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Re:On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train... by johnnyanmac on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @04:04PM (#39019118)
>Is there really a difference between a human flooding the market using AI and a human flooding the market using a printing press?

A magnitude of difference, yes. Even a printing press will be limited by natural resources, which require humans to procure.

A computer server can do a lot more with a lot less. And is much easier to scale than a printing press.

>Even if human's can't compete (An obviously untrue premise from my perspective, but lets assume it for the sake of argument), is that a bad thing?

When the AI can be argued to be stealing human's work, yes. A printing press didn't need to copy Shakespeare to be useful. And it'd benefit Shakespeare anyways because more people get to read about his works.

So far I don't see how AI benefits artists. Optimistically:

-an artist can make their own market? Doubtful, they will be outgunned by SEO optimized ads from corporations.

- they can make commissions faster? To begin with commissions aren't a sustainable business. Even if they 5x the labor and somehow kept the same prices they aren't living well. But in reality, they will get less business as people will AI their "good enough" art and probably won't pay as much for something not fully hand drawn

- okay, they can make bigger commissions? There's a drama about spending 50k on a 3 minute AMV, imagine if that could be done by a single artist in a day now!... Well, give it another 10 years. Lot of gen Ai is static assets. Rigging or animating is still far from acceptable quality, and a much harder problem space. I also wouldn't be surprised if by then any AI models has its own phase of enshittification and you end up blowing hundreds, thousands anyway.

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>Humans should not be forced to pointlessly toil out of protectionism when they could be turning their attention to something that can't be automated.

Until someone conceptualizes a proper UBI scheme, pointlessly toiling is how most of the non-elite live. I have yet to hear of a real alternative for these misplaced artists to move towards.

So what? So we all just become managers in meetings in 30 years?

Re:On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train... by tekknik on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @09:54AM (#39028521)
> A magnitude of difference, yes. Even a printing press will be limited by natural resources, which require humans to procure. A computer server can do a lot more with a lot less. And is much easier to scale than a printing press.

AI runs on some of the most power hungry and expensive silicon on the planet. Comparing a GPU cluster and a printing press then staring the GPU cluster not limited by natural resources is just silly. Where does the materials come from to make the processors?

> When the AI can be argued to be stealing human's work, yes. A printing press didn't need to copy Shakespeare to be useful. And it'd benefit Shakespeare anyways because more people get to read about his works.

The same can be true for AI as well. I could see a picture and then ask AI whose style it is. Then I could go look up more work by that artist, increasing their visibility.

- they can make commissions faster? To begin with commissions aren't a sustainable business. Even if they 5x the labor and somehow kept the same prices they aren't living well. But in reality, they will get less business as people will AI their "good enough" art and probably won't pay as much for something not fully hand drawn

Is this a complaint that something got cheaper to make? This one affects more than just artists. For instance, code quality output from LLM is quite high. So, wages across the board will decrease yet capabilities will increase. This is a problem external to AI.

> Until someone conceptualizes a proper UBI scheme, pointlessly toiling is how most of the non-elite live. I have yet to hear of a real alternative for these misplaced artists to move towards.

Again, not just artists and the path forward is the same as it’s always been with technological advancements, increase your skill level to above the median created by the new technology.

Re:On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @12:02PM (#39030360)
>Comparing a GPU cluster and a printing press then staring the GPU cluster not limited by natural resources is just silly. Where does the materials come from to make the processors?

Probably mined from 3rd world country slaves (in the literal "owning people" sense). But still, these servers already exist and scale up way more than a tree.

>well. I could see a picture and then ask AI whose style it is. Then I could go look up more work by that artist, increasing their visibility.

Sure, and you can use p2p to download perfectly legal software. We know how the story ends.

>Is this a complaint that something got cheaper to make... not just artists and the path forward is the same as it’s always been with technological advancements, increase your skill level to above the median created by the new technology.

It's a complaint that people even woth more efficiency still can't make a living. While the millionaires become billionaires. I'm not even concerned about software wages. Some Principal SWE going from 400k to 200k will still live fine.

Artists going from 40k to 40k (but now working more efficiently) is exactly how we ended up with wages stagnating for 30 years. And yes, it is affecting everyone even pre-AI. The median is barely a living wage anymore, which is what "minimum wage" used to be.

If we lived in a work optional world I don't think many would care. But we don't and recklessly taking jobs to feed the billionaires is just going to cause societal collapse if left unchecked.

Re:On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train... by cwkoss on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @12:24PM (#39030643)
> Probably mined from 3rd world country slaves (in the literal "owning people" sense).

Why do you think the device you're using to make this comment is better than a GPU?

Was your comment written by some new flamebait AI? You say so many arguments that fall apart under the slightest examination

Re:On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @02:36PM (#39032341)
I'm not. But I'm going to hold a company who's responsible for the production more accountable than a consumer who can't research the sourcing of every single part of their personal device.

>Was your comment written by some new flamebait AI

IIRC AI focuses on formal language and discourages slang. Either way:

>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Re:On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train... by cwkoss on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @12:19PM (#39030587)
It's like you are mad at gravity. That sucks you feel that way, but very unlikely to change anything.