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Another AI company wrote us and here’s our response

warandpeas.com

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

#61

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.

The actual washing of the dishes we have automated, not the loading unloading, folding of clothes and organizing them in my closet. I spend at least 1 hour a week on that stuff… ~52hours per year I could be doing art and writing.

1 hour a week means you live alone. Add a partner and a kid or two, and someone will be spending one hour a day on unloading and sorting laundry into right wardrobes.

(On average. Realistically, it's more like a day and a half every two weeks or something).

Chores are terrible life suckers, and I for one subscribe to the notion of eliminating them with technology.

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

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see no reason why "their passion" should overrule profit-seeking. This viewpoint is what fucked up the world.

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…

> No, this viewpoint is the only reason a shirt doesn't cost a month's wages.

But that shirt would last you decades with good maintenance, because it was a quality product that was made to be repaired by other craftspeople throughout it's service life (or even just yourself!). Now we have can have hundreds of shirts for that same money but all of them suck, are made cheaply, fall apart after a couple of years if we're lucky, and are made by people who can't afford to buy them in a country we've never seen. How is this an improvement in literally any way, apart from it makes fast fashion companies shitloads of money? It's worse for the people making the clothes, wearing the clothes, and selling the clothes. It's worse for the environment because now we're making and destroying millions of articles of clothing, not to mention shipping it here and there and everywhere. And, for all that, we still have people who don't have enough fucking clothing.

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

#63
If you struggle online selling your art because of AI, your Art is not good enough and AI was not the problem to begin with.

A lot of friends around me are really good in drawing. They do not sell anything. A friend can draw really really good like photoreal, he also can barley life from this.

All of this was before AI.

I want to use AI for customization and not because i don't appreciate art.

If an artist gets frustrated because of some AI companies, sry to say but i don't think you are honest to yourself.

I also still hate this 'companies grabed our art and now we hate it'. Everyone looked at art from others to learn from art. There is very little unique art styles and just because someone else did it, doesn't mean that someone else can't come up with it.

Btw. i do photography for 20 years. No one wants to buy my prints either. But i still don't mind AI training on all my pictures. Why? I really really believe that AI will enable us to do a lot more and is necessary to achieve a Star Trek like system were we will have time again to actually persue art because all the capitalism bullshit like ads ads ads and ads (don't forget ads) will be less relevant to us.

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

#64

> 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.

Alternative viewpoint - some creative people don't enjoy the actual physical act of making a creation a reality. For me, I don't particularly enjoy programming, but I love building things. I had hoped that AI would allow me to build things in a way that skips past or trivializes the stuff I don't like (it hasn't, because I'm still a much more competent programmer than "AI" is).

With art, though - I have some disabilities I don't feel the need to mention here, and am not particularly gifted at drawing or making art. I love making comics but I can't draw. AI allows me to make things like that now. It's been fantastic for someone like me, although I completely understand the arguments presented here by people that create for a living, I do think this is inevitably a losing battle because creating visual stuff is something this current iteration of generative AI seems to be pretty decent at.

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

#65

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…

But Cotton is not Culture.

Most art is not culture either. It is mundane movie shots, textbook drawings, logos, etc. Tailored shirts have not gone away. Custom fabric patterns have not gone away.

All that has disappeared is every shirt being tailored, custom, and expensive.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just like it's foolish to think corporate programmers will be a thing at some point in the future. I don't think corporate programmers are obsolete. How will a sophisticated AI programmer in the future be any different than a human programmer in an outsourcing firm?

The role will remain, but the job will change dramatically into one with a higher level of product focus. The "software craftsmen" type will become more obsolete than they are already. RAM used to matter. Now, who even looks at how much RAM their app uses?

Both product and middle management seems just as ripe a target for automation as coding. Why do you think that can't be automated away?

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

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just like it's foolish to think corporate programmers will be a thing at some point in the future. I don't think corporate programmers are obsolete. How will a sophisticated AI programmer in the future be any different than a human programmer in an outsourcing firm?

The role will remain, but the job will change dramatically into one with a higher level of product focus. The "software craftsmen" type will become more obsolete than they are already. RAM used to matter. Now, who even looks at how much RAM their app uses?

And that is why everyones phones an computers are slow because every application eats as much RAM as possible.

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

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just like it's foolish to think corporate programmers will be a thing at some point in the future. I don't think corporate programmers are obsolete. How will a sophisticated AI programmer in the future be any different than a human programmer in an outsourcing firm?

The role will remain, but the job will change dramatically into one with a higher level of product focus. The "software craftsmen" type will become more obsolete than they are already. RAM used to matter. Now, who even looks at how much RAM their app uses?

> Now, who even looks at how much RAM their app uses?

I do, constantly. In large swaths of software engineering, RAM and other resources are still scarce enough to require careful consideration in their use.

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

#69

I'm curious how developers' sentiment towards code generation tools like Copilot compares to artists' sentiment towards art generation tools like MJ/SD/DallE. As a developer myself, I want to see coding as a creative act and feel uneasy about the idea of relying on a tool that makes the code one tab away. But I also recognize most of the coding we do is in a commercial context where artistic expression is less releva…

Copilot makes me able to focus on the creative parts of programming instead of all the boilerplate and other unfun stuff.

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

#70
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most artists, like most programmers are working in a commercial capacity. I see no reason why "their passion" should overrule profit-seeking. Do art for the sake of art on your own time. But expecting companies to not embrace AI to do their jobs is foolish just like it's foolish to think corporate programmers will be a thing at some point in the future.

I suspect most artists (and I used to be one, at one time[0 - 1]), would take advantage of AI tools. I suspect that the posting was really just exhibitionism, on the part of the site owners (I really wouldn't bother with that kind of thing, myself). But I think that telling people to do a good job "on their own time," kinda sums up the zeitgeist of today's tech industry. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/art/Cavalier.…

I like 'em, but visiting /art in search of more gave me a 403. Fantasy art forbidden!
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