41–50 of 90 posts
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How are they being screwed?
They are being outcompeted by a megacorp selling bootleg derivatives of their work Not being screwed looks like royalties for content that the machine derives its value from
and driving the value of their hard work to the ground.
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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…
A question is, is it possible to advance technology to fulfill the green revolution without changing the value of human creativity due to the creation/advancement of genAI? Or past a certain point, the results of discovering improved health and ecological outcomes will become inextricably linked with discovering new technologies that cause conflict? What actually drives such a process?
I think more people might become interested on why we end up here talking about new possibilities conflicting with stability again and again, similar to how the negative effects of the invention of smartphones are being talked about now.
Nick 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…
My position is that AI "art" is absolutely a loss and not a gain for humanity. It is unfortunate that so many HN users are output focused on this and believe that AI tool -> output is the equivalent to human creativity -> output. Art is not the same as making a basket or glass. There are aspects to those processes that are painful, time consuming and tedious and therefore worth being automated. When it comes to creativity the process is part of the joy, even the painful aspects.
I use AI constantly for work because there is no joy in me whipping up a script or code snippet for something that isn't intellectually stimulating, in our work saving time is a benefit and automating things allow us to focus on the aspects of the work we enjoy. And the truth is AI will often do my work better than me when given the right context.
When I sit down to write some fiction I do not have the same desire to skip the labour and get an LLM to do the work for me. This would remove the entire point of why I do it. My art, be it better or worse than AI art, is an expression of self. This is not a tool as it is for coding, the endgame here is replacement.
Frankly, I find that most of the people that seem so dismissive of creative people's concerns have never attempted a serious creative project themselves and fail to understand the 'why' of art in the first place. If you do not care about meaning, process, and the millenia-spanning conversation that art is then it makes sense why you do not see this as an issue. If you see music as "pleasing sounds" and have no interest in the expressive side then sure, AI art is for you, but then it's not AI art, it's AI sounds, or AI images. Content is not the same as art.
This post will come across snobbish but I cannot find another way to put it. I want to have an open conversation but frequently reading comments that paint creatives as elitist is frustrating when these concerns are genuine. Art is not something that can be optimised and measured, no matter how hard you try, and removing the human aspect is removing the entire point.
I can't put all my thoughts here and I'll save you all the rest of the rant, but as someone with a deep respect for both programming and art I am confident that they are not equivalent despite many HN users treating them as such.
One day I hope to formulate the argument properly, but for now I'll leave you with this.
Nick 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think so? I can see the AI being trained with crowdsourced input like "does picture A look more like a Mondrian than picture B".
You're still screwing Mondrian in this case and the training system would not exist without Mondrian.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> But that doesn't mean that there is any remotely moral case for undoing the green revolution and allowing billions to starve. A question is, is it possible to advance technology to fulfill the green revolution without changing the value of human creativity due to the creation/advancement of genAI? Or past a certain point, the results of discovering improved health and ecological outcomes will become inextricably li…
I have to admit not quite sure what you mean, and I do admit full guilt in starting us down the path of "mixed analogies" :). I'll try my best, though.
> Or past a certain point, the results of discovering improved health and ecological outcomes will become inextricably linked with discovering new technologies that cause conflict? What actually drives such a process?
I do think with respect to life-sustaining things -- medicine, pharma, food, shelter, water, energy -- that a combination of specialization and automation is necessary to increase the collective standard of living, and that labor alienation stems from a combination of specialization and automation.
Where I struggle is coming up with an affirmative argument that an artist should benefit from automation of medicine or farming, but that an alienated lab tech or food factory worker should not benefit from automated art.
Another way to look at this is: the less you pay for art-as-entertainment, the more resources you have to buy free time to produce your soul-work (whatever that may mean to you).
Nick 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…
The whole population is fugueing out.