[PuppyTailWags]

It still doesn't occur to me that the 1-3% smartest people in the world would be attracted to LLM/AI just because they're intelligent. The most intelligent people I know are variously uninterested in AI because AI threatens many of their beloved interests in which the confluence of their intelligence can be expressed, i.e creative activities like music, composition, visual art, interactive works like games, and writing.

[v64]

Perhaps I'm outing myself as a so-called unintelligent person here, but I don't see how AI is a threat to creative hobbies of mine like music and writing. AI isn't going to stop me from sitting down at the piano or writing a short story. There will always be people in the world better at those things than me, so what difference does it make if an AI may or may not be better at them too?

And if I can't tell the difference between a human generated piece of art and an AI generated one, then I find that fascinating, not threatening. It says a lot about 1) your own tastes and perceptions, 2) the meaning of art in general, and 3) what exactly it means when activities previously considered solely human are mastered by programs, such as what happened in the past with chess engines, etc.

I think these are all exciting developments, and I look forward to seeing how art will evolve in the way the emergence of chess engines changed strategy for humans moving forward.

[PuppyTailWags]

It makes it so that the actual intellectually interesting analysis of art, when viewed through the lens of an LLM, becomes a cognitively simple to understand puzzle of matching prompts to effects. There's not a lot of interesting conversation to ask about color theory or composition.

The interesting stuff is asking what is an artist trying to convey or explore within the nuances of the medium they are working with: why does neon genesis rebuild movies use live action camera techniques and what does that do to the overall themes of the work? Why does one painting use the texture of the paint instead of the color theory of the paint as a message conveyor? How is the use of reflective or matte surfaces communicating an environment in an installed art piece?

Furthermore, of the very smart people I know, the intellectually stimulating stuff is kind of bizarre, and avenues of finding this stuff or funding this stuff is being drowned out by comparatively understimulating works. Artists usually fund their more unusual pursuits with the commercial work that MidJourney/Stable Diffusion targets.

[v64]

> There's not a lot of interesting conversation to ask about color theory or composition. The interesting stuff is asking what is an artist trying to convey or explore within the nuances of the medium they are working with

For some, this is an important aspect of art appreciation, and I would expect those people to continue to gravitate toward human produced art. For other people who don't have that background, and don't think about those things, the difference won't be relevant to them, and they'll judge the end product based on their own personal and arbitrary criteria. What's interesting about an artwork to one person makes it banal to another, and no amount of academic study or criticism will change peoples' tastes.

Let's not forget that often creators themselves aren't always actively thinking about composition, texture, color, etc, and part of the work for them can be as black box out of their subconscious as the creation of a neural network.

Similar to people being fooled by white wine dyed red, I think we'll also have critics who remark on how absolutely human a work of art has to be due to X/Y/Z, only for it to be revealed to be an AI work. That I think encapsulates a lot of what I look forward to in terms of the debate over what exactly about art is human-specific and what it means for something, human or not, to have artistic capabilities.

[PuppyTailWags]

I'm just pointing out, in my anecdotal experience, that the smartest people I know don't have interest in AI because of the way AI clashes with the things they find the most intellectual stimulation from. None of what you said really addresses any of that, and I really have no interest in debating the subjectivity of AI art on the internet, as there's nothing about it that hasn't already been said.

[ChatGTP]

I spoke to an artist the other say, he just said, in true artists style, that maybe he can collaborate with the bots, otherwise he doesn’t care about AI art.

I thought it would be upset so I kind of introduced the topic lightly.

I was relieved how much he didn’t care.

I completely agree with you. A button click image will never relate to most people like a real work of art.

I think the same about television. I think we all like Seinfeld because we know he is a real person with real experiences that we can relate too. I think this is important.

[digging]

> AI isn't going to stop me from sitting down at the piano or writing a short story. There will always be people in the world better at those things than me, so what difference does it make if an AI may or may not be better at them too?

The threat is that it will no longer be viable to make money from creative works. A completely trivial and laughable concern if you don't live in a society that believes you have to "earn a living".

[v64]

> The threat is that it will no longer be viable to make money from creative works.

Although I see a comparison to previous technologies replacing human jobs, I'm willing to put that point aside and focus solely on AI.

Will AI generated content be cheaper? Will AI content be more interesting and engaging than anything a human could create? If there is no economic demand for human generated artwork, then should it still be viable to make money from it? Is there reason to believe the people who remain in the art market won't be able to make more money by occupying niches that AI art doesn't serve, or by selling to "hipsters" or "luddites" who are anti-AI art? It used to be the only way to make real money through art was having a patron. Perhaps there will be wealthy people who will still be willing to patronize human artists.

Historically, we are in a special place in history where average people can make a living through creative work, but it's not at all an easy industry to break into, even today, and it has always been competitive and everchanging, just as art itself. Economics aside, people have always produced art for intrinsic purposes, and they will continue to do so even when the profit motive is gone.

[digging]

I don't disagree with any of that. The GP said they didn't understand why people would be afraid of AI art. The reason is that many people pay rent by producing art, and that will no longer be possible for many of them in an age of (good) AI art

[ChatGTP]

I hate to break it to you, but are you able to name many great artists in history who died rich ?

The only artists I can think of that died with at least some money had sponsors that encouraged their work.

So I’m not sure much changes here.

If AI is supposed to stop us all from working, then those people will just be better off.

[digging]

> are you able to name many great artists in history who died rich

That's not relevant. There are tons of working artists today and there have been for decades. But if a person can't pay rent by selling their art, things suddenly change for millions of people.