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Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

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Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#141

Post by lovethevoid »

falcolas wrote: post #120
kapp_in_life wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but many people who are bad at art and writing would like AI to make art and writing that's tailored to their tastes and are fine doing laundry and dishes since they're good at that and we have already automated 99% of it with dishwashers and dryers.

> many people who are bad at art and writing The thing is, you can get better at these. They are just creative skills that get better with practice (much like coding et.al.). And the skill will let you do things you can't do with AI. > are fine doing laundry and dishes since they're good at that and we have already automated 99% of it with dishwashers and dryers. With the minimal amount of sarcasm or ill intent possi…

You can also get better at those skills while also using AI. It’s not really an absolute. You can generate outlines sketches so you can practice shading techniques as a simple example.

There are also those who don’t want to get better at those skills, as those skills are just a temporary medium. For example someone making pottery might be terrible at drawing and creating ideas, so they generate some and then get to working with clay. Essentially, references.

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#142

Post by lovethevoid »

nicholassmith wrote: post #117
throwawaysleep wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this viewpoint is the only reason a shirt doesn't cost a month's wages. Weavers once had similar arguments, decrying machinery that made cloth. Imagine how many more video games and movies can be made when we don't need anywhere near as many artists as before. How many more diagrams in textbooks. How many extra illustrations for Wikipedia. There are tremendous benefits to making art something anyone can get for d…

Another take on this point, the race to the bottoming of shirts has been a disaster ecologically and has fostered a throwaway culture where people don't take care or pride in an item of clothing. There's benefits on reducing the barrier to entry, but profound downsides to it as well.

That applies to everything, including food.

Industrialization is fun isn’t it?

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#143

Post by [deleted] »

esafak wrote: post #138
renewiltord wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is a creative director and she loves using this stuff. It's just another thing that she's added to her toolkit. It's actually remarkable to me how different people react to this stuff and just one more reason she and I are well-matched. Our reactions to LLMs and Diffusion Models are very similar. These are just new tools for us to accomplish what we want to do. She used to draw on paper, then a Wacom, now she…

You can get work done with LLMs but you will not learn if you don't reflect on it. Some things are not worth learning and that is okay.

[deleted]

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#144

Post by falcolas »

rewgs wrote: post #97
londons_explore wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterargument is that AI lets those without the skills take part too. AI can help someone bring their musical ideas to fruition, draw pictures, or write stories. There is still creative direction from a human - and now, rather than having to be a highly skilled human, it can now be almost anyone. In a way, AI brings creativity to the masses who aren't lucky enough to have the time to hone skills that would take…

More people would be "lucky enough to have the time to hone skills" if investment in AI were directed towards solving actual problems. As a former professional musician, let me tell you: the skills are not the problem here. People don't not make art because they don't have the skills. They don't make art because they have nothing to say, nothing to express. The skills are a byproduct of having a worldview, a perspect…

I don't necessarily disagree with your viewpoint, but sometimes the lack of a proper voice makes it impossible to identify that you have a perspective that can be expressed.

Iterating to get the right output from a prompt- and waiting for the output to be generated - is not an instantaneous endeavor. How much improvement could someone see if they dedicated that time to drawing or writing practice instead?

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#145

Post by relaxing »

throwaway55533 wrote: post #105

> Social Media platforms cannot grow without engaging and original content, made by people. This is the basis for any user to join. Creators have – in large part – not been privy to the rewards that these platforms have generated over the years even though they are the reason for platform growth. Disagree. People use social media for plenty of other reasons than to consume artists' content. Sharing news with family a…

Since you apparently weren’t around for the rise of social media (ca. 2000-2020 C.E.), let me fill you in: user posts are content, too.

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#146

Post by mrweasel »

japhyr wrote: post #57

> Storytelling is personal. It is a connection between the writer and the reader. Without this personal connection, storytelling loses its purpose. I read a book many years ago called If this is your land, where are your stories? One of the sections described how a group of native people from western Canada successfully reclaimed some of their land by telling stories in court. They lost their case in a lower court, b…

The suggestion you can do "storytelling without the need for personal content creation." says a lot about how that company views content. Content is a means to make money, it's not about telling a meaningful story or conveying information, it's about eyeballs and revenue.

It's all rather terrible.

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#147

Post by falcolas »

rbetts wrote: post #99
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #4

> most artists love their work and do not want to outsource their passion to a machine that does this for them. This was the money quote. I love what I do (which tends to be programming, but I approach it as a craft), and often do things by hand, that others automate, because I love my work, and also the people that use it.

"Please don't take my job. Take my accountant's job instead."

"Take my bosses' job. Any of my bosses. I've got 8."

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#148

Post by falcolas »

Havoc wrote: post #10

Also on todays news - in the github copilot (and OpenAI) case about stolen content the judge dismissed majority of it: https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2024/07/08/github_copilot_dm... I do sympathise with the creatives on an emotional level but it’s looking like the laws won’t

Always worth remembering as we watch these cases go through the system that "legal" and "moral" (or even "benefits society") are not the same thing. They are usually intended to be the same thing, but the rule of law will never fully capture the intent, especially as time passes.

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#149

Post by JohnFen »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #73
JohnFen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see no reason why "their passion" should overrule profit-seeking. Companies can and will do whatever they want. However, on the level of the individual, I see no reason why profit-seeking should overrule my passion. I don't code to make money, I code because I love doing it. I make money to allow myself to engage in an activity I find rewarding, I don't engage in that activity to make money. If that activity is n…

I appreciate the post (for what it's worth). I suspect that we are probably considered "anachronisms," in today's culture. I am retired. I didn't want to be retired, but I was told that I'm too old (I was 55, when I retired in 2017) to be playing at programmer; that it's a young man's game, and I should just go and carve decoy ducks in my garage or something. Fortunately, I had enough set aside, that I was able to ju…

> I was told that I'm too old (I was 55, when I retired in 2017) to be playing at programmer;

Maybe you were ready to retire anyway so this doesn't matter -- but you shouldn't believe what you were told on this matter. There are tons of software engineering positions where being on the older end of things isn't considered a handicap.

I'm pushing 60 and find there is plenty of opportunity. About half of the engineers I've worked with over the last 30 years or so have been over 40, many over 50. I have a coworker on my team right now who is one of the best devs I've worked with and is 73.

Re: Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

#150

Post by its_ethan »

falcolas wrote: post #140
its_ethan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's perfectly fine at the individual level (and probably encouraged for most people + their passions), I think the guy above is trying to get at something more like: just because some people are passionate about their thing, doesn't mean other people shouldn't allowed to pursue it for profit-seeking. As someone else has mentioned, just because weavers were/are passionate about what they do, that doesn't mean peopl…

One thing missing from this analysis is how the profit-seeking platforms for AI were directly created from the works of the passionate - something not seen when the loom (or machining tools, etc) was created. Most hobby artists see it as stealing, even if the laws may not agree. And yes, even a hobbiest has the right to make money off their work.

I don't disagree that this is part of what makes this a particularly tangled situation, but it's also true that the loom/ machining tools were created by essentially copying the methods and styles that their non-automated artisans were using.

I won't comment on any of the potential legal differences between AI being trained on an artists work without their knowledge versus Jacquard studying hand-made clothmaking techniques. It's certainly something that needs careful consideration.

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