Fuck the creative process, the journey it takes you on, and the necessary introspection and connection to the world that needs to occur for it. Fuck the joy you can find in effort, failure, and in finally having an epiphany. Fuck being able to hone your skills without depending on a corporate tool that can be taken away from you at a minute’s notice. All of it be damned, you can now (allegedly) get to the same end result quicker without the effort (or pleasure, or self-discovery, or personal growth). We all know that the end result is what counts, and nothing else.
Is anyone claiming you can’t do that? The use case for most AI slop is soulless corporate graphic design that’s about as worker bee as it gets and the rest is mostly people using it in place of hiring an actual artist for their weirdly specific niche pornography. And the guy wanting you to draw him something involving dolphins with a foot fetish isn’t deeply concerned what your personal journey regarding the nature of creatures without feet who are obsessed with them sexually looks like.
At it’s heart, the non-environmentalist AI hate is mostly people who thought their jobs were impossible to automate trying to protect those jobs from being automated.
In this post, no. And? The problem is less about forbidding creation with other means than it is about pushing the idea that the outcome is the only thing you are after in creative endeavours.
most AI slop is soulless corporate graphic design […] and […] niche pornography.
I understand where you come from, and agree on that front, except this can still represent revenue for (some) artists which allows them to do their art, whilst being able to practice (to a degree) and being paid for it. Also, do you have a source regarding that or is it from what you experience online?
At it’s heart, the non-environmentalist AI hate is mostly people who thought their jobs were impossible to automate trying to protect those jobs from being automated.
I am entitled to hate it for reasons that are mine. This includes, but isn’t limited to, a push towards equating art with a product and taking the process out of the equation. Of course we did not have to wait for AI for these people to already think like that, but it’s now being pushed much harder.
Also, just in case, I don’t earn my income through art, and my job isn’t (yet) threatened by AI.
except this can still represent revenue for (some) artists…whilst being able to practice (to a degree) and being paid for it.
…which is just another way of saying that that work should be protected from automation. That’s what arguing that tools that automate doing a thing will make people doing that thing less valuable as a paid labor is doing, it’s arguing for protection from automation.
Also, do you have a source regarding that or is it from what you experience online?
Experience and a bit of hyperbole. Ask anyone who takes art commissions how often they get asked to do lewd to outright pornographic images though and you’ll be surprised by the answer. But commissioned art/graphics for very specific carefully described things is all AI image generation is ever really going to replace, if only because that’s the core of what it does - take a prompt and a big block of white noise and sort of digitally chisel away the bits that don’t look like prompt until the result looks enough like prompt. The other obvious productive use case would be for rapid prototyping of visual design.
But then I’m old enough to remember people complaining that photoshop was destroying art. I’d be shocked if we couldn’t find record of people back when it was new claiming photography was going to destroy art likewise.
I feel like we don’t understand each other here. I don’t want to appear combative, but I also don’t like being misunderstood so:
My point was not “AI is an actual threat to all arts”. My point was “equating the creative and artistic process with rapidly producing outcomes is something I profoundly disagree with, and I am truly afraid that it will take hold in people’s minds”.
Because, speaking also from experience, I know a few people with no AI agenda to push, who use AI as a substitute for a creative outlet. I think that they are being cheated out of a fantastic experience, because they buy into that kind of speech.
Your photography and digital arts equivalences, which I don’t necessarily agree with, could also imply elitism, as in looking down on AI users. I assure you this does not come from a place of thinking people who use AI are inferior or not creative. This comes from a place of wanting them to experience their creativity truly. This means, in particular, outside the bounds of a tool which can be tuned and censored at the whims of a corporation (one big difference with photography and digital arts). This is a necessary condition for free self-expression.
So yes. I am afraid. Not that I’ll lose my job, but that many people will believe this shit, settle for that, and be robbed of a wonderful human experience.
Is anyone claiming you can’t do that? The use case for most AI slop is soulless corporate graphic design that’s about as worker bee as it gets and the rest is mostly people using it in place of hiring an actual artist for their weirdly specific niche pornography. And the guy wanting you to draw him something involving dolphins with a foot fetish isn’t deeply concerned what your personal journey regarding the nature of creatures without feet who are obsessed with them sexually looks like.
At it’s heart, the non-environmentalist AI hate is mostly people who thought their jobs were impossible to automate trying to protect those jobs from being automated.
In this post, no. And? The problem is less about forbidding creation with other means than it is about pushing the idea that the outcome is the only thing you are after in creative endeavours.
I understand where you come from, and agree on that front, except this can still represent revenue for (some) artists which allows them to do their art, whilst being able to practice (to a degree) and being paid for it. Also, do you have a source regarding that or is it from what you experience online?
I am entitled to hate it for reasons that are mine. This includes, but isn’t limited to, a push towards equating art with a product and taking the process out of the equation. Of course we did not have to wait for AI for these people to already think like that, but it’s now being pushed much harder.
Also, just in case, I don’t earn my income through art, and my job isn’t (yet) threatened by AI.
…which is just another way of saying that that work should be protected from automation. That’s what arguing that tools that automate doing a thing will make people doing that thing less valuable as a paid labor is doing, it’s arguing for protection from automation.
Experience and a bit of hyperbole. Ask anyone who takes art commissions how often they get asked to do lewd to outright pornographic images though and you’ll be surprised by the answer. But commissioned art/graphics for very specific carefully described things is all AI image generation is ever really going to replace, if only because that’s the core of what it does - take a prompt and a big block of white noise and sort of digitally chisel away the bits that don’t look like prompt until the result looks enough like prompt. The other obvious productive use case would be for rapid prototyping of visual design.
But then I’m old enough to remember people complaining that photoshop was destroying art. I’d be shocked if we couldn’t find record of people back when it was new claiming photography was going to destroy art likewise.
I feel like we don’t understand each other here. I don’t want to appear combative, but I also don’t like being misunderstood so:
My point was not “AI is an actual threat to all arts”. My point was “equating the creative and artistic process with rapidly producing outcomes is something I profoundly disagree with, and I am truly afraid that it will take hold in people’s minds”.
Because, speaking also from experience, I know a few people with no AI agenda to push, who use AI as a substitute for a creative outlet. I think that they are being cheated out of a fantastic experience, because they buy into that kind of speech.
Your photography and digital arts equivalences, which I don’t necessarily agree with, could also imply elitism, as in looking down on AI users. I assure you this does not come from a place of thinking people who use AI are inferior or not creative. This comes from a place of wanting them to experience their creativity truly. This means, in particular, outside the bounds of a tool which can be tuned and censored at the whims of a corporation (one big difference with photography and digital arts). This is a necessary condition for free self-expression.
So yes. I am afraid. Not that I’ll lose my job, but that many people will believe this shit, settle for that, and be robbed of a wonderful human experience.