From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free 🇵🇸
I know someone that does algorithmic art with Python and WebGL. There’s a skill behind it.
Just like there’s art and skill behind the work that runs modern LLMs.
Found art is art. So is algorithmic, multimedia, etc.
Running an LLM and feeding it yours and your friends’ own art to train on? Go for it.
Art generated solely for profit, by billionaires, through piracy methods they’d sue the fuck out of you for using? Trash.
Why would it suddenly stop being art because you pirated it? It’s a film made by humans. That’s art regardless of profit.
Meta and other companies made it about money when they stole work specifically to make a profit. How those artists get compensated is a problem for tech to figure out since it dug this hole. Maybe they can look at how streaming artists earn revenue as an example. Even if I was giving my work away for free, I’d like to be made aware if AI tools are using it—for profit or not—so I can opt-in/out.
I define art as something made by a being with consciousness. I choose to not define AI-generated imagery as art because in its current state, it’s made under questionable pretense and solely for profit.
Meta pirated a fuckload of written literature for its training data. Books that those artists sell to make a living as an author. It’s not all about money but sometimes it is, isn’t it? And if you want to speak a language that corporate America understands, it’s money. Should the authors not be compensated?
“Skill” is indeed better suited here. The problem is also who holds the keys. The current state of capitalism wants the shortest route to produced assets because it means they can cut even more costs and reduce headcount. Get rid of writers and now artists? That’s more money in their pockets. It’s amazing tech that has been created with the wrong goals in mind, by people that had these conversations behind closed doors, with all key figures excluded—and I haven’t even touched on the environmental impacts.
Art for me has always held unique power because I think of the steps the creator went through and the pivots they made. Why they decided with this color palette; what inspired them; what it means to them. All things that are devoid in AI-generated art. I’m also heavily biased as an artist and former graphic artist—both roles that are very quickly vanishing. I got lucky by pivoting to programming.
Marx predicted that automation would bring about an era where people would work alongside machines to maintain and keep them running smoothly. The human’s job would be made easier. Turns out the real capitalist desire is full on replacement of the worker in a lot of cases and IMO that has tainted the idea of modern day AI.
Art isn’t all about money. That’s the point. AI requires money and resources that only multi-billion dollar corporations can cough up (which is counter to what art and access to art are about), and they still couldn’t be bothered to have a discussion with artists and come up with an agreement where they actually get compensated (or at least credited??). AI-generated imagery is 100% about profit only. It’s about pushing artists out of the picture—a thing companies have been trying to do for years.
Artists should at least have a say in where their work goes, even if it’s not about them being financially compensated. It’s about having a fair conversation, instead of billionaires dominating the conversation once again.
That’s my secondary issue with it.
My issue is less with AI and more with how capitalism has mucked up an opportunity.
Photography is art. You have to have an eye for a shot. You capture a moment with a device you’ve spent time learning and adjusting to get it just right. Art takes time. Typing shit into a prompt field is not comparable. But okay.
The funny thing is I’ve been in tech for 20 years. I’m a digital and traditional artist that has been drawing in some form since I was a kid. My dad worked for NASA and was a big influence. I’ve built software that uses AI. So I’m not some dummy that is against all technological advancements. I’m against tech that is used to exploit artists, and tech bros that claim to be artists because they wrote a prompt in 5 minutes.
I don’t care how you perceive the term art. This ain’t art. The Meta lawsuit comes to mind. The one where they were caught illegally training their LLM on authors’ works without their permission, using a pirated source, while still trying to argue that it was perfectly fair.
If I use computer software to type up a letter instead of writing it, I’m not benefiting off the backs of everyday joes
If I use a computer to calculate math, I’m not stealing a working Joe’s job
If I use a computer to type a prompt for an image generator and it spits out an image, I’m benefiting off the backs and the works of the unknowing artists the AI vacuumed up
If I use AI to write a book, I’m benefitting off of the authors’ works that Meta never paid any money to, while shadily downloading all of their books from torrent websites
Your comparison here falls flat because AI image generation is a unique scenario. Computers aren’t the issue; corporate AI is.
The AI community had an opportunity to be conflict-free and fair. A public utility that wasn’t created via theft and exploitation. Companies had an opportunity to ask the art community to willingly contribute to it and have something everyone can equally benefit from. Capitalists took that opportunity away and fucked up the entire thing.
Capitalism is the core of the problem and AI art ain’t art.
It’s true. AI images ain’t art. It’s a best guess amalgamation by a computer, made with the stolen remnants of actual art created by actual artists, while not compensating them at all.
It runs on a platform none of us can even afford to run. Cost prohibitive and limits who has access to it.
It’s made by capitalists striving for profit and nothing else. So it’s built with the wrong intentions in mind. Intentions that are immediately at odds with what art is. Yet another limitation of who can participate in it.
Its current state can’t exist without the theft of tons of other actual art to try and imitate, while having no actual context or idea what anything is.
It’s not producing art; it’s producing a way for capitalists to fire and not hire artists so that they can pocket the extra money for their yachts and summer homes.
It’s absolutely everything art isn’t nor ever will be. Art is for everyone. AI is for rich, talentless corporate ghouls.
I’ve been playing it on the Deck for the past couple weeks and it runs really well. I think the only thing I changed was UI text size (made it larger). It will hit some slight FPS drops in places, but it’s a manageable dip and doesn’t affect gameplay.
I wfh and do this every day. No regrets.
Best advice I can give is delete all of your US-based social media. I did and I regret nothing.
Google services are kinda like those family members you’ll only come see at family gatherings, but you otherwise don’t let them into any other aspect of your life.
There might be a Decky plugin that allows you to send alerts likes that.
Edit: here’s the plugins list.
I can’t tell if Gary Spivey is for real or if it’s a satire act, but the dude looks like he’s having a blast either way.
If they aren’t already in my contacts, they don’t get a reply.
That person has messaged me like 6 times all under different usernames. I block each one. This is hilarious.
A bunch of superfluous code that you find does nothing.
And then 12 hours spent debugging and pulling it apart.
Why don’t you have a talk with the capitalists that made it about profit in the first place. Nobody is saying money makes it art. That’s the fucking point. It’s not. Capitalism forced it to be.