"Generative AI is the greatest risk to the human creative class that has ever existed"

colony nofi said:

I'm not sure I agree. I need to think more about this. Is the art giving the computer a prompt to create the art? In so far as midjourney goes, I do not believe that to be human art.
Having a piece of music part composed, and then changed / added to by a composer? Sure - there's human art in there, but its not totally human art. Of course, this gets murky when a piece composed by an AI is played by a bunch of humans... there's art in the performance no matter how the piece was created - which is definitely human art.

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I'm saying that if someone uses a brush to paint a painting, is it the brush, or the person using the brush/tool, that has created the painting? If someone uses AI to paint a painting, is it the AI, or the person using the AI/tool, that has created the painting? AI is just another tool that humans have...

fallan said:

Music is different.. I've just had 10 Suno songs copyrighted by the US Copyright office because I came clean an said i used Suno AI but I also inputed verses into the songs edited AIs lines I didn't like and a bit of producing the tracks. Paid what was due and had it completed. They might come back to alter it who knows but haven't heard anything yet.

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Am I right in assuming that the copyrights are for the audio recordings only, and not for the AI outputted “compositions”?

Noeticus said:

I'm saying that if someone uses a brush to paint a painting, is it the brush, or the person using the brush/tool, that has created the painting? If someone uses AI to paint a painting, is it the AI, or the person using the AI/tool, that has created the painting? AI is just another tool that humans have...

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As a painter I can say with confidence that your analogy is pure nonsense.

The difference between a paintbrush and AI is like the difference between using a piano and hiring a composer. The AI isn't "the tool", it's "the artist". You are doing mental gymnastics trying to justify something like "the client hiring the composer has been the real artist all along, the composer was just the tool to execute the idea". I guess that is something most people here would find equally offensive as I find your brush/AI comparison.

MartinH. said:

As a painter I can say with confidence that your analogy is pure nonsense.

The difference between a paintbrush and AI is like the difference between using a piano and hiring a composer. The AI isn't "the tool", it's "the artist". You are doing mental gymnastics trying to justify something like "the client hiring the composer has been the real artist all along, the composer was just the tool to execute the idea". I guess that is something most people here would find equally offensive as I find your brush/AI comparison.

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I don't mean to offend.

So, you view AI as the artist, but I do not, as I view AI as a tool.

In your...

"the client hiring the composer has been the real artist all along, the composer was just the tool to execute the idea"

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Here you have 2 humans interacting, where one human (the client) hires another human (the composer) to create some art.

I don't see the AI tool argument that way, as there is only one human involved, as in the human is using an AI tool. So, the AI is not the artist.

Noeticus said:

So, the AI is not the artist.

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But the person typing the prompt is still just a "client" *), unable to create a painting on their own, providing clumsy instructions in language terms that usually rely on drawing parallels to shared cultural knowledge, that was created by human artists in the first place. Making references to existing styles, genres, artworks or - very popular in the AI generation realm - using the names of real human artists to explain styles that they would never be able to describe in language alone. The AI/artist provides images - no matter how shitty the briefing was - and you (the client) select whatever you find most pleasing or you change the prompt/briefing and iterate through different prompts, RNG seeds, or inpainting revisions, until you're satisfied.

But ultimately that is not much more creative than picking your favorite image out from google search or your favorite song from spotify. Sure, you could argue that it takes your uniquely refined taste that was shaped by your own life experience to arrive at the exact image/song that you deem the "best", and that no other person would choose the same image, but - in my humble opinion - that is merely a delusion masking the fact that this form of creation is 5% idea and 95% consumerist indulgence, with only a fraction of the effort that real artists put into their work, only a fraction of the deliberance, a miniscule amount of choices made compared to the choices a real artist or a real composer makes.

There is a very wide chasm between picking an image you like from a generated batch and making every brushstroke by hand, informed by years of training and practice, the same way there is a wide chasm between a composer selecting every single note of a piece and a client selecting one of a couple sketches the composer submitted. If you can't see how hugely different these things are, there's probably no point in continuing this discussion.



*) and I think this will be a big problem in the future where consumers will increasingly cut out the artists entirely from the content creation chain

MartinH. said:

But the person typing the prompt is still just a "client" *), unable to create a painting on their own, providing clumsy instructions in language terms that usually rely on drawing parallels to shared cultural knowledge, that was created by human artists in the first place. Making references to existing styles, genres, artworks or - very popular in the AI generation realm - using the names of real human artists to explain styles that they would never be able to describe in language alone. The AI/artist provides images - no matter how shitty the briefing was - and you (the client) select whatever you find most pleasing or you change the prompt/briefing and iterate through different prompts, RNG seeds, or inpainting revisions, until you're satisfied.

But ultimately that is not much more creative than picking your favorite image out from google search or your favorite song from spotify. Sure, you could argue that it takes your uniquely refined taste that was shaped by your own life experience to arrive at the exact image/song that you deem the "best", and that no other person would choose the same image, but - in my humble opinion - that is merely a delusion masking the fact that this form of creation is 5% idea and 95% consumerist indulgence, with only a fraction of the effort that real artists put into their work, only a fraction of the deliberance, a miniscule amount of choices made compared to the choices a real artist or a real composer makes.

There is a very wide chasm between picking an image you like from a generated batch and making every brushstroke by hand, informed by years of training and practice, the same way there is a wide chasm between a composer selecting every single note of a piece and a client selecting one of a couple sketches the composer submitted. If you can't see how hugely different these things are, there's probably no point in continuing this discussion.



*) and I think this will be a big problem in the future where consumers will increasingly cut out the artists entirely from the content creation chain

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I DO see the difference. I really like what you have written, but I see the world dialectally.

Things that are defined as stationary are moving at millions of miles per hour depending on your reference frame. So stationary non-moving objects are also moving.

AI is a tool, and isn't a tool, depending on emotional relativity.

For me, if Jackson Pollack can somewhat randomly toss paint on a canvas, and it is art, then when I use AI to somewhat randomly create an output (the canvas) I am far more the artist than the AI is.

The problem is that human have now created a superbrush that allows us to create art far more easily than ever before. It is a paradigm shift. Just because a tool makes something 1000 times easier does not make it not a tool.

colony nofi said:

I'm not sure I agree. I need to think more about this. Is the art giving the computer a prompt to create the art? In so far as midjourney goes, I do not believe that to be human art.
Having a piece of music part composed, and then changed / added to by a composer? Sure - there's human art in there, but its not totally human art. Of course, this gets murky when a piece composed by an AI is played by a bunch of humans... there's art in the performance no matter how the piece was created - which is definitely human art.

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I'm quite sure I disagree (not with you, with what Noeticus is saying).

Sure you give the computer a prompt - "picture of a duck having sex with a piano" - and it comes up with something.

But while that may be amusing in the short term, the problem is when it's masquerading as art. Art is only human. Ordering groceries doesn't make you a farmer; giving a composer vague directions doesn't make you a composer.

Noeticus said:

For me, if Jackson Pollack can somewhat randomly toss paint on a canvas, and it is art, then when I use AI to somewhat randomly create an output (the canvas) I am far more the artist than the AI is.

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But what he did is far from random! For example:


Against my better judgement I just used an analogy in my last post, but every argument against this assault on humanity is an analogy, when it's what's totally different that's important.

I find it hard to understand how so many artists (yes, including composers) are happy to twist themselves into all kinds of contortions to justify this absolutely vile abuse of technology!

Noeticus said:

I'm saying that if someone uses a brush to paint a painting, is it the brush, or the person using the brush/tool, that has created the painting? If someone uses AI to paint a painting, is it the AI, or the person using the AI/tool, that has created the painting? AI is just another tool that humans have...

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But it's not just a tool. When AI is a tool, it's great, for example I'm all for Ozone and Logic having a "make it sound better" mastering button.

This is telling the machine you want it to produce your art for you, and no machine will ever produce art.

As I said, it's always an analogy rather than the differences, which are not just important, they're existential!

Nick Batzdorf said:

This is telling the machine you want it to produce your art for you, and no machine will ever produce art.

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If, in your view, no machine will ever produce art, then it is the user of the machine that is the artist, which is what I have been saying.

Noeticus said:

If, in your view, no machine will ever produce art, then it is the user of the machine that is the artist, which is what I have been saying.

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But you know that's not what I'm saying.

No machine is an artist, what it vomits is not art, and the user of the machine is a wanker, not an artist.

Nick Batzdorf said:

But you know that's not what I'm saying.

No machine is an artist, what it vomits is not art, and the user of the machine is a wanker, not an artist.

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Well, I can agree that the user is a wanker, but still, a "wanker artist" is still an artist.

I have been wanking it lately and "art directed" this with Midjourney v6.
It does not look like vomit to me.

Noeticus said:

Well, I can agree that the user is a wanker, but still, a "wanker artist" is still an artist.

I have been wanking it lately and "art directed" this with Midjourney v6.
It does not look like vomit to me.

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And that's the problem. Of course it can fool you some of the time, but you're not expressing anything.

I hate this complete perversion of humanity with all my soul.

Nick Batzdorf said:

And that's the problem. Of course it can fool you some of the time, but you're not expressing anything.

I hate this complete perversion of humanity with all my soul.

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I'm sorry you feel that way. I do see how it really, really bothers some people.

I am 100% expressing something. I am "art directing" the "machine/tool" to create a vision I have in my head. I do this with humans as well, meaning art direct them, but the irony is that the image above is not something any human artist I have ever worked with could do. And Midjourney did it under a minute. For me it is a great tool. Way better than the old "Etch a sketch".

Noeticus said:

Well, I can agree that the user is a wanker, but still, a "wanker artist" is still an artist.

I have been wanking it lately and "art directed" this with Midjourney v6.
It does not look like vomit to me.

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And are you proud of it? Do you take pride in what has been generated by typing in a few words in prompt for a few seconds? (Forgive me if it actually takes longer, I'm just assuming it's a few seconds).

Would you ever show this to someone and say, "I created this artwork!" (full stop). Or would you admit that it's AI generated and it took almost no effort.

If my occupation is to create stock photos/art, then it's a different story. But as I've mentioned on previous AI threads, I have no emotional connection to art unless a human put some blood, sweat, and tears into it.

Beyond4A said:

And are you proud of it? Do you take pride in what has been generated by typing in a few words in prompt for a few seconds? (Forgive me if it actually takes longer, I'm just assuming it's a few seconds).

Would you ever show this to someone and say, "I created this artwork!" (full stop). Or would you admit that it's AI generated and it took almost no effort.

If my occupation is to create stock photos/art, then it's a different story. But as I've mentioned on previous AI threads, I have no emotional connection to art unless a human put some blood, sweat, and tears into it.

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I am proud of it. It took a lot of trial and error to get it to look the way I wanted.

In the future I will most likely be able to skip text entry all together and just simply talk to the AI and tell it what I want.

It is currently for me a great toy, and great concept art tool. Now I can tell the wardrobe department how I want the hat to look etc.

Maybe this is too general, but;

What if you're one of those people who believe that this current explosion in AI tech, although right now still in its infancy, may just be another human evolutionary stepping stone? And all this talk about whether we should view AI as merely a tool or a possible threat stems from our biased fears of being relegated to some historical footnote, given enough time?

Some might argue that someday, far into the future, the best thing we could do to ensure the legacy of our species is to merge with what we've created, right? And let's say that that future is inevitable, would it still make sense to argue about the definition of art or an artist? Why would having a physical body and a human brain make a difference in this case?

Maybe we're too attached to our current state and our slowly-evolving monkey brains are just having a hard time imagining what the world might look like a thousand, or million, or even a few billion years from now (still a blink of an eye on a cosmic time scale)?

Ann the grand scheme of things, why would it matter if we're destined to go the way of the dodo? Why the self-importance, the arrogance of thinking that humanity will or should last forever? Again, from an evolutionary perspective, I totally get why, but other than that it's all kind of personal and subjective, isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, I personally think we're a species worth preserving and protecting, but I also recognize that on the whole, our universe doesn't seem to care that much about us and that the fact of having a (possibly) infinite amount of time ahead doesn't bode well for us hairless apes/meatbags. The cards seem to be stacked against us even more if you take history into account, too.

So given all that, what should we do - resist change and possibly die trying, or go with the flow and evolve and adapt? Currently, I'm leaning toward the latter.

Or am I talking (nihilistic) sh*t again? That could very well be the case, btw.

@Noeticus cool stuff, that looks like art to me!

Noeticus said:

I am proud of it. It took a lot of trial and error to get it to look the way I wanted.

In the future I will most likely be able to skip text entry all together and just simply talk to the AI and tell it what I want.

It is currently for me a great toy, and great concept art tool. Now I can tell the wardrobe department how I want the hat to look etc.

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I appreciate your response. Using it as a mockup for the wardrobe department is good example of how it could be used.

quickbrownf0x said:

What if you're one of those people who believe that this current explosion in AI tech, although right now still in its infancy, may just be another human evolutionary stepping stone?

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Show me a machine that has biological sexual urges and I won't just dismiss that point of view out of hand. That's my Turing test.

In the meantime let's all contribute as much as we can to humanity while we're passing through, please.

Noeticus said:

It is currently for me a great toy, and great concept art tool. Now I can tell the wardrobe department how I want the hat to look etc.

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For what it's worth, that's using it as a tool. I'm all for that.

Nick Batzdorf said:

Show me a machine that has biological sexual urges and I won't just dismiss that point of view out of hand. That's my Turing test.

In the meantime let's all contribute as much as we can to humanity while we're passing through, please.

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Is replacing maybe up to 80 % of jobs with " just tools " a good contribution to humanity ? Or is it just going to make an ever shrinking tiny % of the population richer and more powerful ? AI will be able to simulate the full range of human emotions very easily , we will even soon start seeing some people advocating for " AI rights " ... I have very little doubts about that