I don’t get this. AI bros talk about how “in the near future” no one will “need” to be a writer, a filmmaker or a musician anymore, as you’ll be able to generate your own media with your own parameters and preferences on the fly. This, to me, feels like such an insane opinion. How can someone not value the ingenuity and creativity behind a work of art? Do these people not see or feel the human behind it all? And are these really opinions that you’ve encountered outside of the internet?

  • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    454·
    1 day ago

    It’s because AI enthusiasts are genuinely proud and in awe of their work, and those that are still staunchly pro-AI are unaware of how much damage they have already done.

    Two key facts:

    • Generative AI is powerful and amazing
    • Generative AI was immediately sold to the capital-owning class and is now being developed and guided by the motivations of profit

    Freya Holmér does excellent analysis at around the 43:00 mark. She notes that AI represents a story of human triumph, and the innate quality or “coolness” that lies in that. But on the other hand, she explains how generative AI has quite quickly become entirely devorced from positively amplifying human expression. Exceptions to this exist, where people use AI creatively as an extension of themselves, but are exceptions only and not the rule.

    I see other threads here discussing “is there even demand for authentic human art?” And those discussions ignore that yes, there is, and that authentic human art was scraped from copyright holders on the internet without their consent. “Is there even demand for human art?” is what is being asked, when the technology in question was immediately bought up and exploited by billion-dollar companies who are gaining immensely more value from generative AI than even the most lucrative AI-artist.

    I encourage “AI bros” reading this to look around and engage with the art world. Genuinely. If you have always wanted to be a screenwriter or painter hobbyist, go engage with those stories. Go and see the human experiences, training and techniques that are visible in every line and brush stroke. Creativity is quite a wonderful and powerful thing and I always encourage it.

    Then, after you have experienced these works to a new degree, look back. Don’t even ask “is AI good”—because we all agree, it’s an amazing feat. Instead ask “do I want this technology to be monopolized by corporate interests?”