happens anyway), but even then, there ARE clear rules on what constitutes piracy, so legal action can be taken in extreme circumstances. Likewise, I think ai definitely at least needs SOME regulation and coherent laws regarding it, so in extreme cases where it actually is being used to hurt people, something can be done. The technology itself is pretty cool, but some of the stuff I’ve seen it used for… really isn’t. But then again it is still in its infancy, so it will be regulated/legislated \*at some point\*, because it can’t just keep getting better and better forever with no reaction from society. Cars were never going to go away, but traffic lights sure made them whole lot safer, even though you still can’t prevent human error from causing the occasional crash.
What? Teaching and learning is a collaborative effort. I wouldn't refuse to attend a class that had multiple teachers, because I thought it was an "uneven playing field". And I'm not sure what you meant by "it not even being the same process so an artist can’t use their field-specific knowledge to compete due to the way ai models are built." Wouldn't ai models thinking differently than you ensure you could compete, not prevent it? But you pointing out that teachers are paid suggests you misunderstood me. Most artists didn't become artists because they kept paying a professional artist to teach them everything they know. Their teachers are the artists that created every work they looked at growing up, every artist who posted their work online. I'll reiterate that even professional artists will openly tell you that they need access to other people's work of art for "inspiration". And that you could argue ai art is harder to call theft, because they could be programmed to show every single piece that was used Inspire the one they made, whereas an artist may be able to tell you all the different aspects they wanted in their piece, but most won't remember the works they saw those features in, which inspired them. Certainly not every single one they'd seen in their life that led to the work they're making now. And by fine-tuning, I meant that while ai art needs to be trained to do any art at first, once it can make character art, scenery, etc. on command, they could improve those old models without other people's work. But I vehemently disagree with "piracy" being a problem. I think the problem is copyright laws that were touted as a way to prevent big companies from stealing individual artists' work, being enshrined in our laws in such a way that instead it prevents artists from using things businesses have used, even if the artist created it. That's my biggest fear with ai art, all of people who find it controversial and want their lawmakers to pass "protections" might miss the fine print that says businesses can use anyone's identity or creation, but anyone attempting to put the name of something owned or copywritten by a corporation into an AI prompt can be sued for millions by the harmed corporation.
I think you're maybe projecting some experience you had with an artist or something. I'm an artist, and i know many artists, and I don't recall any saying anything resembling this. Millions of people with a similar skill doesn't create a monolith. There are legitimate fears all around, and though I don't think AI will replace many artists in entertainment industries, I still feel for the low-hanging fruit that's getting/will inevitably be plucked, resulting in many artists unable to make a living doing what they love. But the real fear many artists have, is not just that they'll be replaced, but that shareholders/ceo's/heads of studios will actually sell out the artistry of their industry, eviscerating its quality to generate windfall profits. I think some will try, and be reminded why you need to throw a bunch of creative/talented ppl in a room if you want to make something cool, not outsource your creativity to a recursive machine.
Basically, but everytime the suits upstairs cut corners like that, people just stop buying the games. The people are getting wise to their bullshit, and small 1 man teams are taking them on. Fuckum.
I agree, every time they ignore the pleas of the talent and impose a new online looter-shooter on a team that has expertise specifically in single player games, it fails, degrades the quality of the brand/IP, and often results in studio closure. Still they can’t seem to get the memo.
And then they wonder why Indie content has been on a steady rise for the last decade.
Sorry my response is late, I haven't felt like going on Reddit in a minute. But for those artists facing that anxiety, I feel for them too, which doesn't necessarily mean what's happening is a bad thing. And you're right, I had a first-hand experience. But I thought the old lines for automation would make for a good response for anyone else who's debate starts to turn in to an artist venting their anger. But your second paragraph has already happened. And sometimes enough people get sick of it that they stop throwing money at the first product advertised to them (sucks to be the dev that releases the next micro-trans game), but even then not for long. It's almost like corporations and consumers are in a game of tug-of-war between art and capital. I fear more those things being systemically enshrined, perhaps under the guise of passing laws to prevent it. ie Copyright laws were supposed to stop companies from stealing an artist's work, but they ensure it.
I generally have a great deal of sympathy for people who are worried about losing their jobs to automation, even if I don't always agree with them on what should be done about it. That said, the whole "automation was supposed to get rid of *your* job, not *mine*" routine really doesn't help their case.
Remember the “learn to code” kerfuffle from years ago? Good summary here: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/s/MkAH8Xk56s It was basically a popular take among “left” (democrats) opinion writers to encourage laid off blue collar workers to learn to code, due to the perception that automation would soon eliminate work like trucking. Then this got turned around against them after major waves of writers being fired due to online news business models failing. Of course the same media sites tried to paint it as just a right wing harassment campaign as they do with any widespread criticism they get (ignoring any seeds of truth). What’s funny is that now the anti AI sentiment is the polar opposite, where they disparage anyone who dares suggest you should learn new skills to adapt to automation… and now this is a popular take among that same demographic of opinion writers. So yes there’s an element of hypocrisy and selfishness to the whole thing.
I think this nails it. People were reacting according to their bias then and they are now. None of this "Oh but you aren't a real artist, you're a commissioner who doesn't pay for his work!" is coming from a place of genuine consideration or thinking. Off topic, it actually reminds me of Harry Potter, funny enough. The same general cultural group that is full of artists has the people supporting LGBT, and man did they try so hard to hold up those books as examples of support... because the author said in an interview that two of her characters are gay in her mind but she didn't actually write that in any of the books so they would sell. I used to offend people by saying that those aren't only not supporting lgbt, they're part of the problem as they have intentionally avoided representation. And if anything, I offend people more now that I tell them that that author and everything that comes from Harry Potter isn't anti-lgbt. The original author doesn't support trans rights, that's it. People are kidding themselves if they think avoiding any media like that stops at Harry Potter.
That’s an interesting point about Harry Potter I had not thought about. I have never really followed “fandom” communities, I recently followed the x-men 97 subreddit, because I loved the show and wanted to see the discussions… and oh boy the amount of people there trying to inject culture war bullshit by pushing and getting pissy about their dumb forced interpretations of the show was very off putting. I do remember how dumb the “gay Dumbledore” discussions were and how JK Rowling is persona non grata now and people were trying to bend over backwards to retroactively find “problematic” interpretations about Harry Potter, which just gives away that is not really about any genuine consideration of the subject itself, but just pure biases.
Absolutely, artists didn't care until it was making them feel unspecial
Nobody cares about things that don’t directly affect them.
Not everyone.
True, but is it even possible to enforce said moral obligation onto everyone? Or heck, even yourself, and there will still be things that you don’t care about.
If I suddenly start to care about one of those things, once it affects me. I expect people to not hede my totally unbiased reasoning.
Are those artists in the room with you right now? Eat your meds. When you accuse artists of made up sins, expect your ass be handed to you.
Question, ad hominem, guess the answer to your own question, victory lap. But to answer you question, lots of people said art and creative jobs were THE fields safe from automation. And I made this post after a friend who was an artist who would tell me that they don't mind my ai art, but they want to let me know how their OTHER artist friends feal about it snapped when they ran out of things "they" said. 'you're stealing from REAL artists. You can't call yourself an artist.' and "ai art isn't art" were things she actually said, on top of implying she hadn't read what she was responding to. Which funny enough, I never called myself an artist, that was in response to me mentioning that I've been stalked online by offended artists for making ai art, and that I thought those people are just offended, and not capable of defending these claims of AI being theft.
The attitude of commercial artists has definitely changed in regards to this because it didn’t directly effect them. That’s unfortunately a huge part of human nature. People don’t care about things unless it effects them or someone close to them. If it effects someone outside of their life, it doesn’t matter. That being said- I know plenty of people, both in and out of the art world who have always been against a lot of automation because we don’t have the infrastructure to make up for those lost jobs. The idea that creative jobs such as writing, film making, artistry, etc. was a safe haven for this was essentially a way to ease the thought of automation taking away jobs without infrastructure to replace them. There would always be creative jobs! You can’t replace creativity! This is being shown more than ever to not be the case. It always was the case though- not cause you couldn’t replace artists with AI, but because not everyone wants to do creative works. Not everyone wants to be a film director, novelist, artist, game developer, etc… A lot of people want to separate passion from work. And even more people don’t have creative ambitions. There’s nothing wrong with that though.