If someone trains a machine on my work and it means you can get the benefit of my labor without knowing me, interacting with my work or understanding it, or really any effort beyond some GPUs, that feels bad. And, it's much more of a risk to me, if that means anything.
Agreed. My goal, my moral compass, is to live in a world populated by thriving happy people. I love teaching people new things and am happy to work hard to that end and sacrifice some amount of financial compensation. (For example, both of my books can be read online for free.)
I couldn't possibly care less about some giant matrix of floats sitting in a GPU somewhere getting tuned to better emulate some desired behavior. I simply have no moral imperative to enrich machines or their billionaire owners.
What is human experience? Meaning behind it? You sound like those people from the past who didn't see black people as humans.
Let's face it. When you make music, you steal.
Sure, but so does the homeless guy living on the streets right now because computers and the internet automated his job - and yet here you are using the very tools ("mindless automatons") that put him out of work.
The invention of the shipping container put nearly every stevedore out of a job. But it made it radically cheaper to ship things and that improved the quality of life of nearly everyone on Earth.
I suspect that for most stevedores, it was a job where the wages provided dignity and meaning in their life, but where the work itself wasn't that central to their identity. I hope that most were able to find other work that was equally dignified.
That's certainly less true for musicians, poets, and painters where what they do is central to the value of the work and not just how much they can get paid.
There's no blanket technology-independent answer here. You have to look at a technology and all of its consequences and try to figure out what's worth doing and what isn't.
I think shipping containers are a pretty clear win. I think machine learning for classification is likely a win.
It's not at all clear to me that using generative AI to produce media is a win. I suspect it is a very large loss for society as a whole. Automating bullshit drudgery is fine. Most people don't want to do that shit anyway. But automating away the very acts that people find most profoundly human seems the height of stupidity to me.
Do you really want to live in a world where more people have to be Uber drivers and fewer people get to make art? Do you want to live in that world when it appears that the main people who benefit are already billionaires?
In fact, the theoretical turn in 20th century art was due in part to the invention of the camera. What's the point in continuing down the path of representational art if the camera can recreate a scene with infinitely more realism than the best painter?
Many of the same criticisms that people have of photography as art are being used against AI today, like that it's too easy, that it's soulless, or that the machine is the real artist.
You say that as if it's a given that that's a good thing.
> Many of the same criticisms that people have of photography as art are being used against AI today, like that it's too easy, that it's soulless, or that the machine is the real artist.
I made none of those criticisms.
Plenty of people miss taking care of their horses, but we still drive cars.
The vast majority of humans do not, in fact, think making art is "the most profoundly human" thing. They are about socializing, they care about their family, they want to go on fun vacations and have fun experiences. Most people do not spend their free time painting.
I observed, which is entirely likely to be true, that on average people probably find more personal fulfillment in the work of being an artist than the work of hauling crates off a ship.
Yes, we humans are clever creatures and will extract as much upside and value as we can out of any situation. That does not at all mean that all jobs are thus equivalent in all respects.
> they want to go on fun vacations and have fun experiences.
And how many of those vacations are to places with incredible architecture and rewarding art museums? How many of those fun experiences are music, plays, and movies?
Certainly, family and socializing are important avenues of meaning as well. Those aren't mutually exclusive with wanting to live in a world full of art made by others who care about it.
Yes, when I make music, I am taking inspiration from all of the other artists I've listened to and using that in my music. If someone listens to my music, they are getting some value from my contribution, but also indirectly from the musicians that inspired me.
The difference between that and AI is that I am a human being who deserves to live a life of dignity and artistic expression in a world that supports that while AI-generated music is the product of a mindless automaton that enriches billionaires who are actively building a world that makes it harder to live a life of stability, comfort, and dignity.
These are not the same thing any more than fucking a fleshlight is the same as being in a romantic relationship. The physical act may appear roughly the same, but the human experience, meaning behind it, and societal externalities are certainly not.