[ben_w]

> AI is a tool that is and always will make the creation of art less a matter of the expression of the human soul

I firmly disagree. I have a very strong imagination, but I never had time (and still don't have the time between full-time work and needing to learn German) to develop the skills to turn what I can imagine into artefacts that others can enjoy by my own hand. AI gives me the means to turn some of what I imagine into things I can share — not everything! (SD is so terrible at dragons, even the basic body plan is all over the place) — but it can help with many things.

> its primary purpose is to take away the reliance on artists. The ultimate aim of BIG TECH is to take away this reliance so that they can be the ultimate source of cheap art, just like cheap slave labour is the ultimate source of cheap and unsustainable clothing for most people.

IMO the purpose is fully automated luxury communism.

Stable Diffusion is free, so "Big Tech" (which would here have to include a small German academic spin-off) can't reap huge rewards from this, just like there's no huge business case for yet more video call services or social networks — too much competition for the money.

Finally, just yesterday I was watching a year-old video from a german robot supplier that's undercutting "cheap slave labour" for clothing.

[GeoAtreides]

> fully automated luxury communism

It's actually "fully automated luxury gay space communism", all words are important there. Also, in the Culture series, arguably the seminal series about the "fully automated etc.", there's a whole scene about AI producing art (i.e. nobody cares or think it's interesting)

[ben_w]

The original literary reference might have been, but as written it's the title of a book:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_Automated_Luxury_Commu...

> there's a whole scene about AI producing art (i.e. nobody cares or think it's interesting)

As I recall, this was a conversation between an organic person and a Mind, a specific category of AI that's quite capable of running several billion uploaded human consciousnesses simultaneously in real time, and it was the Mind who was saying that yes, they could make far better music, but they didn't want to.

[vouaobrasil]

So I suppose your need to create AI diversions is more important than the need of others to feel a sense of purpose through their work through their actual talent that you don't have? Good thing you have a full-time job....

Big Tech will benefit immensely from AI. Even if Stable Diffusion is free, it will spurn the development of new computers and new technology to run models like Stable Diffusion, so even not immediate things benefit big tech.

Fully automated luxury communism is a rather bleak future, and it will take us away from being stewards of the environment, and instead consume as many resources as possible.

Finally, even if you are doing something relatively harmless with Stable Diffisuion, many other people will use AI for malicious purposes.

[ben_w]

> So I suppose your need to create AI diversions is more important than the need of others to feel a sense of purpose through their work through their actual talent that you don't have?

Not so. Sense of purpose is important.

Your sense of purpose conflicts with the opportunity of everyone else to express themselves as they wish.

How familiar are you with utilitarian ethics, and the "mere addition paradox" criticism of it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox

> Good thing you have a full-time job....

For now. The LLMs will come/are coming for mine, just as diffusion models and GANs eat at the jobs of graphical artists.

> Fully automated luxury communism is a rather bleak future, and it will take us away from being stewards of the environment, and instead consume as many resources as possible.

It's (currently) pure Utopianism, taking on whatever hopes the proponents want it to have no matter how unrealistic. I therefore think you're arguing on the basis of which team it's associated with, without understanding the details of what it is you hate.

> Finally, even if you are doing something relatively harmless with Stable Diffisuion, many other people will use AI for malicious purposes.

Oh absolutely. Whole can of worms there.

Can say the same about basically every tech way back to the wheel, fire, and pointy stick, though unlike most using this analogy I am well aware of the problem of induction (in particular the turkey and the farmer), and don't claim that it will all work out just because it has so far.

AI in general could make us immortal, with lives of leisure and free from all suffering… or it could turn us all into paperclips to maximise shareholder value.

[vouaobrasil]

> Your sense of purpose conflicts with the opportunity of everyone else to express themselves as they wish.

I do not believe people should be able to express themselves as they wish unconditionally. They should not be able to express themselves to the point of destroying the environment, they should not be able to express themselves by creating nuclear weapons or something EXTREMELY dangerous (AI), they should not be able to express themselves by disrupting society.

AI is just as disrupting as creating biological or chemical weapons, and perhaps even worse.

And it would horrible if AI could make us immortal. We should die...

[RunSet]

> I do not believe people should be able to express themselves as they wish unconditionally. They should not be able to express themselves to the point of destroying the environment, they should not be able to express themselves by creating nuclear weapons or something EXTREMELY dangerous (AI), they should not be able to express themselves by disrupting society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

[ben_w]

> AI is just as disrupting as creating biological or chemical weapons, and perhaps even worse.

Perhaps? You had death by paperclip optimiser right there in my comment :P

> And it would horrible if AI could make us immortal. We should die...

Samuel Johnson tires of London, visits an undisclosed location somewhere near Zürich.