Capitalism optimizes for lazy over good. Who’s going to be able to pay rent as an artist in your dystopia
Comment on Pika Labs new generative AI video tool unveiled — and it looks like a big deal
ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 8 months agoNo one is stopping people from making art, lazy people will use this to do things they want, but artists will make art because that’s what they do.
echo64@lemmy.world 8 months ago
ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
What artists do you know that make money off their art? The starving artist not being able to make money to survive has been a thing since before Van Gogh’s time.
We’ve automated the food making process, but people still make money off of preparation of food, there’s always going to be a market for artists, but that market will be different.
These AI things are great tools to assist artists, but the fear mongering gets in the way.
echo64@lemmy.world 8 months ago
What artists do you know that make money off their art?
this is such a bad take, I present to you, society. and the hundreds of thousands if not millions, tens or hundreds of millions of employed (either self or through businesses) artists.
and using the “starving artist” as a goal we should transition to just really sucks in concept. I’m not sure you would say the same if it was your profession.
ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I’m not sure you would say the same if it was your profession.
I am an artist, who uses AI to assist me…
I know reddit lemmy is full of techbros but geez have some compassion for other people.
So because I don’t see AI as a big scary monster coming to devour our souls I’m a Tech Bro and don’t have compassion?
But yeah, fear AI all you want, but artists will always be needed even if the bleep Boop machine can do it faster.
Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
No, this is a tool that does all of the work of an artist. It is absolutely not an assistant.
That’s a bad faith argument, and it’s actively harmful. Artists are struggling yes, and this just makes that worse, it won’t be a separate market that somehow doesn’t impact them.
If you think we should actually work to make it harder for artists to do things, that it’s actually good that they struggle, then you have some messed up priorities, friend.
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 8 months ago
It doesn’t really do all the work of an artist though. It generates pictures, but consider that a camera also generates pictures of things, and yet photography is considered an art form these days, and one’s results from doing that can vary quite a bit between someone who understands both artistic principles and how their tools function, versus someone who does not. Having an image generator does not also entail knowing what to ask the generator for, or how to make any adjustments to it’s output if it gives you something that is close to what you envision but not quite there. If anything, I personally suspect a more mature version of the technology will get integrated into art tools in some way rather than looking like it currently does, because a text prompt is a somewhat vague and inexact way to describe an image. If you ask it for a spaceship, for example, it’ll give you some sort of spaceship, and if you ask it for a specific spaceship from pop culture it may likely give you that, but if you’re imagining a specific design for a spaceship, with specific details, that does not already exist in existing art, it would be very hard to completely describe that just through text, versus if you could start sketching out and have it sort of act as a kind of graphical autocomplete that you can steer in given directions.
ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Ok so it’s absolutely not an assistant right? So say I’m working on a business logo and I’m having a hard time coming up with an idea to branch off of, I use an ai image gen to create a bunch of logos in a bunch of styles, I then use a couple as starting points for a design. How is that not tool to assist an artist.
Just because you don’t see it as a tool to assist an artist’s doesn’t mean it isn’t, people will use any tool for good or evil.
PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 8 months ago
All it means is that at art as a career is dead.
Guess we want everyone working in retail or something
Peanutbjelly@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
That’s already the system outside of creating what rich people want. An entire team of artists creating boardroom directed art is much less art to me than a single creative using AI to bring their personal vision to life.
Hopefully individual artists can do more with these tools, and we can all hope for a world where artists can be supported to have the ability and freedom to create apart from the whims of the wealthy.
Starving artist is a term for a reason. Technology has never been the real problem.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
An entire team of artists creating boardroom directed art is much less art to me than a single creative using AI to bring their personal vision to life
This is honestly repulsive to me. Needing to pay rent doesn’t mean artists stop putting effort and creativity into what they’re doing. If you’ve ever enjoyed a movie, game, or music that isn’t indie produced then you’ve seen the value in what you’re shitting on here, because regardless of how it’s marketed none of that is the vision of a single creative, either. If anything larger projects are often able to catch lightning in a bottle, as many people contribute ideas and spin things in directions that a single person wouldn’t have seen.
And at least they all started from a basic level of artistic vision and competency, and had the integrity to do their own work. If the only reason someone can call themselves an artist is because of AI, they’re not an artist, they’re a plagiarist.
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
They aren’t making their own art though, they are making the boardrooms art.
They have about as much say in the creative process as retail workers have a say what gets sold in the store.
Mango@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Doesn’t everyone want to be a creative? Turns out you gotta be able to afford it. I work for a living. If everyone worked for a living, I could afford some time and space to myself to do what I like with it. Unfortunately work supports art and people are trying to pass off their fun time as a contribution so I’m supporting them regardless. I’d rather everyone supported themselves so I can art without anyone else’s input.
Muyal@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I don’t like this, because one of the most used arguments in favor of capitalism is supposedly the free market and how you are allowed to make money doing what you like. If now it turns out that only a few things are classified as jobs then… where are the benefits of capitalism?
Mango@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You don’t make money doing what you like. You make money doing what your customers like. If you also like it, then all the better.
mannycalavera@feddit.uk 8 months ago
Dey took arrr jeeerbs!
ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
DEEY DOOK DUR DOORBS
Mango@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Art is just fine. Credit for it is in jeopardy.
Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
I’m more concerned about the fact that shitty companies will use this sort of thing to put graphic designers out of a job.
This isn’t good progress. Even soulless corporate bullshit puts food on the table for someone, soon it’ll just make another company a bit richer.
zazo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Look I’m not supporting mega rich assholes extracting even more from working people, but would you use the same argument for textile weavers and the Jacquard loom? Sure a lot of people lost their jobs at the time, but most, if not all, respecialized and we got computers in the end so would you say it wasn’t good progress? 🤷
Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Except that this is entirely unrcessary, and doesn’t create a product we need, and it’s certainly not one I want.
I want to support people, I want people to do beautiful incredible things. I don’t want a higher production rate of souless art statistically generated by taking the work of thousands of people without their consent, for no good reason.
Replace CEOs with AI, that would be good progress.
I also mentioned in another comment that this technology has some very very good uses, I am convinced creating art is an evil use. I’m a big fan of projects like Talon Voice, you can donate voice samples to help improve their language model to help people who struggle to use a computer with their hands. It’s amazing stuff and I love it.
zazo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
See, that’s the crux of the argument I feel. You can’t have one without the other, you can’t have voice generation for the mute without that technology also displacing voice actors in the process.
That’s why I think the Luddite approach doesn’t work, we can’t forcefully break the machines that are capable of so much good because they’re also capable of so much bad.
Instead we should focus on helping those that are most negatively impacted by their existence, while supporting everyone that is already being positively affected by them. (like the UBI mentioned in my other comment)
andros_rex@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Textile weavers still exist, they just get paid even less and live in third world countries. “AI” is the same - a lot of the training is done by underpaid folks leaving in Kenya and Tanzania. They have to label the gore and CP so that the “AI” won’t use it. Post traumatic stress disorder is pretty common…
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Advancements like the loom usually just affect one industry (yes, there are ripples in the whole economy) and it’s not like we got that, the printing press, the internal combustion engine, the computer, and the telephone all at once. AI, if properly trained, can do nearly any task so it’s not just artists that are in danger of becoming obsolete.
PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Like… That was bad too. What we need to do is ditch capitalism before we automate everything.
It doesn’t function if nobody has jobs.
rambaroo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They’ve already been doing that