zlacker

>>tablet+(OP)
>We imagine artists spending their working hours pushing the limits of expression. But the median artist isn’t producing gallery pieces. They produce on brief: turning out competent illustrations and compositions for magazine covers, museum displays, motion graphics, and game assets.

One of the more eye-opening aspects of this technology is finding out how many of my peers seemingly have no understanding or respect for the concept of art.

>>slg+F9
How do you mean?

>>simonw+Ic
Whole libraries have been written over millennia about the importance and purpose of art, and that specific quote reduced it all down to nothing more than the creation of a product with a specific and mundane function as part of some other product. I genuinely feel bad for people with that mindset towards art.

>>slg+kf
I think that quote is talking about commercial art and there being a market willing to pay a large number of artists to do relatively mundane artworks. It does not exclude the possibility of artists doing art for art's sake as a hobby or a few elite artists doing paid high culture art. It's like when photography became a thing and there was a lot less paid work available to painters.

>>jowea+6K
I don't see that as a distinction worth making. Commercial art is still art.

Music, for example, is an incredibly commercialized art. Replacing every song or album I have ever purchased with AI generated facsimiles is also an incredibly depressing thought. And let me tell you, my tastes aren't "a few elite artists doing paid high culture art".

I would hope people still find value in painting, especially in a world with photography. That is even ignoring the strained nature of this analogy. The context of the original quote was in a discussion of the inherent plagiarism of AI. Photography wasn't invited by stealing painters work.

>>slg+qP
The big distinction is that the cheaper AIs will crowd out the humans out of the market, so mass market commercial art will be made by AIs if it is possible to produce that art. But some people will still want non-AI art, which I believe will be focused on less commercial focused art sectors.

> Music, for example, is an incredibly commercialized art. Replacing every song or album I have ever purchased with AI generated facsimiles is also an incredibly depressing thought.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong.

> I would hope people still find value in painting, especially in a world with photography.

Sure, people do, but it is now a hobby for some and high art for a smaller number of professional painters, but the market willing to sustain a large number of professional painters doing portraits is gone.

> That is even ignoring the strained nature of this analogy. The context of the original quote was in a discussion of the inherent plagiarism of AI. Photography wasn't invited by stealing painters work.

I think the analogy is relevant because I am discussing the plagiarism of AI in relation to the economic aspects of copyright infringement and the impacts on the market for artists and SW devs. Not in relation to the moral rights[1] of authors. The issue of artists being annoyed on principle, not on economic effects, that some souless computer is producing plagiarist art that imitates their artstyle without attribution is a separate but closely related issue. I'm not sure but I think the article is more concerned with the former issue.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights

>>jowea+RK1
>I think the analogy is relevant because I am discussing the plagiarism of AI in relation to the economic aspects of copyright infringement and the impacts on the market for artists and SW devs. Not in relation to the moral rights[1] of authors. The issue of artists being annoyed on principle, not on economic effects, that some souless computer is producing plagiarist art that imitates their artstyle without attribution is a separate but closely related issue. I'm not sure but I think the article is more concerned with the former issue.

How can you justify separating the two concerns? This article is a defense of AI against its critics. It is a pretty poor defense if the argument is along the lines of "certain ethical concerns don't count". The author being "more concerned with" one issue doesn't make the other issue invalid or irrelevant.