| The problem isn't with tools being developed, but how they are going to be exploited in the current system that the world exists in. There is outrage for AI generated art because it: A) is trained on work from existing artists without consent or permission B) will be used to push artists out of their ability to make money to feed themselves In a perfect world where artists could sustain themselves while practicing thier craft, this wouldn't be such a devisive issue. If you want to think about things from a counter-culture "hacker" perspective, we should be talking not about limiting AI but how we should be elevating artists to be able to exist despite the advancement in technology removing their jobs. Its insane to think that artists won't be upset that their entire field, one centered on years and years of practice and learning, is about to be disrupted by a program that can create a thousand works in the span of a few minutes, trained on their own hard work without permission. Especially when these people already often work lower-paying jobs in order to make ends meet so they can work on their passion. Is it really "hacker" to expect people to have to give up their happy lives doing work they enjoy so they can be shoved into the meat-grinder of a 9 to 5 job, because a program replaced them? Since when is it counter-culture to replace the leisure aspects of life with tech just because we can? The tools themselves aren't evil and can be very helpful with artists, but it's not insane to see why its receiving push back from the art community who stand to lose the most from it. |
Not only in terms of not being interested in understanding the effort taken to develop the craft, but also in terms of understanding aspects of the craft itself. Whenever someone brings up the idea that ML is the same as a human learning from referencing other's art, I feel they giveaway their lack of any genuine exposure to art as that's a purely technical interpretation which misses that very little of art is about pure technical skill.
In a way, I feel the AI imagery stuff has just brought enshittification to art. It's the same overall pattern where some tech"bro" comes in citing disruption, technical legality and the future without any interest in understanding what they're talking about, develops a technology that's good enough for attractive marketing but not actually sufficient for the field, but they bring in so many new people that there's no competing and combined with the shit management from the "techbro", the industry is forced to settle for a new normal that grows ever shittier until all the value has been extracted from it.
I used to be very interested in working on generative AI, it's what got me working on a PhD. But I completely lost interest the moment I saw how irresponsible everyone was with it. The tool is fine, but I am increasingly of the opinion that it's a tool we as a society are not ready to ethically wield.