I know you can buy used and refurbished actually, that’s how I got my pixel. It’s still buying a Google phone. It still breaks free from Google. You have now reached the point of just regular old illiteracy I guess

Thanks for taking the time to express your reasoning without being pointlessly sassy with me. It really sucks that just because I’m trying to express a sliver of devil’s advocacy here, I get people dogpiling on me and imagining me to be something I’m not. Frustrating and disappointing. Anyways I really appreciate your comment in light of all that.

I am an artist myself, I spend a ton of time making art and thinking about how to make more successful art, analyzing art, philosophizing about art, etc. Please believe me when I say that I understand the approach you describe as a value of art and a way of valuing art. I definitely think that one of the great joys of art is in thinking about the human reasoning behind it. I have cried tears of joy from doing theoretical analysis of baroque music, because I felt as if the composer was alive again by my side, so much did I understand the thought process behind the composition.

That said, I don’t think the approach you describe is the only way to value art, and I think we do art a great disservice to treat that as the only way. I believe in “the death of the author” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author), and I believe that a work can have an intrinsic meaning that is possibly entirely different from the author’s intent. The essence of a work is the work itself. For example, imagine if you learned that The Bee Movie was intended to be a heart-wrenching metaphor for drug addiction. Would you now think that this is indeed what the movie is about? Or would you think “the movie is what it is, it means what its always meant, and the creator just failed to create what they intended”?

It can be fun to connect with the artist and look for meaning in their work through the lens of the artist, but the work has an intrinsic meaning in itself. Let me ask you this one question:

You’ve likely heard of the famous “shortest story” that goes like this: “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Let us suppose that the author of this story had never written it. Instead, I’ve created a machine that randomly selects 6 words and punctuation written on pieces of paper from a jar, and lays them out to form gimmicky short 6-word stories. Most of these stories are gibberish nonsense, but eventually the machine just so happens to lay out exactly the text of that baby shoes story. In this case, does the story somehow no longer have meaning to you? To me, it seems as though the story must have the same meaning. The entire content of the work is the same. And to me this demonstrates that it is the work itself which gives the work meaning, not the intent of its creator.

~~Here’s a summary:

Your simplistic and idiotic worldview, and your unwillingness to consider being wrong, is not the clever own you think it is

Maybe if you need simpler thoughts you can ask an AI to boil it down for you~~

You know what, I’m sorry, I’m getting overly defensive from all the crappy treatment getting heaped on me for merely trying to have some nuanced discussion. It occurs to me that you may not mean to be dismissive or condescending to the extent that warrants such a rude response from me. I won’t delete my rudeness for posterity, but I do regret posting it.

That said, yes, my post is long, but truth is rarely simple. I am trying to stand up for what I believe is true, and I think that in my initial comment at least, I came at it in a very measured and polite way. When this is repaid with quips and one-liners and dismissive unthinkingness, it harms discourse for everyone. Sorry for contributing to that.

This betrays a deep level of tech illiteracy

Even though I explicitly said AI is often bad, that I dislike lots of AI generated content, etc. etc. Sure. But just because I say it’s not 100% always in every situation ever across all time and space pure evil and filth, it’s “slop”. Real intelligent.

I’ve made more art with my own two hands in the last year than you have in your whole life, no AI used at any point. But I’m sure that breaks your simplistic worldview so that’s probably just slop too.

No, you can’t argue against my reasoning, but just keep repeating your magic word if it helps you feel better lil buddy. Slop slop slop slop slop! Maybe if I say it enough everything I don’t want to face will disappear!

It sure does make things easier for my little brain! Simple protocol :

I like it = always good

I don’t like it = always bad

And if someone tries to even be open to the possibility that I’m even slightly incorrect, that = propaganda and that person = evil

At least I’m trying to express my reasoning in a logical way, rather than just falling back on thought-terminating clichés with no argument behind them.

Ermm I mean yes I agree but isn’t this kind of redundant. Surely he mostly found a platform as the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services

From the ground camera view she’s like Sonic the Hedgehog, jeez

But saying AI art is bad because it doesn’t bring you joy, and it doesn’t bring you joy because it’s AI art which is bad, is plainly circular reasoning.

Edit: Ah, downvotes with no counterargument, always a sure sign that the people on the other side from me have reasoned and defensible positions

Okay, yeah I totally agree that text translation and data interpretation is a more obviously acceptable use of AI. Definitely when it comes to art it gets muddier. I hate a lot of the ways AI art is used, treated, and understood, for what it’s worth.

I do think, though, that while art is valuable as an expression of the artist’s emotions, it’s also fair to say that part of art’s value is the impression it makes on the viewer. If I see an artwork of a beautiful scene, it’s maybe less about this being an expression of the artist, and maybe more about how the scene makes me feel a certain nice way. In fact I think many artists actually strive to “remove themselves” from their work, they actively don’t want their work to be a reflection of their own emotions, but instead they want it to produce a certain effect in the viewer.

Is Romeo and Juliet valuable because it tells us how Shakespeare thinks and feels? Or is it valuable because it makes us think and feel things? Of course there’s a mixture there, but I think it’s mostly the second one.

If a bunch of rocks tumbled off a mountain and struck a xylophone and coincidentally played Pachelbel’s Canon, don’t I still hear beautiful music?

So yes, I agree that while AI art is weaker in the dimension of enjoying thinking about the artist’s intent or the reflection of the artist’s mind, I think it can still fulfill the other great calling of art. And for course, it does reflect the prompter to some extent - albeit of course a much lesser one. But we also have human artists create aleatoric music and artworks (often specifically to efface themselves from the process), and we call this beautiful and creative, too - but arguably this is no different than leaving elements of the composition up to the chance of the generation’s random seed.

Thanks for replying and for expressing a non-binary view on it, I am open to having my mind changed here, too. Upvoted for contributing to discussion, even though I do disagree at the moment.

Curious what your general reasoning for always condemning artistic cases is? And also what non-artistic cases you think are viable?

For instance, in solo 3D game dev, using AI to generate textures for small unimportant assets could save a lot of time and allow an individual to realize more complex visions than are currently feasible. This is something I’d like to use AI for, but currently would be afraid to do since it seems people would consider my entire game trash on that basis.

Unfortunately you have committed the mortal sin of enjoying the tainted work of the Thinking Machines and must now be burned at the stake, sorry

Yes, but look what joy its bringing people. If that identical image had been made by a human, we’d praise its creativity and composition.

AI has many problems, the way it is used is often evil. But I think it’s not too unfathomable to say that it should not be condemned in 100% of all cases. An image like that one could be generated on my own computer, for less power than it takes to play a video game for 5 minutes. The image is clearly unique enough so as not to be stealing from an established artist or doing harm to them. And the result is that it brings inspiration and joy to many people.

Like I said, I know AI is doing a lot of harm to the world right now, but it also has a lot of potential to be used in a positive way. If we condemn it even in positive cases, all we do is equalize positive outcomes and negative ones, creating no room for eventual improvement. We ostracize the people who might use AI in pro-social ways, eventually leading to a dynamic where the only AI users are people who don’t care about it’s social impact. If that happens, we will have wasted our opportunity to get something good out of the technology by allowing it to be used only by careless people.

I hope anyone reading this will at least consider the idea I’m putting forth and not see me as some “AI bro” or villain. It is wise and healthy not to see the world in black and white even when we find comfort in doing so.

No bro please just vote for Newsom this one time bro let the billionaires just do a little more child raping so that way I won’t need to move away for another couple years please

Well lucky for you I’m not voting for either of them, so I guess you’re getting exactly what you want

Choosing between Newsom and Trump is like choosing between buying a house outright that is currently on fire vs. buying a house at a 200% interest rate that will be set on fire between 3-5 years from now.

Abstain

Idk a lot of people are very attached to their AI boyfriends and girlfriends so I think there’s definitely a large market for this