How I stopped worrying and learned to love AI - Kinda.....

[smrr]

Some great discussions in here, I also think plenty has been brought up already - but for shits and gigs I'll add my 2 cents into the mix

Generative A.I and all its versions: image, writing, sound, film, etc, (Art) is fundamentally unethical.

Firstly, no matter which way people try to spin it, we surely all agree that generative A.I cannot work without scraping Art that existed on the internet prior to this tech's creation. There was no consent, nor compensation. Sounds a lot like stealing.

So what gives? Aren't we, as artists disappointed when other artists (talking specifically about illustrators here) have been caught stealing another artist's work, for example with tracing? To me, it is really, really weird not to feel some negative emotions when finding out a favourite artist of mine has traced from another professional artist, regardless of crunch. There are other ways of speeding up the process, but tracing is unethical. I shouldn't have to explain why, but for the sake of steering clear of miscommunication: tracing is bad because you are stealing from another person's time and hard work in solving your creative problem (and that's just one reason). In other words: it's unfair.

So, I don't think using generative A.I is fundamentally any different to tracing another artists work. What are the differences now? Well it's taking from multiple artists, so a person using generative A.I is a lot less likely to get called out on it. Secondly? Using generative A.I is a lot more socially accepted. We've got mega companies, celebrities, hundreds of people on social media, universities and even other artists now using this technology without really batting an eye. Because for these people, as darktiste (paraphrasing) said: "The person doesn't care about how it's made, just that his vision is met", or in other words, yeah, "the ends justify the means".

It makes sense these are the kinds of arguments we hear from people that start to use generative A.I. It's a very "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality. Here's the thing though, just because a person can type a prompt in and have machine learning spit out something somewhat like the vision in their head - who cares? Just being frank, but who gives a shit? Our balance of perfection and imperfection is what makes us human. Not to get bloody corny, but goddammit - if Art isn't all of what makes up our human experience - it's our blood, sweat and goddamn tears of years of practise that goes into every single drawing, painting, design and even scribble that we create.

Why do people not seem to care or remember this? Why is this a problem?

Personally, I have yet to think and feel strongly about anything generative A.I has churned out to date. There's just this wash of uncanny sameness that is evident. Of course, in the future, this will probably change - generative A.I is certainly in it's infancy, and that anecdote has some truth to it, Jephyr. Though, in my opinion, unless generative A.I can actually become a sentient being, with it's own thoughts, feelings, behaviours and therefore experiences: there will come a time where this tech's output it will reach it's technological limit and everything will look and feel so lifeless, everywhere.

As it stands, an artist using generative A.I for or in their artistic process is certainly a choice.
I think it misses the point of being an artist.
We are so privileged to live in a time with the internet and all of it's available resources at our disposal to learn and speed up our artistic process like never before seen.
Not so long ago, that this was an incredible feat.

Why would we need anything faster?

This is where using generative A.I is taking that privilege a step too far. It's no longer about art for art's sake, or the human expression. It becomes about creating "art" at the speed of light without any of the human spirit.

The problem is the system.

I'll be honest, I didn't watch that FZD video about A.I because I'm almost certain I know the talking points and why Feng would be in favour of using the technology... have you seen the way he puts his students into crunch to become "industry-ready" concept designers? Have you seen how utterly "ends justify the means" Feng's way of thinking about art is? He is a top 1% concept artist that has accepted the insane turnaround time expected of concept artists. Because of this, I don't think he's a good frame of reference to discuss the ethical concerns a lot of artists feel regarding generative A.I.

Edit: Alright, I had time to watch the whole 1hr 25min vid from Feng - I should have watched it before assuming. I'm glad to have been incorrect about most of my assumptions and that he is advocating the importance of more skilled artists today more than ever.

Regardless, the reality is, generative A.I just adds to the pile of evidence that we are living in an era of late stage Capitalism:

In Jameson’s account, late capitalism is characterised by a globalised, post-industrial economy, where everything – not just material resources and products but also immaterial dimensions, such as the arts and lifestyle activities – becomes commodified and consumable.

(source: https://theconversation.com/we-live-in-a...-it-191422)

It's both an exciting and hard time to be alive, such is life.

I think, ultimately, so long as a person is aware of how these technologies create and why they might be drawn to using them, that's what matters.

Thanks for opening this space up for discussion.