The AI Unbundling • Hacker News Board

Re: The AI Unbundling

#121

Post by laingc » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

enord wrote: post #85

gizmo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sad reality is that modern art is largely trash. Perhaps because painting/drawing/sculpting with excellent technique is too much of a commodified trade already. Perhaps because it's too hard to be original. A new oil painting of a tree, no matter how well executed, won't draw people to an art gallery. So artists take refuge in social commentary: A banana taped to a wall. A naked person holding a trash bar…

You have convinced me quite thoroughly that you have not availed yourself much of what modern art has on offer. If I am right, it would behoove you to not speak so surely of that which you do not know or care to understand.

I have tried, through a very good friend who is an artist. She has exhibited at some major galleries in Europe, and I’d say she knows her stuff.

Much as I love my friend, after the exposure I’ve had to modern art I have to agree that it is almost without exception meaningless trash.

Look, let’s just be real for a moment here. Take a step back and ask yourself what’s more likely: that (A) there really is something deep and mysterious about the banana-on-the-wall or (B) most actual artistry disappeared with the invention of photography and modern artists are LARPing, sustained by taxpayer handouts and the financial fumes of the money laundering and tax evasion that high end art is used for.

Modern art is a joke, and everyone including the artists know it.

Re: The AI Unbundling

#122

Post by BeFlatXIII » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #63

mejutoco wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People will insist that SD art isn't real art. Artists will fight back, and lose. When talking about Stable Diffusion and art there are usually two different aspects of art. I am not going to try to define art, but sometimes we refer to art as illustration, or stock images (what SD puts in danger) and some as broad modern art. I am no trying to say that one is more valuable than the other, but want to qualify these…

I think the sad reality is that modern art is largely trash. Perhaps because painting/drawing/sculpting with excellent technique is too much of a commodified trade already. Perhaps because it's too hard to be original. A new oil painting of a tree, no matter how well executed, won't draw people to an art gallery. So artists take refuge in social commentary: A banana taped to a wall. A naked person holding a trash bar…

The absurdity that statement art highlights is how artistic merit is assigned more so on the artist than on any inherent quality of the art itself.

Re: The AI Unbundling

#123

Post by SilasX » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #33

Although we talk a lot about disruption, only very few technologies are truly disruptive. You can tell by the panic and awe in the air whether you're dealing with real disruption or incremental change. Dropbox made filesharing easier. It's a good product, but not disruptive. Nobody panicked that Dropbox would make their job redundant. Uber was hard on the taxi industry, but fundamentally you still have drivers taking…

> Uber was hard on the taxi industry, but fundamentally you still have drivers taking people from A to B. First you had to call the cab company now you use an app. It's an improvement, but not truly disruptive. Not like level 5 self-driving cars would be.

>Amazon and Walmart by contrast did disrupt entire industries. Independent book shops and mom&pop retailers saw the writing on the wall. They knew they couldn't survive facing this kind of competition, and largely, they didn't.

Sorry, I’m still not seeing the distinction you’re making between these cases. You say that with Uber, it makes no difference because there are still drivers going from “point A to B” (a pickup to a destination), but it was a huge difference with Walmart because small shops “saw the writing on the wall”.

But … in both cases you have the same service still being provided (rides and retailing) and the unprofitability of smaller providers (small shops vs taxicab companies).

If there is a difference between the two, could you highlight it clearly and in plain language?

Re: The AI Unbundling

#124

Post by enord » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #113

enord wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have convinced me quite thoroughly that you have not availed yourself much of what modern art has on offer. If I am right, it would behoove you to not speak so surely of that which you do not know or care to understand.

You're not justifying your premise, so those two sentences are essentially free of content. Mind if I use them in my gallery's modern art exhibition?

If you do not see how you are subverting the very argument that states your position, I don’t know what to tell you.

If you do — touché; well played to you Sir!

Re: The AI Unbundling

#125

Post by zcw100 » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #120

mejutoco wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People will insist that SD art isn't real art. Artists will fight back, and lose. When talking about Stable Diffusion and art there are usually two different aspects of art. I am not going to try to define art, but sometimes we refer to art as illustration, or stock images (what SD puts in danger) and some as broad modern art. I am no trying to say that one is more valuable than the other, but want to qualify these…

> In the modern art interpretation artists will not lose to SD. SD will enable them to do different things. Indeed. There was a time in the past ages in which one had to wait for a certain dye to arrive in your local merchant, take it and mix it with another dye in order to be able to paint a color that you need painted in your painting. They also waited and scoured for brushes and other supplies. Those tools and sup…

This reminds me of the early days of the synthesizer. Oh, no. Music is over. First it was novel and interesting, then it was poorly done and cliche and then the artists did what they do, they turned it into something new and fresh and then it was awesome. Same story, new tech. I'm just keeping my eye out for the Stevie Wonder of SD.

Re: The AI Unbundling

#126

Post by visarga » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 7:10 PM UTC

clankyclanker wrote: post #119

sinenomine wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This nitpick about hands sounds desperate. Here we are, with a tech so powerful that it overshadows the default hype it's surrounded by (no small feat, most technologies fail to live up to the hype as you know) ... and the critics merely move the goalpost a tiny bit further, even if the tech scales so well as to make their new goalpost irrelevant in a year.

Sure, but eventually we’re going to hit on environmental and cost-effective power limits of training, and it’s not worth the cost to train the model. AFAIUI, that’s part of the point that Gebru was trying to make before she was fired.

Gebru doesn't have anything good to say about AI, it's only downsides. She's biased being an activist and all.

Re: The AI Unbundling

#127

Post by enord » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

laingc wrote: post #121

enord wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have convinced me quite thoroughly that you have not availed yourself much of what modern art has on offer. If I am right, it would behoove you to not speak so surely of that which you do not know or care to understand.

I have tried, through a very good friend who is an artist. She has exhibited at some major galleries in Europe, and I’d say she knows her stuff. Much as I love my friend, after the exposure I’ve had to modern art I have to agree that it is almost without exception meaningless trash. Look, let’s just be real for a moment here. Take a step back and ask yourself what’s more likely: that (A) there really is something dee…

Oh A for sure! People are not idiots (generally). It is in fact not just us, the cool smart guys, who «see the world for what it really is» or «don’t like to waste our time with pointless sophistry». Everybody does!

I can tell you’re the kind of thoughtful serious guy who likes good, tasteful and neccesary things, and yet! You dislike bad, tasetless and unneeded things. I do too, and so does everyone else, on balance.

Ps: I feel obliged to remind you to not say the quiet part out loud. Not because the elephant in the room might trample you, but because at least one reader had to muster heroic amounts of good faith to not dismiss out of hand the substance of your post due to form. And even still, I could not abstain from this disclaimer.

Re: The AI Unbundling

#128

Post by munificent » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

sinenomine wrote: post #97

gizmo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sad reality is that modern art is largely trash. Perhaps because painting/drawing/sculpting with excellent technique is too much of a commodified trade already. Perhaps because it's too hard to be original. A new oil painting of a tree, no matter how well executed, won't draw people to an art gallery. So artists take refuge in social commentary: A banana taped to a wall. A naked person holding a trash bar…

Trash, but trash minted through an entrenched network of art curators, directors and connoisseurs - this is what makes trashy modern art scarce and valuable, not to mention the tax breaks! What I and some insiders consider the real art - that is, applying rare well-developed talent to production of unapologetically high-quality sensual artifacts of art - is mostly commercialized by now, with best people employed by t…

> I have nothing but respect for the talent it takes to create something that is valuable on its own (contrast with modern art, not valuable without of the context of its social network)

All art is only valuable within the context of its social network. If you leave the Mona Lisa in the woods, the only real "value" it will hold is as a shelter for bugs.

I think what really bothers you here is about which social networks define the value for certain kinds of art. High technical skill art in service of mass media artifacts like videogames and films is sort of the most "democratic" of uses of art. Almost everyone can perceive its value and it asks little of the consumer in return.

Contemporary art, the kind of stuff people here on HN hate, is different. It is deliberately created to provide value only to the small set of people with the context to appreciate it. It's sort of a continuation of a very long conversation that if you haven't been on the inside of, you miss out on. That leads naturally to valid claims of elitism. (The fact that it's also used as a large scale money laundering enterprise by the very rich certainly doesn't help.)

The unfortunate part is that the collateral damage this inflicts on the general idea of niche art. Anyone who has ever created can tell you that the more specific of an audience you target, the more deeply your art can move them. If you're trying to write a song that a billion people will like, it can only be about the most banal of platitudes. Now write a song about what it's like to lose one's spouse to alcoholism and turn to drinking to deal with it. Few people can relate to it, but the ones who can, well, you can pierce their soul.

The idea that you need context to understand a piece of art is totally valid and one of the most important tools an artist has at their disposal. Likewise, it's not a failing when a piece of art only aims for a small targeted audience. Don't let the snobbery and elitist trash of the contemporary art scene taint those concepts.

Re: The AI Unbundling

#129

Post by Jevon23 » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

sinenomine wrote: post #105

Jevon23 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we’ll see how it performs, if it’s ever made public. The 20B images don’t look that much more impressive than what SD is already doing (aside from the ability to render text), and in some cases they look worse. It’s hard to tell because the resolution is so small, but even in the 20B “astronaut riding a horse through a pond” image, it looks like his hands are still nonsensical.

This nitpick about hands sounds desperate. Here we are, with a tech so powerful that it overshadows the default hype it's surrounded by (no small feat, most technologies fail to live up to the hype as you know) ... and the critics merely move the goalpost a tiny bit further, even if the tech scales so well as to make their new goalpost irrelevant in a year.

It's not a nitpick. It might be a nitpick if hands were the only thing it couldn't do. But it struggles with a lot more than just hands.

>the tech scales so well as to make their new goalpost irrelevant in a year.

This just brings me back to my original question. Self-driving cars have been "a year away" for many years now, and now companies are starting to hint that human assistance may be required for the foreseeable future [1]. So, why the confidence that art will be an easy problem to solve with just more scaling, when that approach hasn't eliminated the need for humans in any other domain?

[1]https://www.reuters.com/technology/truly-autonomous-cars-may...

Re: The AI Unbundling

#130

Post by sixQuarks » Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #17

I am very, very excited about Stable Diffusion and similar technologies. I do see a ton of pushback from human artists who seem fairly venomous in their attacks. But I tend to believe that this will pass once we have a new normal and they will use these AI assisted techniques to enhance their abilities.

In the short term, It will certainly enhance artist’s abilities, Because artists still have that creative aspect that AI does not

But what happens when AI becomes more creative than humans? There will really be no need for a human artist at that point.