Transcript (actual letter) here: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/chatgpt-making-things-faster...
Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
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Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#32Nick Cave is expressing a personal loss, and I believe that he truly feels that loss. But to me, this letter reads roughly like: "if I were the server or the bouncer instead of the performer or the writer, all of humanity would cease to have meaning". Which is perhaps true, for Nick Cave. But it also betrays something grotesque and profoundly wrong about his view on the relationship between paid labor and the human s…
I might assert, with false nostalgia because I wasn't there, that we had a much better connection with what it meant to be human when we were tilling dirt and making clay pots and weaving cloth for each other, and now having been estranged from the physcial meaning-making all we have left is our image making, our personas we create for each other and these arguments we have online, and now we're automating that away…
> we had a much better connection with what it meant to be human when we were tilling dirt and making clay pots and weaving cloth for each other
Actually, I agree. I think Nick Cave is right about this. I do think this sort of alienation has a cost.
But that doesn't mean that there is any remotely moral case for undoing the green revolution and allowing billions to starve. And it does not mean that the machines which feed those billions of people who might otherwise starve are somehow the root cause of a decline of humanity. In fact, quite the opposite.
And this is the paradox: our alienation from agricultural work is precisely what enables our very existence.
My main observation is that there is a way out of this paradox. As it turns out, you can go out grow some food in a garden, or write a song, or paint a picture, even if that work is commodified and there is no paycheck. The commodification and automation of those industries does not prevent one from engaging in them as soul-work.
The teacher who plays in a band in his garage is no different -- from a "soul of humanity" perspective -- than Nick Cave. But Nick Cave's implicit argument argument demands that he is different, and not from an economic perspective, but from a very soul of humanity perspective. It's extraordinarily off-putting to me in that sense.
Of course, engaging in art as hobby instead of for pay does require free time and a share of returns on our societal bargain. On that note: elites like Nick Cave should be spearheading serious conversations about political economics and labor economics, instead of lamenting the loss of their extraordinarily unique status.
Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#33Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real. It's like rich people saying money does not matter. "Easy for you to say." I can't draw. But now I can take the talent I have and extend it to make images. Is it art? I don't know. I don't care. I was not able, now I am able, and the people who are able…
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Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#34Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real. It's like rich people saying money does not matter. "Easy for you to say." I can't draw. But now I can take the talent I have and extend it to make images. Is it art? I don't know. I don't care. I was not able, now I am able, and the people who are able…
"Supermodels complain about plastic surgery letting ugly people look better" type headlines abound in AI
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Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#35Very good letter. I'm struck by Nick Cave's comment about the making of beautiful things being the meaning of life. It always struck me as bittersweet that we should be birthed on this world with a mind capable of imagining oblivion, futility, our own certain death, but we were also given the tools (our creativity) to express both our fears and pain as well as our joys and our love for life. Were we to evolve to some…
I suppose this is a question of what is art. There have been numerous attempts at defining it and there are a few schools of thought. Many of those focus on the artist and what part of the artist, what part of their being, was put into the artwork and what they were trying to convey. This does not exist in AI generated content and, I suppose, this is what is hurting people in the art business: there is no individual being behind this, so it's like it's soul-less.
On the other hand, there are plenty of people, including me, who are not really affected by what artist created what and why. We care more about whether the art touches you, conveys a thought, a feeling, leaves you changed. Such art can be a joining of previous arts and therefore can be generated by AI or produced by an "amateur", who only copies others' artstyles. I would still consider it art.
This AI revolution on the artistic fields will no doubt leave many authors scrambling for work because AI will produce better results faster. Originality and more personal notes will save a few, so I doubt that the most prolific and well known auteurs are in danger, but many many will not be so lucky. Just like in industrial revolution in the past.
Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
the tech would not exist if not for the talented people you are screwing
Mine workers extract iron ore. Iron ore is made into iron which is made into machines which shovel iron ore. "Tell it like it is Till there's no misunderstanding When you strip it right back Man feed machine Machine feed man" to quote a (human) poet
an interesting analogy, thanks, I'll trade you some lines I heard from Johnny Cash:
Well John Henry hammered in the mountain, he'd give a grunt and he'd give groan with every swing, the women folks for miles around, heard him and come down, to watch him make the cold steel ring, Lord what a swinger, just listen to that cold steel ring
But the bad boss come up laughing at John Henry, said you full of vinegar now, but you bout through, were gonna get a steam drill to do your share of drivin, then what's all them muscles gonna do, huh John Henry, gonna take a little bit of vinegar out of you
John Henry said I feed four little brothers, and my baby sister's walking on her knees, did the Lord say that machines ought to take the place of living, and what's a subsitute for bread and beans, I ain't seen it, do engines get rewarded for their steam?
Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#37Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real. It's like rich people saying money does not matter. "Easy for you to say." I can't draw. But now I can take the talent I have and extend it to make images. Is it art? I don't know. I don't care. I was not able, now I am able, and the people who are able…
> Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real.
If we are speaking about the democratization of tools, this is not what is happening here.
In effect, prompting Dall-E or Midjourney does not make you a creator.
And herein lies the problem. It doesn't enable the talentless to create something beautiful. It allows anyone to prompt aggregated images, regardless of talent or years dedicated to a craft. These images have no intrinsic value and, on top of that, don't belong to the prompter.
This technology is a collage tool, and it's great, but it doesn't make anyone a creator. If you believe it does, you're in for a rough awakening.
Right now, the best models are only working thanks to bypassing the will of thousands of artists who didn't agree to have their work used for training data. As such, we are not essentially speaking about talent but the democratization of theft.
Again, it's not the technology itself that is the problem. Most artists are pro-technology and don't oppose it. Besides, if you learn how to draw (anybody can learn this skill, come on!), you probably won't be impressed by most Midjourney results.
Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#38Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real. It's like rich people saying money does not matter. "Easy for you to say." I can't draw. But now I can take the talent I have and extend it to make images. Is it art? I don't know. I don't care. I was not able, now I am able, and the people who are able…
> Incredibly talented people complain when technology lets talentless people make some of the beautiful things that they imagine but never had the talent to make real. If we are speaking about the democratization of tools, this is not what is happening here. In effect, prompting Dall-E or Midjourney does not make you a creator. And herein lies the problem. It doesn't enable the talentless to create something beautifu…
> This technology is a collage tool, and it's great, but it doesn't make anyone a creator. If you believe it does, you're in for a rough awakening.
Hannah Höch would like a word.
Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#39AI makes McDonald's hamburgers. Cheap and infinite. 90% of the population consider that haute cuisine. Eat em all day. Suffer inexplicable tummy aches. Etc.
So let them. It isn't like we can do anything about it.
Re: Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave's letter on the threat of AI [video]
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do you think live music is going to suffer that much more since the ultimate dagger, the phonograph? Well, you can also have AI band playing AI music live. Cue vocaloids.
Hatsune Miku is playing Coachella this year, no joke
Related required viewing.
https://youtu.be/yPuI4l0jK7s?si=-ICkrje6DCve-cBW