Comment by analogpixel
1 hour ago
I feel like AI has gotten to the point where the message is: If you want to make something (art/code/music/writing) you can do it for your own enjoyment, but you aren't allowed to make money from it anymore; only the large corporations can make money from content. If you do release something creative, it'll just be fed back into the machine to be copied over and over.
As someone who simultaneously makes music professionally, and works in IT professionally, it has been really interesting watching GenAI unfold, and the diverging cultures around it. It is almost like the world is splitting into two "societies":
1. One that loves AI + Big Business + very fast Innovation and disruption
2. One that loves Artisanal work + Small Business + slower but more sustainable innovation
I personally prefer living in #2, but I can totally see both "societies" continuing to exist and develop in their own ways.
Of course there is always the reality that different societies always end up interacting and affecting eachother.
I predict mixtapes, with the operative word being tapes, make a big comeback.
I don't see that at all. I see spammers and propagandists love LLMs because they can use it to accomplish their goals at the expense of the rest of us. I see AI companies marketing their products hard but in ways that seem self-defeating. Seems obvious but ads shouldn't make people hate the product and the AI folks don't seem to understand this. I see lots more effort to find artisanal things because people understand how much spammy stuff is being made. So I see basically an attack on the media ecosystem and people adapting with various levels of success to those attacks. I also see it costing the platforms as now they have extra effort and expense to keep their value for their users. Nobody wants to read a bunch of LLM generated slop on the social feed.
I am waiting for the online reification of this split with bated breath so that I can fuck off to society #2 and never have to interact with society #1 again.
I'm not too worried about it because the first segment of society is doomed to be 'good but never great.'
AI lacks the ability to identify greatness because it's trained on the output of the average person who also lacks this ability.
It's going to create a new elite class of people who have good taste and the masses who have bad taste. Many current elites will end up with the masses. They may retain their wealth on paper, but it will be a cheap, low-quality existence but they will be convinced it's luxury.
I think eventually, everyone will get what they want, but not everyone will get what they need.
Taste is subjective, authenticity is not. People in #2 want human created content, even if it's not as "good".
Needs to be inverted.
Tax excess tech profits that derive from the efforts of others and use the proceeds to fund living artists.
Vaguely analogous to levies on blank cassettes that went to offset piracy. Give the money directly to actual artists, not labels/publishers, though.
You’re describing a social revolution. Otherwise there is no way that leaders whose power over us corrupts them would want to put that into law.
The cassette reference was a tax on consumers to send money upward. What you’re describing is the complete inverse.
No, it is exactly the same thing. The tax on cassettes raised money that was given to artists.
At least for art - I don't think you'll find anyone who actually enjoys art hanging up anything produced by AI on their walls. For these kinds of "customers", they could equally easily frame & hang up a poster of the Mona Lisa. Artists are not at threat, if anything, AI makes original artworks more precious & enjoyable.
My worry is that, at least among the artists I know, many kept themselves afloat early career by doing commercial freelance jobs like illustrations for local events or companies. Those kinds of jobs might largely vanish.
On the other hand, with the internet inevitably becoming swamped by AI generated content, I can definitely see a de-digitalization of art moving into offline spaces. At least for independent work, you don’t necessarily need mass appeal or exposure, but rather access to individuals and small groups with an actual willingness to pay for art.
That's assuming that the only market is stuff people are hanging up. The games industry, one that already takes advantage of its workers, is going to love this to the detriment of really passionate artists who love their craft and industry.
Lots of illustrator jobs for businesses too
genAI is going to be great for indie games. Solo productions are much easier to produce and will only get easier as tooling improves. I sort of see this as a spotify moment I guess. A democratizing force that will allow many more people to get paid for their art but with much less job security and often as a second job. Whether that's a good thing is certainly up for debate but I think as a consumer it's probably good for me.
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I imagine it'll take a functional legal body to do this IE maybe europe, but I think there should be a legally binding set of metadata you can attach to images to specify that they must not be used for training (with real penalties if companies are caught)
No money and no audience.
Recognition and gratitude keeps me going. Money pays the bills, but if that was the only concern, I'd still be a software developer.
Anonymously feeding the slop machine is nothing like it.
I’m itching for some sort of no-training license:
This content must not be used for training or refining LLMs. If it is, rest assured that if and when the regulatory environment around training data shifts in any country in which we have legal standing, we reserve the right to sue.
Maybe even with a class action element: any lawsuit stemming from a violation of this license shall cover all other violations at the same time.
A big corporation using LLM’s to pump out lazy “art” gets the exact same scrutiny from me.