[MisterTea]

> At some point, it will be impossible to tell the difference. Many people already can't tell if something was generated by AI.

So what if its indistinguishable - its not a product of human intellect or effort. I feel there is a large disconnect where people look at artful output such as music or writing as a thing no different than a box of paper clips. To them, "It's just there." They don't care how it got there, they just like the feeling they get from the consumption.

That's fast food thinking; It's engineered to be "tasty" in the sense that they put the right amount of chemicals into the food to tickle the right nerve endings. It's junk food that exists to turn a profit. Whereas even the local diner puts effort into its food and has a damn fine Greek menu and the best mozzarella sticks.

[planb]

I’m not sure it’s so simple. I went on a trip with friends this weekend and cut a video from all the short clips we filmed on our phones. Before AI I would have used some song from my music library as the background tune. This time I created a song with Suno that fits the clips and includes some funny anecdotes from our vacation. If I was very talented and had the time, I could have written the lyrics and recorded the song myself (which undoubtedly would be even more awesome), but I can’t do this. So I used AI as a tool to do it for me. Everyone agrees it’s more personal and a better conserved memory of our shared experiences.

[wcedmisten]

I don't get how people can listen to and share AI generated "music" and not feel legitimately embarrassed to their core. Like the AI Charlie Kirk song, but unironically. I'm truly baffled how anyone can enjoy it.

> If I was very talented and had the time, I could have written the lyrics and recorded the song myself (which undoubtedly would be even more awesome), but I can’t do this.

I promise you that any art you produced would be better than slop. There is not a single crayon scribble or off-tune melody that would be worse than the generic garbage that comes out of an AI model

[shimman]

You have to remember that the vast majority of tech workers have open disdain towards humans and share zero solidarity with their fellow workers.

Just look at the leadership of tech workers, some of the most deeply anti-human and anti-democratic people on the planet. Not hard to see how these terrible people rub off of their workers.

[baggy_trough]

Astonishing bigotry.

[antonvs]

How do you rate that against all the generic garbage that comes out of the pop music industry? Do you really think it’s meaningfully worse?

[ElProlactin]

If you knew how the modern music industry and local diners work, you might not be so impressed.

It's not all artisanal, made with love goodness just because human hands did it.

[MisterTea]

> If you knew how the modern music industry and ...

This just assumes I'm listening to mainstream music or whatever when I mostly buy grungy metal and whatever else I enjoy off Bandcamp. Many times, directly supporting the artist.

> ... local diners work, you might not be so impressed.

I already stated the homemade gyro platter and they're mozzarella sticks w/sauce are slammin and they are proud of it. Sure it's business but they crafted some damn fine mozzarella sticks and they always come out crispy and oozing with hot but not roof melting cheese. That's giving a damn even if its slammin a few in the fryer then tossin em on a plate and sendin em into the human ether. I hope they stay around as they're a great Sunday afternoon lunch spot with friends.

[rmunn]

I love gyros; you're making me want to go visit that diner. Do you mind revealing its name and the city it's in? (If you don't want to because that would reveal too much about your own location, I understand perfectly well and have no objections). Odds are I'm nowhere close to it, but sometimes my job takes me to unexpected locations, so I'm always happy to have a list like "If you're ever in Topeka, Kansas, check out (name of hole-in-the-wall burrito joint), they make the best darn burritos I've ever had". (For clarity: that's a made up example, I don't know anything about restaurants in Topeka).

[MisterTea]

Esquire Diner in Ozone Park NYC. They're struggling so I hope they stay open and the quality remains. So far, so good.

[ericfr11]

But the AI would not be able to perform live on a stage, producing emotions. I can't imagine staying 3 hours in a crowded room looking at a robot or a computer screen, even if it produces great music. Or if we get to that point, what gives the right and permission for humans to exist anymore?

[pixl97]

>But the AI would not be able to perform live on a stage

The vast majority of music consumption is by people that have never seen the artist live. Hell, I have no idea myself if there is a human behind it.

>what gives the right and permission for humans to exist anymore?

Nothing. We are just a mote in incomprehensibly small fraction of eternity. Eventually the process of equalizing entropy will erase all traces of our existence. Enjoy it while you have it.

[ben_w]

> I can't imagine staying 3 hours in a crowded room looking at a robot or a computer screen, even if it produces great music.

May I introduce you to the runtime of The Lord of the Rings films?

Also the American Federation of Musicians' campaign against "robot" musicians replacing live musicians in movie theatres? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/musicians-wage-war-ag...

[rmunn]

One of my college buddies, when getting set up for a marathon viewing of the trilogy (extended editions, naturally), referred to it as "twelve hours of butt-numbing Tolkien goodness". Exact words: it was more than 20 years ago but that phrase was so evocative it stuck in my memory.

[Otterly99]

May I introduce you to vocaloid concerts?

[ben_w]

I'm not sure what you're arguing here?

If it's indistinguishable, that could be because the user doesn't care to look closely, or it could be because it's just that well made now. For simple profile pictures, I genuinely stopped being able to tell if I'm looking at a real photo or not last year.

> That's fast food thinking; It's engineered to be "tasty" in the sense that they put the right amount of chemicals into the food to tickle the right nerve endings. It's junk food that exists to turn a profit. Whereas even the local diner puts effort into its food and has a damn fine Greek menu and the best mozzarella sticks.

The former is molecular gastronomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_gastronomy

The digital version fast food we already have and is a little different, in that it's the tuning of "the algorithm" to addict us, while text and image models* seem to be trying to actually fool us.

* I suspect video and music models are trying to addict, but I'm not super sure either way.

[budsniffer952]

>That's fast food thinking

You're simply drawing the line where it suits you.

I don't consider it pure human coding if you use anything but Notepad.

[hoppp]

What about punch cards?

Real programmers write the code and throw it away after compilation. All the fixes happen in the binary. You are not a real programmer unless you debug hex dumps and add changes directly to the compiled program.

Text editor? No. You punch the program on cards and then wait 1 week to get your turn and get a compiler error.

[pixl97]

https://xkcd.com/378/

[hoppp]

https://www.quiche-eater.com/the_real_text.html

[budsniffer952]

Nope, I draw my line at Notepad!

[rmunn]

EDLIN.EXE or bust!

[MisterTea]

> You're simply drawing the line where it suits you.

I'm drawing the line where the human effort is no longer there.

There was a similar argument against electronic music. No effort because no instrument is played. But the fact is the instrument just changed shape, drastically.

Like there's an artist I am sure a few here would be familiar with: Master Boot Record, a video game heavy metal electronic blend fully composed on a DAW. MBR live streams his composition sessions while chillin in his own irc channel he's hosting himself so you can chat with him. It's impressive to hear how he lays down notes, loops it, tweaks and expands it, then little by little builds a song passage by passage. Often with the irc channel reacting to the process itself and perhaps influencing the output. You know when it finally clicks and you're left feeling "Oh that was cool as fuck!" That's uniquely human, a life form that evolved over billions of years on a mud ball floating in a vast vacuum - at random. Talking, thinking, playing, laughing meat. Amazing huh?

An AI shitting out a similar pattern because it was trained on the same and similar patterns is not interesting or original. It's just a really good illusion from a well tuned stochastic parrot. It's interesting in the technical sense, but not in the artistic one. There was no creative process involved. Prompting is just a well formed set of instructions and questions which a human could understand - a spec. Nothing special there. It's like driving to McDonalds and ordering a quarter pounder with cheese meal. As a search engine, cool. As an artist, no thanks.

[EagnaIonat]

> It's just a really good illusion from a well tuned stochastic parrot.

The stochastic parrot claim is long gone.

Someone with actual skill in their respective field can create something new and original from current AI systems.

The real danger is that creative/intelligent people are giving up those abilities and letting the AI do it for them.

[MisterTea]

> The stochastic parrot claim is long gone.

That's just marketing.

[EagnaIonat]

Can you elaborate?

[antonvs]

The stochastic parrot claim is as apt as ever. It’s just that it turned out that humans are just stochastic parrots, too.

[antonvs]

Excuse me, I use Neovim but with no automation - no completions, no language server. Pure human coding. It’s not Notepad, but I’m not a masochist.