I disagree I think it is pretty scary that we're handing over the generation of cultural artifacts to algorithms. It's also pretty funny to see people like you talk about democratizing art, then in the next breath talk about art as if it has no value, despite that art being extremely valuable to the training of these models in the first place. Hell, this might even make human art more valuable as the price of autogenerated, samey, computer generated sludge goes to zero as the supply explodes.
>I think it is pretty scary that we're handing over the generation of cultural artifacts to algorithms.
Art has always been based on algorithms, the appeal of art is determined purely by the whims of society and the beholders without any regard for the process.
Art that does not suit the algorithms of its time do not survive the test of time.
>It's also pretty funny to see people like you talk about democratizing art, then in the next breath talk about art as if it has no value, despite that art being extremely valuable to the training of these models in the first place.
When everyone can create art, art has no value. Value is always determined by supply against demand, and art is currently poised to see an absolute oversupply in the coming century.
This is also discounting the fact that the real value of art has always been low, "Artists are destitute." isn't a stereotype for no reason. The brutal reality is art really isn't valuable in the first place (it is after all an unnecessary and inefficient luxury) and "AI" is only going to make that fact even further apparent.
>Hell, this might even make human art more valuable as the price of autogenerated, samey, computer generated sludge goes to zero as the supply explodes.
That assumes human art is somehow more valuable than "AI" art, but I don't necessarily believe that could be a constant forever.
Photographs were considered inferior to illustrations when it was first invented, likewise the invention of block printing and then typewriting to calligraphy, and look where we are now.
An algorithm is an algorithm. A problem to be solved, whether by human hands or computers.
In this case, art that succeeds is whatever art is in demand from the people at the time and which the process involved best reflects the ultimate valuation of that art. It's a problem to be solved, aka an algorithm.
Just like how the printing press and the typewriter democratized all forms of writing, where before writing was the sole domain of trained scribes and clerics (hence the terms "inscribing", "clerical error", etc.), so too will "AI" democratize whatever art forms it can satisfactorily produce.
If "AI" ends up replacing artists and creators wholesale, that means the art products thereof were not particularly valuable in the first place. A prominent example would be tabloid and newspaper articles, which have actually been written by "AI"s for quite a long while now.
Is any of this scary? Unless you have money or fame to lose in the shifting sands of time, no it is not. If you are such a person, well you certainly have my sympathy (unless you're a journalist; that occupation is a cancer upon society), but time waits for absolutely noone.
Impressionism, cubism, neoclassical art, these are all the "algorithms" of the time, people made art like that, otherwise they were shunned (at least, until society caught up to their artistic style, like Van Gogh).
So yes, you mean the unique constraints that define a particular kind of art. But that's not really the same thing as an algorithm.
You can certainly come up with algorithms that can result in stuff that conforms to the given restraints, but within the set of those restraints is a large amount of creativity that is no more amenable to algorithmic computation than any other creativity.
Human brains work on algorithms. There is nothing special about humanity on a physical level, we are all simply biological machines. It's not "disgusting," it's the realistic view of humanity.
> everyone _can_ create art today. art still has value.
It's still hilarious to me that the AI side of this argument thinks artists are gatekeeping when all you need to learn is some pens and ream of printer paper, plus a computer with an internet connection. There are literally thousands of videos on youtube from artists teaching you about art. It's maybe the most accessible it has ever been.
I _also_ think he gets the supply and demand argument very wrong. Even viewing it in terms of purely capitalistic impulse, the attention economy is a winner take all kind of deal. Some random ass holes making some trite, meaningless art using the same model will quickly drive the price of the outputs of that model to zero. There's still going to be a huge market for original work that has something to say.
> It's still hilarious to me that the AI side of this argument thinks artists are gatekeeping when all you need to learn is some pens and ream of printer paper, plus a computer with an internet connection. There are literally thousands of videos on youtube from artists teaching you about art. It's maybe the most accessible it has ever been.
Or I could use a tool like Stable Diffusion and create whatever image I want. That's what they mean by supply and demand, when it's this easy, the value of each subsequent image that's created decreases, simply because people will have already seen this type of image.
> I disagree I think it is pretty scary that we're handing over the generation of cultural artifacts to algorithms.
The algorithms don't work for themselves, they are prompted, controlled, and guided by humans, who choose which output lives, which is lost, and which is modified.
