#AI is evil and they're trying to replace workers with it

[shrimpmandan]

The current state of AI discourse is baffling to me because I swear to god some people are just developing collective amnesia and dismissing AI art as "not actually being that bad" when the problems with it are significantly deeper than whether or not it's "real art". It being "real art" is irrelevant to it causing tangible harm. Like yeah I don't think someone AI generating an image to use as a reference is some massive evil, but in the greater scheme of things:

AI art is being used to spread actual real-world misinformation. Propaganda.

Ai art is being used to spread CSEM and other forms of revenge porn. It is also threatening the livelihoods of sex workers to some degree.

People are putting their favorite artists' works through a blender, without their consent, instead of paying them, because image generation is instant dopamine.

Big corps are trying to use AI instead of paying artists/writers because they're greedy fucks.

Most AI programs (with few exceptions) are scraping from existing works without the consent of the original artists.

AI voices are doing the same.

A common argument I've seen is comparing these things to like... digital art, photo editing*, voice splicing. You have to understand that the merit of these things isn't that "they take more time/effort". Effort is not an inherent facet of art. Plenty of tools exist to make art easier that we take for granted now-- many forget the discourse that kicked up when digital art was first gaining popularity. The issue is and always will be consent. Most artists do not want their works or voices to be put into AI databanks. The fact that most AI programs do not care for this, and that a lot of companies are trying to swindle their way into getting artist consent under the pretense of "well they didn't say no", is the main issue. We completely lost the plot when we started focusing more on "is AI art real art?" and "is it bad to use AI for any purpose?", because those are both irrelevant to the question of "is AI harmful?", wherein the answer is yes. This is also failing to consider that "real art" can also cause harm for similar reasons: sexual harassment/revenge porn, defamation, propaganda, etc.

*As a note, this is also ignoring the fact that a lot of people DON'T want their art to be edited or even heavily referenced. It's been commonplace in art usage terms for ages now. This is important to note in the context of AI discourse and copyright law. I also believe there is a difference between voice splicing and AI voices since splicing is more limited and way less likely to get someone actually defamed or 'replaced' as a voice actor, and is just a manipulation of existing voice clips mostly for silly shitposts.

AI CAN be helpful. AI can be used to create references, or make smoother rendering, or even just for fun. A lot of people used AI programs in their baby stages without thinking about how the images were generated or the actual consent of the artists involved, because it was a fun shiny new toy. I also like to think most people who have the means to pay an artist ultimately would. But the issue is not and never has been AI making art easier, or people using it for silly shit, or even people using it for serious art refs. The issue is AI mass-scraping existing artwork, being used to facilitate misinformation, and screwing artists out of jobs. Don't even get me started on AI fucking generating CSEM, or revenge porn, and additionally how it impacts the careers of sex workers.

AI is an issue in its current state. Yes, the panic about it taking over art as a whole was overblown, even if the fears were valid. The capacities of AI art is almost always slightly below the capacities of human-made art, and it's something that will quickly fall in popularity once it stops being the shiny new thing. People using AI to make art easier aren't the enemy either, especially since this can be beneficial for people who do it as a job-- shortening the labor time and all. That doesn't mean AI isn't an issue and that everyone critiquing it is actually just an elitist ableist cuck or whatever. None of this really would've been a problem if not for the mass scraping, resulting in both violations of artist consent, and also it picking up genuinely illegal/nasty content. That's what we should be focusing on. None of this "real art" bullshit.

All that said: I personally would say that using most AI programs-- no matter the purpose-- is unethical because of how most of them function. The only exceptions would be for programs that specifically use consensually obtained data. On this front, I would highly recommend keeping tabs on Adobe Firefly, since it's one of the very very few models out there that has stated a clear commitment to not violating the copyright and consent of artists or persons (it operates off of stock footage and public domain).

#this is a little all over the place so sorry lmao #but seeing the discussion shift on AI has been fucking BIZARRE to say the least #like. collective amnesia bizarre. #ai art discourse #ai discourse #anti ai #tw csem

[thehoveringbrain]

Actually, ok no, let me elaborate my thoughts on this post and the stuff i said in the tags.

Very valid post. It focuses on commercial use of ai generated art by big companies, more than ai art itself. The key here is big companies. I didn't elaborate on that in the tags because yeah i agree with OP's analysis: well said, nothing to add.

Although, when i said "don't blame the tool", well it seems what the original post is complaining about is, really, uh, capitalism? The financial system in which we live? Technology progressed, ai art is now a thing, companies have found a new shiny way to save money.

What i don't agree on at all is the attitude of going "this tool is bad i won't use it anymore for personal use because it's 'morally' corrupt". There's a lot to unpack there.

a) private users and small creators not using it don't affect at all the situation. It's not a very efficient way to protest. Big companies are still gonna use them.

c) by casting a moral judgement on something, you are depriving yourself of it. I have experience in these kinds of emotional evaluations. Ask me about it. They only hurt you, they aren't good. You loose something, in this case potential revenues, access to art, a creative and satisfying hobby,...

b) "cancelling AI".... This form of moralism... it's a cultural tendency of our age that isn't really good for our society. What's essentially happening is that something (ai art) is branded as a "moral evil". Like someone infected by the plague (or sin), interacting with it in any way, shape, or form, is considered dangerous/morally wrong. Just because people are making bad use of AI art generators, it doesn't mean you using it is bad.

Furthermore, on the topic of big bad evil companies. Do you think they aren't trying to save money off their artists even now? Do you think that, without AI, artists will automatically be entitled to fair wages? Nah. There's tons of young art-school graduates that are dying to work for those companies and if one artists complains about not being paid enough the company is gonna point out that they're easily replaceable, by a human. Could it be worse with AIs? Maybe. Are we going toward a future where art-making is akin to a factory worker churning out products at a steady, and non-stop, rate? Yeaaah well you know, i'm a pessimist at heart.

In any case, I don't think AI art should be banned from commerce. It would probably hurt small creators.

But most importantly, damn it, don't let capitalism control your desires, your excitement, your creativity. If you wanna make use of AI-generated images, DO IT. Don't play into capitalism's hand. You don't need to stay morally pure, we aren't pure beings. Don't let others make you feel bad for playing in the mud.

#ai-art #ai generated art #disk-horse babyyyyyy #art #capitalism #i have a bunch books/sources about how this very same mentality impacted literature in the 1930s. and i suppose even later on #i love technology. we are living a peculiar moment in time and just in general i'm excited about it #oops a brain #rant

[msfbgraves]

Capitalism speedrun

I have nothing to go on to support my opinion but some everyday observations and yet. I feel like capitalism is somehow accelerating? Ever more profit for ever fewer inhumanly rich people made by ever fewer megacorporations who have already colonised the entire world. The 'products' and so called 'services' they put out are being worse sometimes even after they have been sold. If indeed they have been sold and not merely leased. Newspapers are also owned by corporations, so whether or not they report any resembling facts can only be ascertained by extensive fact checking and or compairing of sources. The Internet is a group of maybe six social mediums being mined for data to be put into machines to completely replace the cost of human labour. Regardless whether or not anyone wants this. They control the entire supply of raw materials on the market, so you'll take what they give you and you'll like it. They'll decide of you're exploitable enough to be allowed survival, and if not, you can go and die. Those exploitable enough are so overworked or underpaid, that they won't have any initiative, ideally, to make anything or do anything outside of this system of exploitation. And they're not hiding it. "Cereal for dinner!"

I know capitalism as we know it has always run on extraction on a planet that is built for feeding things back into it. Anyone with the slightest bit of interest can see that since the planet's resources are finite when not replenished, at some point there is nothing left to mine. Similarly, if you mistreat peole until they die, you won't even have the workers left to build your robots. They've been trying to combat this problem with AI, because seemingly, a planet full of dead forests and dead people save your few slaves is a nice place to live on. "Ah, no," they cry. "But we'll simply colonise Mars next!"

I'm not sure whether they think that this will fly unopposed, or that they're trying to extract the last riches until in 20 years all the boomers will be dead and those left can rebuild another system on the ashes of this one.

Because they can't be trying to keep the status quo alive. If they were, they would have had to start feeding back into the system. Whether that is by being decent to people or renurturing soil. The boomers are selling their very own grandkids because even with their money, your flooded Malibu beach house is not a nice place to stay.

So far, most people angry with this have been doing what they're supposed to do, namely vote for fascism. But that'll only bring war and more destruction. But so far, every act of human cruelty and natural disaster has only ever led to more cruelty. A global pandemic? Let's jack up the price of healthcare! And attack Ukraine, disrupting global food security. Which, you know, is an excellent incentive to raise the price of food! Don't talk about petrol/gasoline, because that's been at a record high so long that people don't even blink anymore. So what if they simply don't heat their house in winter? And while the world is busy with Ukraine, let's play "genocide, what genocide?" again; the last time we did that was 1994. We're due another round, yeah?

It's not even for the money or the power anymore. They must be partying on the vulcano for the thrill of it. Do they want to see the world burn? Are those shareholders this dead inside?

Because they're being mean for the sake of it even if it is actively detrimental to them. The WGA strike, with $500 mln in losses, only not to have to pay the $47 mln originally demanded. They're scraping Tumblr for data because they've been everywhere else even though everyone can tell you nobody wants to get a Goncharov synopsis when they're looking for Martin Scorcese's work. But it hasn't been exploited yet and so it must be.

They've spent the last two decades telling us that evil is really complex actually, and rooted in trauma. Those cartoon villains were there to illustrate the concept to elementary schoolers, but real villainy is actually almost heroic.

No it isn't. It is exactly as shortsighted and as banal as it has always been depicted, or that's we're all experiencing in real time.

I'm so scared. I am as scared of being crushed by capitalism as being crushed by the inevitable fallout of this.

If it all blows up within the next five years, where are all these billionaires even going to go? Cuba? Africa? If the banks topple there won't even be any money anymore. Do they really not think about that? Is it fun living in underground bunkers? Or don't they think that far...?

#personal #late stage capitalism