zlacker

>>dredmo+(OP)
I've been finding that the strangest part of discussions around art AI among technical people is the complete lack of identification or empathy: it seems to me that most computer programmers should be just as afraid as artists, in the face of technology like this!!! I am a failed artist (read, I studied painting in school and tried to make a go at being a commercial artist in animation and couldn't make the cut), and so I decided to do something easier and became a computer programmer, working for FAANG and other large companies and making absurd (to me!!) amounts of cash. In my humble estimation, making art is vastly more difficult than the huge majority of computer programming that is done. Art AI is terrifying if you want to make art for a living- and, if AI is able to do these astonishingly difficult things, why shouldn't it, with some finagling, also be able to do the dumb, simple things most programmers do for their jobs?

The lack of empathy is incredibly depressing...

>>meebob+kc
I think i have a fair bit of empathy in this area and, well like you said, i think my job (software) is likely to be displaced too. Furthermore, i think companies have data sets regardless of if we allow public use or not. Ie if we ban public use, then only massive companies (Google/etc) will have enough data to train these. Which.. seems worse to me.

At the end of the day though, i think i'm an oddball in this camp. I just don't think there's that much difference between ML and Human Learning (HL). I believe we are nearly infinitely more complex but as time goes on i think the gulf between ML and HL complexity will shrink.

I recently saw some of MKBHD's critiques of ML and my takeaway was that he believes ML cannot possibly be creative. That it's just inputs and outputs.. and, well, isn't that what i am? Would the art i create (i am also trying to get into art) not be entirely influenced by my experiences in life, the memories i retain from it, etc? Humans also unknowingly reproduce work all the time. "Inspiration" sits in the back of their minds and then we regurgitate it out thinking it as original.. but often it's not, it's derivative.

Given that all creative work is learned, though, the line between derivative and originality seems to just be about how close it is to pre-existing work. We mash together ideas, and try to distance it from other works. It doesn't matter what we take as inspiration, or so we claim, as long as the output doesn't overlap too much with pre-existing work.

ML is coming for many jobs and we need to spend a lot of time and effort thinking about how to adapt. Fighting it seems an uphill battle. One we will lose, eventually. The question is what will we do when that day comes? How will society function? Will we be able to pay rent?

What bothers me personally is just that companies get so much free-reign in these scenarios. To me it isn't about ML vs HL. Rather it's that companies get to use all our works for their profit.

>>unshav+BF
> We mash together ideas, and try to distance it from other works. It doesn't matter what we take as inspiration, or so we claim, as long as the output doesn't overlap too much with pre-existing work.

I feel a big part what makes it okay or not okay here is intention and capability. Early in an artistic journey things can be highly derivative but that's due to the student's capabilities. A beginner may not intend to be derivative but can't do better.

I see pages of applications of ML out there being derivative on purpose (Edit: seemingly trying to 'outperform' given freelance artists with glee, in their own styles).

>>wnkrsh+2a1
But the ML itself doesn't have intention. The author of the ML does, and that i would think is no different than an artist that purposefully makes copied/derived work.

TBH given how derivative humans tend to be, with such a deeper "Human Learning" model and years and years of experiences.. i'm kinda shocked ML is even capable of even appearing non-derivative. Throw a child in a room, starve it of any interaction and somehow (lol) only feed it select images and then ask it to draw something.. i'd expect it to perform similarly. A contrived example, but i'm illustrating the depth of our experiences when compared to ML.

I half expect that the "next generation" of ML is fed by a larger dataset by many orders of magnitude more similarly matching our own. A video feed of years worth of data, simulating the complex inputs that Human Learning gets to benefit from. If/when that day comes i can't imagine we will seem that much more unique than ML.

I should be clear though; i am in no way defending how companies are using these products. I just don't agree that we're so unique in how we think, how we create, and if we're truly unique in any way shape or fashion. (Code, Input) => Output is all i think we are, i guess.

>>unshav+SF1
Of course it's the intention of the user that matters here, I just see that these models give easy access to make extremely derivative works from existing artist's work - and I feel that's an unethical use of the unethically sourced models.

Anyone finding their own artistic voice with the tools, I respect that, those people are artists - but training with the aim to create derivative models, that should be called out.