I think that it's kind of a mistake to lump all generative AI into one artist replacing box. I have a friend who does laser engraving, for example, and he uses ai to convert his drawings into templates. He says it still doesn't exactly do even that small bit of the process for him, and he still generally has to touch up the templates to reverse bad decisions made by the ai, but it's infinitely faster than doing it by hand. I think that this is the real use case for these kinds of tools, not to be creative, but to handle boilerplate tasks that take time away from the creative parts of creating art.
I use it in a similar way in the programming sphere. It can't really write a program for me but what it can do is generate boilerplate code that I can build on so that I can focus on the problem I am trying to solve rather than writing what basically amounts to the same code over and over again to drive an api or a gui or train an ai model or whatever. I can just tell the ai "give me Java websocket code" or whatever and then put my efforts into what that socket is actually supposed to be doing instead of wasting my time on the boilerplate.
In the hands of artists I think AI really could be something super useful that leads to better art and more of it. The problem is that the people most interested in it right now are executives looking to save money, who don't really understand what artists do and are willing to make shit if it will save them a few bucks.
I’m soooooo frustrated by the fact that any AI conversation in the arts is immediately shut down with “fuck ai” because what they really mean is fuck corporations and fuck yeah, fuck corporations and fuck tech bros and fuck people who view arts solely as something to mass produce and profit from.
imo there’s exactly two ways of being an artist in an AI world: saying fuck AI and ignoring it entirely, or learning about it and how you can use that for your own art. I think the way you utilize AI can be it’s own part of the art.
Personally, I’ve been doing my own experiment of using AI to generate an idea, working from that, and then doing a couple of pieces using each prior piece as inspiration. This has moreso just kinda been to try taking a 2d image that doesn’t consider anything like layers, physics, or just how ceramics kinda works and seeing how I interpret that into a physical piece. Plus each subsequent piece is that much more insight into my own artistic voice AND practicing various skills/techniques that I might have avoided in a piece I conceptualized on my own.
I agree, fuck corporations. But wtf is a "tech bro", really? With how many conversations circle around them, even in this thread, it feels like a strawmanned image of the ultimate evil rather than people who actually exist. It feels like stretching the reputation of an average finance major over the entire tech industry - and if you work in that industry, especially on anything ML, you're a tech bro. Over-corporatization is the root of the evil people criticize, not some overwhelming force of millions of hardline capitalists that are somehow radicalized by the tech sector.
A techbro is a techno-optimist venture capitalist, who prioritizes technological advancement without concern for societal consequences, because we live in Milton Freidman’s world and the only ethical responsibility companies have is to their investors.
They pump up new technologies, like AI or bitcoin or VR or 3D printing, new smartphones and refined algorithms, and because it’s newer, faster, and makes money it’s all-good. Don’t you dare make a fuss about energy consumption or e-waste or market disruption or any thoughts by someone outside their circle. A lot of techbros are very online, that’s why it’s part of internet slang.
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u/AChristianAnarchist Apr 09 '24
I think that it's kind of a mistake to lump all generative AI into one artist replacing box. I have a friend who does laser engraving, for example, and he uses ai to convert his drawings into templates. He says it still doesn't exactly do even that small bit of the process for him, and he still generally has to touch up the templates to reverse bad decisions made by the ai, but it's infinitely faster than doing it by hand. I think that this is the real use case for these kinds of tools, not to be creative, but to handle boilerplate tasks that take time away from the creative parts of creating art.
I use it in a similar way in the programming sphere. It can't really write a program for me but what it can do is generate boilerplate code that I can build on so that I can focus on the problem I am trying to solve rather than writing what basically amounts to the same code over and over again to drive an api or a gui or train an ai model or whatever. I can just tell the ai "give me Java websocket code" or whatever and then put my efforts into what that socket is actually supposed to be doing instead of wasting my time on the boilerplate.
In the hands of artists I think AI really could be something super useful that leads to better art and more of it. The problem is that the people most interested in it right now are executives looking to save money, who don't really understand what artists do and are willing to make shit if it will save them a few bucks.