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[–]Main-Leg-4628 50 points51 points  (9 children)

Gated Internet is coming. Not as either/or, just as a different option. Humans only, etc..

[–]HyakushikiKannnon 35 points36 points  (4 children)

Is it even possible to regulate such a thing? There'll be endless attempts to continue "playing human" via AI generated content anyway. Humankind's innate disposition towards energy conservation, preference for "efficiency", and also that there's 8 billion of us, is adequate to continuously fuel this.

[–]AuspiciousNotes 11 points12 points  (3 children)

What I do is segment myself into groupchats and Discord servers with people I know personally, or with people I've met online but have a trusted relationship with.

It's possible that the online friends are fake, but it would take a lot of effort for an AI to replicate that. And even if they are just AIs perfectly simulating being supportive high-quality friends, that seems like a good deal to me.

[–]HyakushikiKannnon 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Yes, many of us (including me) already do that. But that'd only be filtering on a personal level, and not "gated internet" as the comment I've replied to has suggested.

The former is, as your example implies to some extent, already slightly difficult, and not expected to get any easier as time passes. The latter is a task as excruciating as trying to prevent individual specks of dirt from entering one's home.

[–]AuspiciousNotes 2 points3 points  (1 child)

It could be possible to do that in part via paywalling. Anyone seeking to operate an AI bot would need to pay $100 a year per bot, which could be very discouraging.

[–]HyakushikiKannnon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very low probability of ever being implemented. Even if it could be, it's fairly likely to breed it's own version of piracy, i.e. increased usage of unlicensed/unauthorized AI bots. Sheer numbers drastically lower the success rate of many such broad-ranging measures.

[–]International-Tap888 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Russians on crime forums sell pre-made Paypal or cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the (stolen or synthetically created) identity of random people for prices ranging from $20-150. And those are services which have legal liability for allowing criminals on their platform, they make sure the face on the webcam matches the face on the ID, they have liveness detection, etc. Right now the crooks largely make those accounts manually through slightly modified open source deepfake software, but if they could automate it then prices would fall substantially. So is uniquely verifying humanity over the Internet even possible?

[–]quantum_prankster 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Every detector anyone could ever devise is literally the tool you use to make a Generative Adversarial Network that beats that tool.

Who watches the watchers who watch the watchers watching the watchers? And why does anyone trust them? It looks to me like "verification" is likely to come down to some kind of "billionaires say what's real" club that no one particularly trusts, and if you're not into it "Bro, this isn't the correct community for you. I guess you just need to make your own platform. What an opportunity!" or whatever other glass-eyed corporate speak for "go fuck yourself."

I for one welcome our Wayland Yutani overlords.

[–]greyenlightenment 2 points3 points  (1 child)

it's easy to avoid AI slop by watching content in which there are actual humans involved in the presentation. An example is youtube fitness content or cooking. Music is harder for obvious reasons, as it can be digitally replicated unless it's a live show.

[–]themiro 4 points5 points  (0 children)

reddit is clearly full of AI generated comments that people don't notice

[–][deleted] 92 points93 points  (36 children)

We consume a lot of human slop as-well. Which brings me to the fundamental question am I have been thinking of. Am I the weird one for only caring about the quality of the end product?

[–]Books_and_Cleverness 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I thought that would be my reaction, as a mild AI optimist. But I’ve been very surprised at how learning something was made by a computer instead of a person makes me instantly like it less.

I’m sure there’s a logic to it with art in particular, since there’s a communication with the author that doesn’t work when it’s (probably) not conscious.

But it’s really not a logical top-down thought. I just reflexively dislike any aesthetic work upon learning it’s AI generated.

Major exception for work products since we have a bunch of tedious stuff at my job that I very sincerely hope gets automated away soon.

[–]wavedash 10 points11 points  (5 children)

Am I the weird one for only caring about the quality of the end product?

I think for most common definitions of "quality", this is pretty unusual. A lot of people like art more when it's made been someone close to them. Some people appreciate unintentionally bad art (The Room, Henry Darger), or intentionally bad art (eg rage comics or wojaks, the visuals of Cruelty Squad).

[–]hh26 9 points10 points  (2 children)

I usually see that as an excuse for mediocrity. "Yes, these colored scribbles look stupid and misshapen, but a child drew that. That makes it special! Look at their innocent creativity!"

But it still looks like stupid scribbles. If it wasn't drawn by my child, but just a random stranger who I have no emotional connection to, then there's no added value.

"Look, this soup can is art. It symbolizes consumerism! An artist thought about this and chose to place it here because it means something!"

But it's a soup can. I see those at the grocery store all the time. A wage laborer put it there on purpose so people could see it and buy it. The rows of soup cans in a store symbolize consumerism even more strongly.

Artsy people create and consume tons of slop and not a lot of genuinely good art because they can pretend their slop is better than it is if they imagine thoughts and intentions behind it that might or might not exist. You can imagine stories and intentions behind AI slop too, if you want. The imagined stories will be fake and won't change how it looks but... in 90% of cases that was already true of the human art.

[–]wavedash 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I usually see that as an excuse for mediocrity. "Yes, these colored scribbles look stupid and misshapen, but a child drew that. That makes it special! Look at their innocent creativity!"

But it still looks like stupid scribbles. If it wasn't drawn by my child, but just a random stranger who I have no emotional connection to, then there's no added value.

I feel like "mediocrity" is kind of a loaded word here. Clearly there's measurable monetary added value if the scribbles were done by Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock. Reasonable minds have differed on whether there SHOULD be so much value, but regardless, here we are.

Artsy people create and consume tons of slop and not a lot of genuinely good art because they can pretend their slop is better than it is if they imagine thoughts and intentions behind it that might or might not exist.

Even if I accept this portrayal of "artsy people" (which seems needlessly inflammatory to me), these are very mainstream artists. Their appeal is not limited to just "artsy people".

You can imagine stories and intentions behind AI slop too, if you want.

I think most consumers would want artists to create stories for them. I don't see any reason why AI art couldn't have such stories, but for whatever reason, the people who create AI art generally seem uninterested in imbuing their art with that kind of meaning.

[–]greyenlightenment 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I usually see that as an excuse for mediocrity. "Yes, these colored scribbles look stupid and misshapen, but a child drew that. That makes it special! Look at their innocent creativity!"

But in this case, its actually objectively bad. The Ai slop is called slop for a reason. lol Andy Warhol dos not approve of your dismissal of his soup cans,

[–]FolkSong 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yeah that's a big thing. I find I can't get really into a band unless I can kind of get behind their story and ethics etc. It's not just the sound in a vacuum.

[–]wavedash 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Another common variant on this would be people who listen to a lot of movie/TV/game soundtracks. The connection to something external to the music might be central to their enjoyment.

[–]prescod 27 points28 points  (19 children)

Art is supposed to be about authentic communication between minds. Just as it would be boring to watch A.I. play chess it is boring to listen to music which has no human mind behind it. It also devalues it to know that no effort was put in. I would travel out of my way to see a beautifully made sand mandala, not just for the aesthetic effect but to wonder at the effort expended. When I walk through a garden, the gardener is in the back of my mind. Why did they choose this. How much effort did it take to maintain that. Etc

[–]sprunkymdunk 10 points11 points  (4 children)

authentic communication between minds

Art is sometimes that, sometimes not. Sometimes it communicates something entirely different that what the artist intended. 

And if that mind is synthetic vs organic, but you don't notice, why does it matter?

[–]picklesinmyjamjar 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Because I would rather know it was a human mind that went through a process to produce what I'm consuming and that if I liked it, I could find more from that artist and possibly even help support them.

Why would I rather it be human? Because I want humans to make art, because I know what I feels like and what it's like to share it and it can feel wonderful. I don't like that some group of humans have made it possible for everyone to flood the Internet with "MEH" content making it harder for human artist to get someone to look at what they made.

[–]bibliophile785Can this be my day job? 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I don't like that some group of humans have made it possible for everyone to flood the Internet with "MEH" content

The internet has always been flooded with meh artistic content. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the capability to generate highly acclaimed art, like so much of human capacity, follows a Gaussian distribution. That means the vast majority of it is sitting in a mediocre hump in the middle. Think back to Reddit or Tumblr or Flickr prior to 2020. Were any of those an amazing Mecca of fantastic art? Of course not. They were mostly unimaginative sex stuff, then mediocre photos and videos and drawings of animals and landscapes, almost none of it with noteworthy creativity or artistic skill. They were the definition of meh. Then, like now, you had to sift through a bunch of mediocrity to find anything great.

You're free to decide that you liked the old mediocrity better because it was human mediocrity, but let's not pretend that there's been a decrease in quality. If anything, the average quality has gone up and will continue to do so; ML models are capable of improving much faster than cultural osmosis improves average human capacity. The former is measured in months or years, the latter in generations.

[–]picklesinmyjamjar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The common AI slop you see, if rendered by a human would be considered art with a very high degree of skill but lacking in any form of style or originally. My problem with the slop is that it's so easy to recognise it as slop, the image varies but it is so unmistakable. At least with human slop you get much more variation and surprises! Also, as I mentioned you have a human in mind when observing the art which adds depth to the experience and can be further deepened with further knowledge of what went into the art. Ai art just isn't good enough yet, it just clogs up the Internet and give less space for humans. Down with it I say

[–]sprunkymdunk 5 points6 points  (0 children)

And that's a valid personal preference. But given human taste, I don't see it being more than a niche one in the near future. 

[–]giroth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. If I were very interested in chess, and in getting better at it, watching AI play masterful chess might be very interesting indeed. If I could walk through a more beautiful garden, I'm not sure knowing it was robotic gardeners would bother me very much.

[–]AdmiralFeareon 8 points9 points  (2 children)

I don't care about any of the things you listed you care about in this comment

[–]prescod 5 points6 points  (1 child)

That’s fine, but given the popularity of sports, live entertainment and video game live streaming, I think we can conclude that you are in the minority.

I know very few, if any, people who would turn down the opportunity to watch an elite athlete or musician up close.

So just to be clear, you are saying that if the world’s best piano player was in town, playing your favourite songs, you would be no more interested in watching them play than watching a player piano playing the same notes? You would pay (or not pay) the same ticket price?

[–]AdmiralFeareon -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think we can conclude that you are in the minority.

Agreed

if the world’s best piano player was in town, playing your favourite songs, you would be no more interested in watching them play than watching a player piano playing the same notes?

Yes

You would pay (or not pay) the same ticket price?

I'd rather just get a well mixed and mastered track. Live shows mostly suck for audio aesthetics imo

[–]_SeaBear_ 7 points8 points  (3 children)

"would be" boring to watch AI play chess? People watch AI chess matches all the time. They watch top level AI to learn new strategies, they watch mid-level plays to see how it differs from human mid-level play, they watch ChatGPT to see how well it remembers basic facts and/or laugh at the misplays. I have personally seen more chess matches where at least 1 player is AI than those with 2 human players, although admittedly I don't watch much chess.

You may travel to see man-made creations, but a huge percentage of tourism is to see nature. Mountains, beaches, waterfalls, forests, all are far more common vacation spots than Buddhist temples or gardens. Those mountains are not about "authentic communication between minds", unless you're religious or something, in which case AI is just as much the voice of God as a mountain is.

If you're going to play the semantics game about the definition of art, at least pick examples that aren't obviously false. Or, better yet, don't play semantics games in the first place.

[–]prescod 1 point2 points  (1 child)

No need to get so emotional. I think we can agree that more people will watch a Carlson V Domarruju (sp?) game than Stockfish V AlphaZero. Even if the latter is objectively good chess.

People do watch AI games occasionally because they remain a bit novel but I suspect that as they leave us further and further in the dust, this will get less and less interesting except as a form of “study”.

[–]eric2332 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is more drama in Carlson V Domarruju, but not more interesting gameplay I imagine. Some people want gameplay, some people want gameplay mixed with human drama. The same is true for physical sports, where the media and announcers make an effort to play up the drama.

[–]Pensees123 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Everyone picks a hill they die on. His choice isn't more erroneous than any other.

[–]less_unique_username 9 points10 points  (3 children)

but to wonder at the effort expended

This sounds in the same vein as preferring natural diamonds to lab-grown ones, which redditors snarkily summarize as “the suffering makes them special”

[–]prescod 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Suffering is the key word.  Not effort: suffering. Those are two different things. The musician may love the time they spend on effort practice. Millions do it as a hobby for free. Others bankrupt themselves because they are so reluctant to take another job.

Offer the diamond miner the opportunity to make the same money as almost any first world job and they would leap at the opportunity to change.

Half of what is beautiful about effortful performance is the sense that they are happy when they are doing it.

[–]less_unique_username 3 points4 points  (1 child)

As recently as yesterday ACX posted a guest post that, among other things, cited a study claiming that most musicians hate practice. In case this were decisively proven to you, would you immediately stop enjoying music?

effortful performance

Curiously enough, what people seem to value is effortless performance. They want the performers to be so skilled that all the effort is hidden, e. g. the ballerina looks like she could run a marathon this way.

[–]prescod 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hate debugging but I love programming. Writers may hate the time in front of the blank page but they love seeing their characters coming to life. Musicians might hate practice but love performing.

If a musician’s sum total experience was miserable then yes I would be uninterested in the music, unless the process of making it were at least miserable but cathartic. I am not interested in causing suffering for my pleasure no.

In the question of effortful versus effortless. Effortlessness is usually the product of remarkable amounts of effort.

But if someone were a music prodigy that just made amazing music effortlessly, that would also be kind of cool to know that that talent is within distribution for the human genome. I really don’t know many (any?) cases like that though. A musician or athlete that doesn’t need to practice.

[–]greyenlightenment 2 points3 points  (1 child)

It also devalues it to know that no effort was put in.

There is effort. Having to code the AI to produce a nice sound, is work, but in a different way.

[–]prescod 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes and we all get excited about that when the AI is first released. Not every time it cranks out a new song.

[–]TypoInUsernane 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Same here. I always think it’s weird when people evaluate a product a product based on the process used to produce it rather than the end result. In my mind, the process is completely irrelevant, since the end result is the only part I actually experience. To my mind, it feels totally irrational when people allow their opinions about the creation process to influence their experience of the results. But it’s clear I am in the distinct minority on this

[–]Gem____ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I seemingly don't care for the process as much as end product and what it evokes. I've made associations with my predilection to consume and resonate with media in snippets, which seemingly lacks the surrounding context, but left unsure if I'm instead subconsciously processing context. As for the quality of the end product, well, it feels more important because it registers on a conscious level rather than a subconscious level. Regardless, I feel like an outlier and both of these layers probably play a coalescing role, just one seemingly more prominent because of its tangibility.

[–]TheRealRolepgeek 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's certainly a lot of people who disagree with you, but I also suspect that a lot of people would hold very different opinions on what constitutes 'quality' in that same end-product. Aesthetic pleasure is not the only possible quality to pursue in art, after all.

[–]drovious 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Doesn't seem weird to me, but I'll add that its nice to know what kinds of ways humans (given their agency in shaping society and consensus) are thinking and about what. Human creation can inform me more of the social landscape I'm in. Additionally, if a human achieved a goal or conclusion using unethical or harmful practices or assumptions, that would also matter to me.

[–]Missing_MinusThere is naught but math 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mostly agreed, I think the primary part of my care is about the quality.
I do think there's plausibly some value behind an artist having a specific connection to it... but I also think most people are vastly overrating how much influence that actually has on whether they like the song.
More often people like the song if they can link it to an aspect in their life. An experience. A mood. An artist might make that somewhat easier, but is not necessary. And AI music can make potential music that is a lot more impactful because it is tuned to your interests.

[–]Globbi[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

No, that's certainly one option and might be inevitable anyway. However, it's not obvious.

With example of current rules of this sub, lots of people want at least some environments where they see a human work or opinion. I also do care personally if I'm reading an opinion of a person and have reason to trust that the person doesn't lie about their experiences that lead to forming such opinion, and if I can respond and try changing their mind.

And I do think you care as well even if you say you don't. You did write this comment here instead of asking claude, even though I suspect claude might give you a better answer and quicker.

But also it is part of "AI taking our jobs!" And it's not like spotify killing record industry. We have more musicians than we had ever before. It's also not like traditional radio losing relevance - we have insane number of podcasts, some professionally produced, some literally a guy from his bedroom. I don't see everyone being able to generate infinite hours of shows based on prompt as the same. Will you be able to "be a musician" or "radio host"? Will you be able to live off your work? Will people care how you felt making some "work"?

With physical goods we do have artisans making things that are expensive but supposedly better quality. With music or journalism you won't be able to recognize "artisanal" work.

[–]bibliophile785Can this be my day job? 8 points9 points  (1 child)

It's very strange to me to see parallels being drawn between conversations on a discussion forum and consumption of artistic media. At least for me, those two activities are almost completely unrelated in intent. You're right that speaking with a person is different than speaking with an AI; most of us do both, but I suspect they're done with different intents. Art consumption is still more different. I don't consume art to foster a dialogue with the artist. I consume art for personal satisfaction. The origins of the art are mostly irrelevant. I would feel no compunctions about consuming art by Diddy, or Hitler, or Dall-E. The artist is almost perfectly irrelevant to the process.

[–]giroth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree with you, and yet the most common anti-AI art refrain I hear is that the artist is perfectly relevant to the art. I think the confusion stems from people consuming art as a product (you and I), versus people consuming art as a form of social, political, or aspirational commentary. I don't really understand most of what art historians say, for example, but I can have an opinion about how a particular Monet makes me feel. There is a strong possibility I am also merely a philistine when it comes to art.

[–]greyenlightenment -1 points0 points  (0 children)

No, the end-result matters. but if something is ai-generated, one may feel disinclined to support the creator, compared to knowing that a lot of manhours were involved in the creation of the content.

[–]Tupptupp_XD 20 points21 points  (1 child)

You only notice the obvious slop. Comments on social media are infested full of bots and it's already impossible to tell them apart.

For every slop post or comment you notice, assume there were 5 that you didn't notice. I see less experienced people constantly reply to well-disguised bot comments all the time on social media. 

Only the laziest, most basic bots that use default ChatGPT writing style are detectable. The spammers that actually put effort into their spamming will fine-tune an LLM on a curated list of Reddit or YouTube comments that give it a unique personality and writing style making it really hard for anyone to detect using the common shortcuts (em-dash, it's not X it's Y, etc.)

[–]greyenlightenment 2 points3 points  (0 children)

at this point, the best way to detect is to look at the account and its history. Fake accounts will be new, post generic content in quick succession about entirely disparate matters.

[–]DVDAallday 14 points15 points  (0 children)

If what you're seeking out from music is "pleasant sounds", then yeah, you're gonna be vulnerable to encountering AI slop. On the other hand, if you're only engaging with music on the level of "pleasant sounds", then who cares if it's AI generated? The easy solution is just to be more deliberate about the artists you engage with (across all mediums) and conscious of the reasons you're engaging with them.

[–]MetalRetsam 4 points5 points  (1 child)

We are already becoming hermits. People are having fewer shared experiences.

AI will radically reshape our idea of work, or labor. Maybe we'll all end up becoming artisans, as AI takes over the "real" jobs. Or care workers, which combines a set of skills that AI is uniquely bad at.

[–]HummingAlong4Now 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wonder if work/art by a human will become a fetishized status marker available only to the very wealthy. The satisfaction very wealthy people get from having servants is, I suspect, more complicated than just having annoying life tasks accomplished by someone other than themselves.; it's probably connected in some way to the satisfaction of being an artist's patron, and has nothing to do with the output or utility of the patronage and everything to do with the sense of self the patronage confers.

[–]davidmoore0 4 points5 points  (1 child)

LC Waikiki (a clothing chain) in Beograd, Serbia had AI music playing over the speakers. At first I thought it was just a really bad Christian soft rock playlist but then I paid attention. It was absolutely an AI generated playlist from Suno or Udio.

[–]ProfessionalHat2202 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Noticed a lot of ai around that area of the world last time I visited, in art, in childrens toys packaging

[–]tshadley 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Slop is boring. There's some good AI content out there and some good human stuff too. If it isn't boring, it isn't slop.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Whats the genre? I tried feeding the ai an orchestral soundtrack that i wrote and the output was pretty horrific. But this was more than a year ago, maybe even two.

[–]Globbi[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In this case it was japanese pop, and it wasn't amazing, just that I have not even noticed it's AI at first.

But a few days ago I also saw some smooth jazz with female vocals that I found weird and needed a second to recognize it as AI. It wasn't weird in a way of glitches or bad composition. Just got me thinking of "wait, what's this, who wrote a bunch of songs like this, it has to be AI".

And then actually a radio host that plays a wide range of music with lots of rock, metal and country, presented a country song that as he said, he didn't recognize as AI. He just wanted to find out who made it because he thought he found an interesting artist that he had not known about. He might have lied there to do a short, interesting bit of him as a presenter soon not being needed. But as a listener I did not have a reason to think it was AI generated before he revealed it.

It's full songs of lyrics that rhyme and make sense, varying tempo, various instrumentals.

[–]ProfessionalHat2202 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Can you link the playlist?

[–]Globbi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The first one I describe? It's japanese pop. I could find it in history I guess, but since then I started clicking on various one with various genres to explore what's there.

I kinda want to not advertise those channels, but there's no other way to share.

At the same time it's not the best example of what those can be like, because it's music with lots of synthesizers and also most readers here will not know the language to help recognizing whether it makes sense.

If you just want to see an example, maybe this will be good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBpsTyGUTZM&t

Clearly slop and intended as such, but IMO difficult to recognize as AI when it's just playing in background.

[–]EmceeEsher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I feel like this line of reasoning is misunderstanding what slop is in the first place. Slop existed long before AI. If I had to give it a definition, I would say it's something that pretends to be art, but only exists to take up space rather than invoke an emotion. The problem with AI is that it makes it several orders of magnitude easier to create vast quantities of slop. This doesn't mean that everything that uses AI is automatically slop, but it means that the AI's existence leads to a much lower ratio of quality content to slop.

[–]JibberJim 5 points6 points  (11 children)

People will find how to perfect it (with imperfections if needed, if you're one of those thinking that problem with AI is that it's too perfect and we value humans for imperfections, you will be disappointed) and how to make it less bland and convey emotions better.

This is another "the future AI will be perfect", despite zero actual evidence that that is the case.

AI slop is mid, it's always mid, and yes that's probably fine for you if you just want some noise in the background whilst you do something else. There have been people making money from such - the piano player in the bar was mostly churning out that mid background noise, only rare was it an actual Piano Man.

Music taste is not something that comes down to an average - the unobjectionable is different to the choice - I'm in the UK, I have glastonbury on the TV, most of the music is awful, but all of that awful music has other people who think it's great - it's also that the human performance is really important, even the bad music is better with a good performance. So that is what people will pay for.

You are of course highlighting the real problem though - platforms taking all the revenue and distributing it removing the actual link between popularity and income - increasing the ease and motivation to game the process, and a mixed incentive for the platform to use cheaper music (particularly if it's going to be free as you can "discover" the music breached your terms and therefore not pay)

So yes, platforms are a real problem - but it's those not AI that are really the problem, and mid will continue, but I really doubt AI will be much of it, other than in the selecting which parts of the old back-catalogues actually get played.

[–]bibliophile785Can this be my day job? 10 points11 points  (9 children)

AI slop is mid, it's always mid

... did you refuse to participate in the ACX art differentiation contest because it'd be too easy? Those AI renderings were put up against some of the greatest art humanity has ever made and even the best guessers couldn't always differentiate them. I'm pretty damn sure that's sufficient to discard this "AI art is always mid" line.

[–]JibberJim 0 points1 point  (8 children)

I think we have different ideas of what mid is - also probably different ideas of what art is, there's an awful lot of "greatest art that humanity has ever made", which doesn't provide anything to me, it's dull, a derived AI version of it is also dull - could I tell the difference on a computer screen - nope, but then I don't care to - neither are "talking to me". Its a confusion over what art is.

It's more obvious in music of course, we all know we have completely different tastes, there's not one universal great song everyone agrees with - I just turned off 5 guys playing jazz with thousands of people loving it in the crowd, and switched to some 80 year old playing his 50 year old music - 'cos I'm going to enjoy it more.

Mid does not mean you can always identify it as AI, it means it doesn't bring joy, it's just mid - average, not bad, not great, just mid.

[–]bibliophile785Can this be my day job? 7 points8 points  (7 children)

So... are you defining AI content as mid? If that's the case and it has nothing to do with the actual material itself, it sounds like you aren't saying anything meaningful.

If you're not doing something trivial with definitions, I don't see your point. It's fine that you think some of the seminal paintings in human history are drab mediocrity. You'll have a hard time justifying that to anyone with an education in art, but it's good enough for the sophomoric 'different people like different things' level of analysis and we can use that for this discussion. It doesn't address the fundamental question of why you think AI art is necessarily mid, though.

Those famous paintings are examples of a style with carefully formulated standards meant to satisfy exacting tastes. Surely, even if those tastes aren't your own, the fact that the AI can make something indistinguishable from those is a compelling proof of concept. It's even more compelling when you consider that the AI did this across many, many genres of image. When you say that it's "always mid," that appears to say less about the art itself and more about your tastes being sufficiently niche that the people requesting the art aren't catering to you. That could be true... but if you like appreciable amounts of human art, it's just a matter of time until others who like that same art begin to effectively replicate it with AI tools.

I don't think your claim that this requires future AI perfectionism is well-founded at all. Hell, current tools would probably meet the bar being suggested, given time for percolation into smaller and smaller artistic domains. If future tools get better, the rate of adoption will just be faster and the proportion of mediocre AI content will be smaller.

[–]JibberJim 1 point2 points  (6 children)

the fact that the AI can make something indistinguishable from those is a compelling proof of concept

They can't though, they can make a jpeg that is the same style as a jpeg of that art - that's a BIG difference to me, the jpeg of the Botticelli's Birth of Venus is not that interesting - the original is very different, I imagine other paintings that I have not seen both are similar.

Your indistinguishable is not the same as mine.

[–]bibliophile785Can this be my day job? 3 points4 points  (4 children)

I worry that the hairs you're splitting here are distracting rather than enlightening. It would help if you were more explicit. Why is Botticelli more interesting as an original painting than as a jpeg? In what meaningful way is it different?

[–]JibberJim 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Have you seen it? it's massive, there's detail you can't see on a computer screen, there's texture of the brushstrokes, the colours are rendered different to even an HDR screen (and the ACX was done without a full spectrum of colours) etc. etc. It's a completely different experience. I think the suggestion that art can be experienced through a computer screen the same as actually seeing the art does not need justifying exactly...

[–]bibliophile785Can this be my day job? 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Have you seen it?

Of course not. I doubt 0.1% of people have seen that particular painting in that particular gallery in that particular city in Italy. The damn thing never moves...

I have seen many other paintings though. Some of them are large. Some of them are masterpieces.

it's massive, there's detail you can't see on a computer screen, there's texture of the brushstrokes, the colours are rendered different to even an HDR screen (and the ACX was done without a full spectrum of colours) etc. etc. It's a completely different experience. I think the suggestion that art can be experienced through a computer screen the same as actually seeing the art does not need justifying exactly...

I'm glad I asked you to clarify, though. This has nothing to do with AI. It's just some generic flavor of physical exceptionalism. Do you feel the same way about digitally rendered graphics that were never painted or drawn by hand? Can those be art? Are they always mediocre to you?

If digital art is art in your eyes, then we should focus there and you should respond to my earlier points in that vein. If it isn't, there's no point in having this discussion right now and we should pick it up in a couple of years when music generation catches up or sometime after that when artificial paintings are generated as a novelty.

[–]JibberJim 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Certainly I can imagine digital art as real art - I've never seen it as AI, the subject was music - we have seen (heard) AI music, it's very average, that's exactly back where we started. The ACX comparison was brought up as a refutation of that - I've explained why I disagree. If we have some digital art from AI's that does "speak" to me, then I would say it wasn't mid - but I've never seen it, plenty of very average stuff of course.

The question is about what is happen today - if we're talking about some hypothetical future, there's loads of speculative fiction about that, and of course it's conceivable that an AI produces work far in advance of anything a human does - and that's the point I was making - "in a perfect future" is a completely different world, do not base your engagement with current things on that future, base it on today.

[–]bibliophile785Can this be my day job? 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Certainly I can imagine digital art as real art

Okay. Have you actually seen digital art that you feel is not mid? I'm not asking about AI anything right now. I'm asking about art created in a digital environment. It is irrelevant for the purposes of the question who created it.

if we're talking about some hypothetical future, there's loads of speculative fiction about that, and of course it's conceivable that an AI produces work far in advance of anything a human does - and that's the point I was making - "in a perfect future" is a completely different world, do not base your engagement with current things on that future, base it on today.

Sure. Like I said, if your experience of digital art heretofore only includes what you would call "mid" art (with all the caveats for your specific usage of that term), then this conversation will need to pause until a future moment where the present includes human-indistinguishable AI art in a genre that you are equipped to appreciate.

[–]JibberJim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hell, current tools would probably meet the bar being suggested

Oh and on this point, not at all, the subject was music, there's no AI music which has been described as good - there's certainly some which you can't distinguish from other crap music you're not enjoying anyway, but that's the key point. Average is very average, you can consume it fine if that's all you want, but you'll seek out good.

[–]sprunkymdunk 7 points8 points  (6 children)

The whole "AI slop" saga is going to be recognized as the moral panic of the 2020's.

You can wring your hands all you want, but it's here to stay. And it's getting better, faster. Soon you won't know the difference at all, and it won't matter. The only difference between a synthetic and organic mind is sophistication. 

There's no soul or ineffable inspiration in something human-generated, just hubris. 

[–]hushpiper 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I would edit this to: the only difference between a synthetic and organic mind is meaning. Unless they're being paid to churn out background music, an organic creating art is generally trying to express something, regardless of whether they're doing so well, or whether whatever they're trying to say is groundbreaking or asinine, the thoughts they put into the art is embedded in the art. So far, all AI I know of have simply been outputting patterns.

[–]sprunkymdunk 5 points6 points  (0 children)

AI is more than a pattern generator, I think that's pretty well established now.

The intent and meaning is the direction provided through prompts of users.

In this way AI is actually a democratization of art - us plebs can now exercise our artistic vision, and not rely on finding facsimiles of it made by a very small human artistic elite.

[–]Curieuxon 0 points1 point  (3 children)

"Soon you won't know the difference at all" We don't know that. AI could be forbidden, for example. Or, the fact that something is made by AI could be made mandatory. Or, maybe, no matter what we do, the AI generated stuff may be detected by hearing for some people, even if not most of us. Not only that, but IRL, we could see if something is done by AI or not.

"it won't matter" It would, actually. Many dislike AI generated art, as anyone can see by reading online reactions.

"The only difference between a synthetic and organic mind is sophistication. " No, it's not the only difference. Organic have their own causal flow, their own needs, and so on.

"There's no soul or ineffable inspiration in something human-generated" Yes, there is. Soul in art is linked to the process that lead to it, and these are difference between human-generated art and AI-generated art.

[–]sprunkymdunk 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Forbidding a threatening technology has a long, unsuccessful history. 

"Online reactions" is not meaningful If it reflected reality nobody would be buying Amazon products or eating McDonald's or shopping at Walmart. Yet somehow, despite online reactions, these mega corps are doing just fine. 

We are just going to have to disagree on the special flow and soul of human made stuff that you believe in. Humanity is not the only source of beauty, awe and wonder; and it's very short-sighted to think that synthetic brains can't aspire to them, ever.

[–]Curieuxon -1 points0 points  (1 child)

"Forbidding a threatening technology has a long, unsuccessful history. " Yeah, that's just wrong. Plenty threatening technology has been succesfully forbidden. What are you talking about?

"Yet somehow, despite online reactions, these mega corps are doing just fine. " First, you are totally missing the point. I was talking about the user POV, which is what it is. Second, it's not even true that these mega corps are doing just fine: AI is not profitable. OpenAI is losing billions.

"We are just going to have to disagree on the special flow and soul of human made stuff that you believe in" So much the worse for you then, because it's obvious that humans and AI are not producing stuff in the same way.

"Humanity is not the only source of beauty, awe and wonder; and it's very short-sighted to think that synthetic brains can't aspire to them, ever." That's irrelevant to what I wrote, though.

[–]sprunkymdunk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Let's start with all these disruptive technologies that have been successfully forbidden...

[–]Sol_Hando🤔*Thinking* 1 point2 points  (5 children)

This reminds me of the Spotify AI music conspiracy.

[–]iritimD 2 points3 points  (4 children)

not a conspiracy: Man Charged With $10 Million Streaming Music Scam Using AI Songs

[–]WTFwhatthehell 11 points12 points  (1 child)

That sounds like the big fraud part is having bots stream the music millions of times to fake listenership.

[–]iritimD 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Valid, but also he did use AI to make the songs.

[–]WithoutReason1729 8 points9 points  (1 child)

The AI element is just thrown in because it makes for a good headline. This is a pretty run of the mill fraud, just with an eye-catching new element that doesn't change the core nature of his crime

[–]JibberJim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Which is a bit strange, as it's a better fraud if you also build a following for your real band and pump them into actual making more money from touring/mechandise etc.

[–]Thorusss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is the same as with CGI (computer generated imagery) in movies. People will tell you they don't like CGI/AI content, and give examples of where they noticed it, because it was bad, while being unaware of the countless examples of CGI/AI that fit in great and delivered.

[–]drovious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's the difference between getting a shirt from the thrift store with a place you've never been on it and getting that same shirt while visiting that place.

[–]zoipoi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What about auto-tune?