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

I guess as an indicator of where we are at in 2024, the first thing I wondered when I saw this stunning image was whether it was even real. It looked too perfectly staged to be anything other than a Midjourney prompt.

As for our ability to predict where any of this is going, I remain cautiously pessimistic.



Photo credit: Ice Bed by Nima Sarikhani, U.K. Location: Off Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, Norway. Technical details: Canon EOS-1D X Mark III + 70–200mm f2.8 lens at 200mm; 1/500 at f5; ISO 400. PHOTO BY NIMA SARIKHANI/WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

davidnaroth said:

I personally think the best stocks right now are chip making and gpu making stocks. If and when AI gets there, it will largely be due to the gpu/chipmakers producing enough for them. *not financial advice

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Right. Whether AI takes over the world or not, a lot of hardware will be needed to support the software . The chip makers and GPU makers will be ramping up production like crazy. The brain of AI still needs a body . Time to call my broker !

Epic Wonder said:

Right. Whether AI takes over the world or not, a lot of hardware will be needed to support the software . The chip makers and GPU makers will be ramping up production like crazy. The brain of AI still needs a body . Time to call my broker !

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And that " future "body might look more like quantum computers than massive GPU factories

Post Singularity said:

And that " future "body might look more like quantum computers than massive GPU factories

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This is our new President/King/God?

Epic Wonder said:

This is our new President/King/God?

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Yes it is and just like for the cat until it happens you will be both rich ( alive ) and poor ( dead ) at the same time from buying GPU stocks ( a revolutionary 300 IQ idea )

davidnaroth said:

Here’s an interesting article from the Hollywood reporter on AI art.

AI Companies Take Hit as Judge Says Artists Have “Public Interest” In Pursuing Lawsuits

A federal judge rejected arguments from Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt that the suit is intended to suppress its free speech.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Visual art is kind of the front lines in the regulation of ai art, these kinds of wins are what will ultimately define the environment we will be in once it could do the same with music.

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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.

Nick Batzdorf said:

It's 100% *the* fear!

And as I may have shrieked a few times, it's not art if it's not created by a living being.

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Lol some of that so called human art is in my humble opinion laughable.. A load of bricks or an unmade bed proves how stupid some human beings are in praising up such rubbish..If AI art pushes out those charlatans who make money out of such dross so be it but hopefully not the GENUINE artist

I've already chimed in, but I'll chime in again.

Imagine all those film processing companies that went out of business thanks to the advent of digital photography and filmmaking. Imagine all the stunt actors whose careers were cut short because of CGI. Imagine all those drummers who no longer get hired in the studio because the producer has BFD or EZDrummer or some other fake drum kit that sounds good enough for pop music and is a lot easier to manage. Same for bass players. And violinists. And cellists. And horn players. Or all the engineers who can't get jobs and now teach engineering to bedroom producers instead.

Imagine all the buggy whip manufacturers whose businesses tanked when the motorcar came along.

Rather than fear AI, why not try finding ways to harness it and use it to enhance your creativity? As I've mentioned before, I currently use it to write code for my DAW, because I'm basically clueless as a coder.

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

fallan said:

Lol some of that so called human art is in my humble opinion laughable.. A load of bricks or an unmade bed proves how stupid some human beings are in praising up such rubbish..If AI art pushes out those charlatans who make money out of such dross so be it but hopefully not the GENUINE artist

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LOL you're missing that so-called human art is what makes us human LOL.

So what if a lot of it is shitty, and so what if you - and I - are unmoved by installation art (at least I am for the most part). That's not even what I'm talking about, and it's not the point.

Art history is human history. And all advances in human endeavor - art, science, sports, anything else - require lots of people working on it. Most scientific experiments fail, most people don't make the NBA, etc.

In other words we don't get the hits without the misses.

Now, I happen to agree that the best defense against this perverse techbro garbage is to produce art that no f-ing machine could ever do. But that's always, not because of AI. "They" already have people who can come up with the same music everyone else can produce.

robgb said:

Rather than fear AI, why not try finding ways to harness it and use it to enhance your creativity?

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AI that's used as a tool is great. It's when it's used instead of human creativity - as in saying "make me a picture of xxx" - that I say the end is nigh.

Every person has something unique to offer, no matter how shallow they are!

Human beings have been the apex predators on earth for so long that for many of us our brains are unwilling to imagine becoming the prey. Saying AI is a great tool for humans is delusional. Since a hammer, which is the traditional definition of a tool, has never made a human being's efforts completely obsolete.

The chess world is the canary in a coal mine for example. People have long ago given up on the romantic idea that humans could stay ahead of the computers. Instead, humans use AI in order to validate their own hunches... until the point where many have become uncomfortable even stating what their hunches are without first consulting with the AI consensus. Thankfully there is still the human drama of competition in the world of chess in order to save the sport. But... can you say the same for other forms of art?

The mercurial mind of the world of art has already been supplanted by Capitalism. Just look at all the sound libraries dedicated to Hollywood movies scoring. Really? Do people just sit around appreciating film scores like that? The drones and the rises and the granular special effects just electrifying the human spirit all around the world, young and old? Or is it all about the $$$?

Anyway... humanity has been prepped for the AI art takeover. But... there is still hope. Since AI assaults every profession, artists won't be alone and eventually humans will TRY to make a correction on this issue.

robgb said:

I've already chimed in, but I'll chime in again.

Imagine all those film processing companies that went out of business thanks to the advent of digital photography and filmmaking. Imagine all the stunt actors whose careers were cut short because of CGI. Imagine all those drummers who no longer get hired in the studio because the producer has BFD or EZDrummer or some other fake drum kit that sounds good enough for pop music and is a lot easier to manage. Same for bass players. And violinists. And cellists. And horn players. Or all the engineers who can't get jobs and now teach engineering to bedroom producers instead.

Imagine all the buggy whip manufacturers whose businesses tanked when the motorcar came along.

Rather than fear AI, why not try finding ways to harness it and use it to enhance your creativity? As I've mentioned before, I currently use it to write code for my DAW, because I'm basically clueless as a coder.

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Imagine all you said x 1 000 000 happening over a way shorter period of time and for many more fields , this is unprecedented . How do you solve the problem of millions of people ( not just artists ) becoming useless ? UBI with social credit score ? How do you maintain a democracy when it will be impossible to know what is real or fake ? I think that the problem is much bigger than artists not being able to earn a living or art being devalued and learning to use a "new tool " isn't going to last very long because that tool learns much faster than you

Post Singularity said:

I think that the problem is much bigger than artists not being able to earn a living or art being devalued and learning to use a "new tool " isn't going to last very long because that tool learns much faster than you

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It's definitely bigger, but I'm also skeptical that it's going to render millions of people useless anytime soon. There's been a lot of hyperbole about robots taking over for years, and at the moment we have record low unemployment in the US. You'd also expect productivity to have gone through the roof if robots were going to take over, but that's not in evidence.

And so far technology has created new jobs - not that lots of people also haven't lost them, but in terms of numbers.

But what is at stake here and now is... I keep repeating myself: the soul of humanity. I'm not talking about artists losing work (even though that's obviously a real problem), I mean art itself.

Post Singularity said:

Imagine all you said x 1 000 000 happening over a way shorter period of time and for many more fields , this is unprecedented . How do you solve the problem of millions of people ( not just artists ) becoming useless ? UBI with social credit score ? How do you maintain a democracy when it will be impossible to know what is real or fake ? I think that the problem is much bigger than artists not being able to earn a living or art being devalued and learning to use a "new tool " isn't going to last very long because that tool learns much faster than you

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All the questions you've asked are the very same questions that have been asked when other technologies were introduced to the world and people started shouting it was the end of the world. What we do is we learn and adapt to the new technology. We grow with it rather than against it. Jobs are lost and jobs are gained. It's the way things work.

It is also inevitable. So instead of griping about it, or shouting that the sky is falling, perhaps we should find ways to answer all those questions once again.

If a beaver makes a dam, it is a Beaver dam.

If a human creates art with AI, it is still human art, as the human's made the AI tool.

If anything made out of the elements (Periodic table) is natural, then AI is natural and so are atom bombs etc.

Or... maybe not, as what things are, or are not, is up to the individual mind.

robgb said:

All the questions you've asked are the very same questions that have been asked when other technologies were introduced to the world and people started shouting it was the end of the world. What we do is we learn and adapt to the new technology. We grow with it rather than against it. Jobs are lost and jobs are gained. It's the way things work.

It is also inevitable. So instead of griping about it, or shouting that the sky is falling, perhaps we should find ways to answer all those questions once again.

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More jobs will be lost than will be gained. We just don’t know how many yet. This technology is very different than other technology that has come before it. I’m not sure that people really understand this.

Smart scientists knew that a pandemic would overtake the world at some point. Before COVID, did the average person believe that the entire world would someday shut down due to the spread of a virus? As Mustafa Suleyman states, many fall victim to the ”pessimism avoidance trap.” We have to imagine both the good and bad outcomes of AI. The best outcome requires worldwide cooperation and prioritizing humanity over profits.

robgb said:

All the questions you've asked are the very same questions that have been asked when other technologies were introduced to the world and people started shouting it was the end of the world. What we do is we learn and adapt to the new technology. We grow with it rather than against it. Jobs are lost and jobs are gained. It's the way things work.

It is also inevitable. So instead of griping about it, or shouting that the sky is falling, perhaps we should find ways to answer all those questions once again.

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I understand your little coping mechanism but if your only answer is , " it is the inevitable future we must adapt , own nothing and be happy about it .... " it is just ridiculous . And if too many people think this way , the post democracy transition will be too easy and happen without a fight and extreme violence , not a good thing . The silly " it happened before "/ " It has always been this way " / " it does not exist " arguments are a failed attempt to deconstruct reality . Very rich and powerful people like Zuckerberg are buying islands and building bunkers , maybe they know what is coming and that they can't count on a majority of useful idiots who will hold the belief that change is always inevitable and good .The past might be full of unjustified fears of the " unknown" but it is also full of violent changes in the quest for more freedom , a better life ... now if you want to go the other way ( a high tech low life type of future ) , I hope that a deconstruction of reality and simplistic generic arguments aren't going to be enough to fool the majority .

fallan said:

Lol some of that so called human art is in my humble opinion laughable.. A load of bricks or an unmade bed proves how stupid some human beings are in praising up such rubbish..If AI art pushes out those charlatans who make money out of such dross so be it but hopefully not the GENUINE artist

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oh ffs.
Not all art is about the craft. Art can be a statement. An expression. You don't need to engage with it, but it does not imply stupidity. I don't like all conceptual art, but I'm super thankful for the human race that it exists.

Art changes the world. I'm just getting to the end of reading a bunch of work by the wonderful composer/musicologist/philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. Much of his writing is extremely relevant today given recent tech breakthroughs and how they are changing the world. His views on art / culture alongside democracy and governance and social change resonate all these years later.

Noeticus said:

If a beaver makes a dam, it is a Beaver dam.

If a human creates art with AI, it is still human art, as the human's made the AI tool.

If anything made out of the elements (Periodic table) is natural, then AI is natural and so are atom bombs etc.

Or... maybe not, as what things are, or are not, is up to the individual mind.

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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.