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Fake Fans

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Re: Fake Fans

#41

Post by AJ007 »

ghtbircshotbe wrote: post #32
balamatom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>objectively good >destined for virality Antonyms, in my book. >Any sort of quality, insight, talent, novelty are table stakes So that's why I ain't seeing much of those lately. You sayin' someone left 'em on the table? >If someone is big, they're either extremely lucky, they got in on the ground floor, or there's marketing money behind them. Yes. Meaning, if you're big, I simply do not wish to hear about you or what…

Lately when I watch a video on YouTube, every single one of the recommended videos is AI slop. Not sure what the next 5 years holds. It does make me question the argument that bad AI generated content is equivalent to bad human generated content. And they all have hundreds of thousands of views, another mystery.

A dirty secret is the algorithms can't differentiate real users from fake. The universe of content is so large now, if you don't start with a fake audience you go nowhere. Slop rises to the top, because slopfarms can spend all their money on the farming rather than the content. It's even worse if you look at short form video because it's trivial to clone anything that went viral and alter the message, no real human or attractive 20 year old American required.

If content requires a real human network for transmission, the cost of transmitting slop is your own reputation within your network. A bunch of bots circle jerking each other can't sell concert tickets or much of anything.

The idea that some artist is exceptionally talented and good and they deserve to be famous or sell out concerts is a myth. There are so many exceptionally skilled singers, songwriters, and musicians that are all unknowns. Many who are more talented than (insert famous living or dead pop star here.)

I think this is part of the reason why the AI ruins creativity is overblown. The music-art-talent pyramid always meant a tiny percent at the top walked away with all of the money. Look at the numbers from the last screen actor's guild strike, the majority of actors earn at or below minimum wage. It's a new world, and the old one people believe deserves to continue perpetually existed in but a blink of human civilization.

Re: Fake Fans

#42

Post by fwipsy »

balamatom wrote: post #22
fwipsy wrote: post #5

Recently rereading William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" and I'm struck by his belief that certain art or memes are objectively good and destined for virality. I think both Gibson and this author are wrong. No content is intrinsically destined for success. There are countless amazing artists, available to anyone. Any sort of quality, insight, talent, novelty are table stakes. If someone is big, they're either extrem…

>objectively good >destined for virality Antonyms, in my book. >Any sort of quality, insight, talent, novelty are table stakes So that's why I ain't seeing much of those lately. You sayin' someone left 'em on the table? >If someone is big, they're either extremely lucky, they got in on the ground floor, or there's marketing money behind them. Yes. Meaning, if you're big, I simply do not wish to hear about you or what…

The objective parts of quality (technical skill) are fairly easy to saturate, most serious artists do so, but it's not sufficient to be successful.

Objective quality is common, but it sounds like you've just defined subjective quality to exclude anything mainstream.

You're right that Gibson would not have defined quality and virality to be the same. I should have used "or" in that sentence. However, he still seems to believe that they depend on properties of the content: some things have broad appeal, some things have genuine quality, some things have neither or both, and their success depends on that. I think it's all a crapshoot.

Re: Fake Fans

#43

Post by leviathant »

ehnto wrote: post #21
onion2k wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost to produce art has dropped to zero. The cost to produce an image has dropped to pretty much zero, but whether an image is 'art' is a question people have been struggling with for a long, long time. Art is usually considered to be the expression of something more meaningful than just making a picture, and in order to express something as a work of art you need to live, feel, and experience that thing (or a pr…

I am on the side of humanity here, but people don't pay for art. People pay for status, consumption, image and authenticity. But commercial art consumers, where most artists make a living, ie ad agencies, game studios etc, they actually don't give a shit about any of that. Some do, you can probably think of some, but they are the notable minority. Most don't, most are just out here to make money. They begrudgingly pa…

>I am on the side of humanity here, but people don't pay for art.

Man, maybe you don't hang out with enough artists. It's true, people typically don't make the equivalent of a tech salary for art, but people absolutely pay for art, and artists are able to not only survive, but have the capacity to thrive.

I get what you're saying, and for ad agencies, game studios, etc. that's always been the case (I remember when office supply stores sold CD-ROMs full of Clip Art) All of the sound effects in Doom were from commercially available sample libraries. And this isn't even touching on "gallery scene and art auctions as money laundering facilities" side of things.

I get the impression that most of the people who post about this topic in tech circles are general consumers, already primed for slop by mass manufacture and pop culture. But even through that lens, "people don't pay for art" falls flat - looking at what people pay for Star Trek prop replicas, or buying into the now very diverse Disney ecosystem. Now, a lot of those kinds of folks might be more prone to slurping AI slop (Hey Gemini turn me into a Funko Pop!) but there are still tons of people who value artists and their artistry. I suspect you're just not among those people.

Re: Fake Fans

#44

Post by leviathant »

y-curious wrote: post #16
palmotea wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pieces like this all seem to be written with an unspoken assumption that anyone who wants to make a living wage from being an artist should be able to, as if it's some sort of right. Comments like yours seem to be written with the unspoken assumption that everyone's life should be hard unless they can please the market, which technology makes increasingly difficult. It's deeply anti-human. > AI has exacerbated this…

People are only willing to pay for quality, mostly. I can’t just say that I’m a neurosurgeon because I want to be one. There has always been reward for merit and suffering for lack of merit. Nothing “anti human” about social Darwinism

>People are only willing to pay for quality, mostly.

lol, lmao even.

In America at least, people pay for branding, and to give the impression that they're of a higher standing than they are - whether or not what they're buying is quality. Whether that's someone deeply in debt sporting Luis Vuitton, or a US President putting gold-painted foam ornamentation on the walls of the oval office.

When it comes to the arts, or boutique fashion, or small scale manufacturing, people also pay for parasocial reasons - a variation on the branding angle. Storytelling about the founder, or the people doing the work, pictures of the space where a thing is being made, will give potential buyers a sense that they're paying for authenticity. That's why there are so many garbage ads on social media of a twenty-something talking about the old "one weird trick" that changed their routine... just so they can dropship you some garbage from Aliexpress with a 300% markup.

Re: Fake Fans

#45

Post by RugnirViking »

fwipsy wrote: post #42
balamatom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>objectively good >destined for virality Antonyms, in my book. >Any sort of quality, insight, talent, novelty are table stakes So that's why I ain't seeing much of those lately. You sayin' someone left 'em on the table? >If someone is big, they're either extremely lucky, they got in on the ground floor, or there's marketing money behind them. Yes. Meaning, if you're big, I simply do not wish to hear about you or what…

The objective parts of quality (technical skill) are fairly easy to saturate, most serious artists do so, but it's not sufficient to be successful. Objective quality is common, but it sounds like you've just defined subjective quality to exclude anything mainstream. You're right that Gibson would not have defined quality and virality to be the same. I should have used "or" in that sentence. However, he still seems to…

Your definition, that most art (or even things in general) are of roughly the same quality above some bar of competency is... Difficult to defend.

There are things that are just better than others. Sometimes it's because they take much longer to make (time, materials etc). Other times it's because they go into a new direction (inventions, new genres). Not all things doing these are good. In fact generally, spending more time on something or trying new things results in overbaked garbage. It's genuinely rare and special to hit upon a combination of all three - competent, new, and with high investment put into it.

Just spend time thinking about airport novels, or the countless pop artists the music industry tries to push that get no traction. Or failed hollywood blockbusters. Quality matters.

Re: Fake Fans

#46

Post by probably_wrong »

> One day after this piece went up, Chaotic Good made significant changes to their website — including pulling the “Narrative Campaign” section completely.

I checked the Internet Archive but I cannot access any of the archived versions. Apparently the website uses JS to display its content and the IA can't deal with it. Internet searches show that the page existed, though, so I'll take the content deletion as proof.

Re: Fake Fans

#47

Post by t-3 »

cobbzilla wrote: post #13
doctorpangloss wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Saying something like that is the loudest signal for how out of touch you are with how audiences are made. From the article: > "...it’s like the first thing that they see or that first comment that they see is their opinion even when they haven’t heard the whole album.” What is this trying to say? For every 1 person who thinks about truth in some independent way, I don't care if it's spiritual or because…

> Likes = truth sounds like pop culture = art which is obviously not true

But it's what at least some people making/selling music believe, or else they wouldn't be buying likes.

Re: Fake Fans

#48

Post by armchairhacker »

probably_wrong wrote: post #46

> One day after this piece went up, Chaotic Good made significant changes to their website — including pulling the “Narrative Campaign” section completely. I checked the Internet Archive but I cannot access any of the archived versions. Apparently the website uses JS to display its content and the IA can't deal with it. Internet searches show that the page existed, though, so I'll take the content deletion as proof.

https://archive.md/AjZPm

Re: Fake Fans

#49

Post by fwipsy »

RugnirViking wrote: post #45
fwipsy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The objective parts of quality (technical skill) are fairly easy to saturate, most serious artists do so, but it's not sufficient to be successful. Objective quality is common, but it sounds like you've just defined subjective quality to exclude anything mainstream. You're right that Gibson would not have defined quality and virality to be the same. I should have used "or" in that sentence. However, he still seems to…

Your definition, that most art (or even things in general) are of roughly the same quality above some bar of competency is... Difficult to defend. There are things that are just better than others. Sometimes it's because they take much longer to make (time, materials etc). Other times it's because they go into a new direction (inventions, new genres). Not all things doing these are good. In fact generally, spending m…

Not of the same quality, just that the objective parts of quality have been mastered by many people. What sets art apart beyond that is individual taste. "Newness" is definitely subjective; it depends on what you've seen before (though it is correlated for people within a culture.)

I suspect that you criticize airport novels, pop music, cliched movies because they are similar to stuff you've seen before. (I hope that you've tried them, and aren't just criticizing them on the perception that they're lowbrow.) But people who hadn't seen them before could still enjoy them.

You eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant. I eat a bowl of oatmeal and I enjoy it just as much. What makes your meal better?

Re: Fake Fans

#50

Post by armchairhacker »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #14

Pieces like this all seem to be written with an unspoken assumption that anyone who wants to make a living wage from being an artist should be able to, as if it's some sort of right. It would be nice if that were true. AI has exacerbated this issue. Suddenly we're faced with the uncomfortable truth that much of human artwork is "mid" as the kids would say and people aren't willing to pay for songs, writing, and/or gr…

Nobody has an intrinsic right to anything, but I believe art makes the world a much nicer place to live in, inspiring people to behave and advance society in more direct ways.

It’s hard or impossible to fairly select people, because someone has to produce food, shelter, etc. But I believe society should strive to allow more people to spend little enough time and effort in other work so they can devote themselves to art and other creative pursuits.

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