It's not a threat. It's a descriptive claim about what the world is going to be like once this technology matures. In due time, most art will be the result of humans and AI. Unless content has some kind of label stating that AI was involved in its creation, you simply aren't going to notice. Sure, there will be a niche of people who obstinately refuse to use any tech that employs machine learning. And we will view those people the same way we view people who believe that taking a photo of someone steals their soul.

You, like everyone, skipped the question why the people who program the models can't also make the effort to create what they teach their creations, and hand-curate it from stuff given with consent.

Yes, it can be done. People can just take it because they can, and hope to create facts on the ground that way. Kudos to them.

> And we will view those people the same way we view people who believe that taking a photo of someone steals their soul.

For me, art, or what I like about art, is an act of communication -- be that of talking to yourself, trying to communicate with others, screaming pain or joy incoherently into the void. It doesn't have to be words. But I care about something because it's from a human.

> It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.

-- Stephen Hawking

If people will learn to fake and mass-produce that without oversight, A/B testing for whatever gains they want to get out of it, great, kudos. Seems shitty to me, like something people who aren't creative themselves might do, or who like to fuck with other people en masse, etc. Like destroying something you can't have or make. It's like putting poison into the water supply is possible, but that's not the point.

People can come up with hilarious or interesting prompts, and that is great. And then there is no need to "hide" it, either. But when it comes to the "art" aspect of it, it's still 100% the humans that tune the output (which is an act of judgement, versus calculation) and/or the humans from whom the input was taken with consent, or stolen without.

And last but not least, I take things how I want to, anyway. How I think the author meant it is something I acknowledge and take into consideration, but no more. And I often have several including contradictory readings of something. The beholder always applies the final touch to everything that enters their ken, if you will.

Oh, but it'll be also great for actual AI generated ElsaGate shit (like people used to pretend with EG, to not face how sick that phenomenon was... "oh, it's just AI run amok, tuned for views and toddlers obviously like that stuff, so hey") and for scamming the uneducated and elderly, I'm sure. Just gonna call that right now.

You are veering into territory that is interesting, but outside the scope of the initial topic. All I'm saying is you don't need a machine to be "sentient" or "self aware" to generate novel outputs. Whether or not these models are created in an ethical way is another matter. Even if it was unethical, that doesn't really negate what I'm saying.