AI Art

[Antimatter]

Uh-oh.

Microsoft is bringing AI characters to Xbox. It's partnering with Inworld AI to "create Xbox game development tools for generative AI characters, storylines, and more".

Microsoft is bringing AI characters to Xbox

Xbox developer tools are on the way for AI NPCs and more.

www.theverge.com

Ubisoft just one week ago:

Ubisoft's using hideous AI-generated Assassin's Creed art on social media, and everyone hates it

For the love of God, just pay some actual artists.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Black Elk]

Captain Seven was reppin' this yesterday...

Jeri Ryan on Instagram: "“Last, best, & final” my ass. WE WILL DECIDE. This is PERFECTION from @hereisnatalia"

1,488 likes, 59 comments - jerilryan on November 7, 2023: "“Last, best, & final” my ass. WE WILL DECIDE. This is PERFECTION from @hereisnatalia"

www.instagram.com

The one Natalie Costellanos made - It's hilarious! Probably it's easier to embed with twitter but I can't bring myself to use that one or refer to it by its silly new name.

As 'the Public' we need to slam closed our pocket books and reject this nonsense categorically, every time they try to push it, and support the creatives who are resisting this as an inevitable future. Where Art is concerned Ai needs to become a scarlet letter (or scarlet dipthong I guess lol) so they'll begin to see it as a badge not worth wearing. Save a buck, doing this, lose 5 on the backend cause it pisses everyone off! Those sorts of tactics. I hate to be all zero sum about anything, but we got a whole industry on strike over this issue, so scabbin' right now is even worse form. Visual artists have been in virtual lockstep for over a year now. Actors are united in opposition. The big dogs still trying to ignore it cause they think this is their cash cow, and not a bull that's about to break literally all the china. Need to take stand sometimes hehe

 

[Nimran]

I don’t understand why people pay AI ‘artists’ money. With those same tools, you could make them yourself for free, lol! If you want actual, authentic art, though, you should absolutely pay the very real artist.

 

[mlnevese]

I don’t understand why people pay AI ‘artists’ money. With those same tools, you could make them yourself for free, lol! If you want actual, authentic art, though, you should absolutely pay the very real artist.

I think it's more of being paid to know how to ask to obtain a certain result. But yes, anyone can do beautiful stuff as you learn to add conditions and rules to a prompt. Even my 7 years old does some fun stuff with Roblox and some cartoons he watches.

 

[Antimatter]

The current big scandal with OpenAI:

Hundreds of OpenAI employees threaten to resign and join Microsoft

The situation at OpenAI is getting even more dicey.

www.theverge.com

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

With all the problems of potential job loss, big companies using the technology for even cheaper production and all, I still see the positive sides of AI illustration too. It could take over a great deal of the dull, tedious, repetitive aspects. Not all illustration is an outstanding creative process, sometimes it's just a chore to do background stuff. Or a lot of low budget commissioned work could instead be done by an AI. There will always be people who want an illustration made, have a very, very specific idea of what it's supposed to look like, a very narrow budget they're willing to spend on it, but then they comment every draft with suggestions or rather demands of what should be done differently (without paying more ofc) without even knowing what's technically possible and how much time all those adjustments cost, and what, you can't do such a simple thing for the cheap price they wanted, it costs more? It's just something drawn on a tablet, anyone can do that!

I'd love to watch those people spend hours and hours feeding prompts to a machine

What I mean is, AI illustration can be used by artists or customers for the dull and tedious or repetitive background work, or by people who would come with the kind of commissions that artists don't like anyway.

That the faster evolution of technology compared to DNA is a foreboding of the end of humankind is an outlook that I don't share. Humans are perfectly capable of destroying each other without the machines taking over.

 

[O_Bruce]

The thing with AI generated images is that, art, be it illustration, making comics, painting, no matter, is a career path chosen by very specific people, usually driven by passion. People who worked over their skills for years, dealing with and overcoming various issues, all while being generally underappreciated and underpaid by people I affectionately call "normies". Artists don't deal with all this shit just to be replaced by a technology, especially if the database of said technology is created on millions of copyrighted work taken without artists' consent and with no compensation at all.

What's worrying about AI technology isn't "machines taking over" angle. What's worrying is an endgame of human lives being fairly automated, redundant, pointless and unhealthy in the long term. The natural long-term consequence of making skills, knowledge and problem-solving capabilities redundant (after all, AI can do shit for you), is a generation or generations of undeveloped people who can't do anything and do not inspire to be anything. This is a natural result of reducing/eliminating struggle and meaning in life - people need eustress to function properly. If you think I'm exaggerating, take a note of what is done even without AI. For years already, you can take a look at any social media platfrom and see people exaggerating minor issues to absurd degrees or straight up making up new problems, preferring to build their self-esteem on traits they have no control over instead on what they do, what they inspire to, what they achieved. Additionally, their online functionality is heavily automated by algorithms, reducing the need to curate the content they are exposed to, creating worthless echo chambers. All AI technology is going to do is make those issues worse.

While I acknowledge that AI can be used for something good, I'm also not naive and won't be kidding myself. Most often than not, its use is rotten to the core. Deep fakes, spreading misinformation, creating porn of people without their consent, taking away people's jobs and not replacing them with anything. Scamming people.

People's abillity to create a technology doesn't make said technology worth creating and continuing to rely on it.

 

[m7600]

I want to see AI technology in areas like farming, storage and transportation. If you could use AI to automate those areas, then food would be free. And if you could also automate the production of clothes and houses, then you wouldn't need to work, which means you'd be free to make art all day or whatever suits your fancy.

 

[O_Bruce]

And yet art of all things being automated. It really says it all, doesn't it?

I also think it is naive to think stuff will be free when automated. Production of anything requires some costs, which means the product will need to cost something.

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

I want to see AI technology in areas like farming, storage and transportation. If you could use AI to automate those areas, then food would be free. And if you could also automate the production of clothes and houses, then you wouldn't need to work, which means you'd be free to make art all day or whatever suits your fancy.

Once again, job losses. And nothing will be free - it’s just going to cost more and more. Grocery prices haven’t dropped with the advent of self checkout.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

Computers are very good at being very accurate in handling huge amounts of information quickly that would be boring, tedious and repetitive for humans and where we would start making sloppy mistakes.

One example where AI can be great:

I have recently read an article in a medical journal about use of AI in evaluating images of intestinal endoscopy. Procedures like coloscopy to discover early stages of bowel cancer or pre-cancer lesions are highly operator dependent, i.e. the experience of the doctor who does the procedure matters a lot, because they have to check tons of square centimeters of bowel with the naked eye (and some image enhancement tech). Humans easily overlook details.
They also need a lot of experience in doing the procedure and at the same time looking, and having seen enough examples of how healthy bowels look and how to discover lesions that are suspicious. Anyone can see a big bleeding tumor, but not to overlook the tiny irregularity that will become one in two years is much harder.
And a junior doctor can maybe assist in a handful of procedures or in a specialized center maybe a few more per day, so even if they do nothing else, and even if they watch videos of imaging taken during the procedure, they can maybe see how many examples of healthy and pathological images per year and learn to recognize the differences? You get the idea.

That's where machine learning comes in. You can feed thousands of healthy and pathological image recordings to a program in very short time, and an AI can scan much more surface in much more detail and much shorter time than a human ever could. Of course a person still needs to take the decision to take a sample or cut out the problematic structure, but analyzing the images and finding important details can be more precise and take less time.

In that case it won't endanger jobs, it will help prevent more cases of cancer or recognize early treatable stages, because clinics are chronically understaffed anywhere in the world and patients often wait months for an appointment, so if analyzing the images takes less time *and* is more accurate, it means more time to actually treat people and do the stuff that human hands and eyes are needed for.

 

[m7600]

Production of anything requires some costs

Not if what is costs is automated as well.

Once again, job losses.

If food, clothes, and every other product is free due to automation, why would you even need a job?

And nothing will be free - it’s just going to cost more and more.

Why would it cost anything if it's automated?

Grocery prices haven’t dropped with the advent of self checkout.

Because self checkout isn't full automation of farming, storage and transportation.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

What you describe is an awesome utopia, a world I would very much like to live in. It's a nice concept to discuss in theory.

Practically speaking I'm afraid it's not technological progress that decides if such a concept could work, but human weakness. As I see the world now, greedy people would still try, and probably succeed, to take advantage of others. It is indeed the case that even nowadays cheaper production doesn't necessarily lead to lower prices but to higher profit margins.

I think any of those utopian ideas can only work on small scale, in small communities where everyone knows everyone and feels responsible.
In the way that communism works on the level of a kibbutz, but not a country with a population of several million people.

 

[O_Bruce]

@m7600
Let's pretend everything you said is automated. What does that automation need? Power. Electricity, to be more specific. Electricity isn't free. Therefore, no automation is ever going to be free. Money don't grow on trees, btw.

The other thing is, in a situation where no person can work due to everything being automated... Look at social media nowadays to see what lack of purpose, direction, struggle and plain boredom does to people. If you think that by removing need to work will result of people being productive on their interests or passions, then you're dead wrong.

 

[m7600]

Electricity isn't free.

Solar, wind, and water power, my friend. Free electricity if done right.

If you think that by removing need to work will result of people being productive on their interests or passions, then you're dead wrong.

Prove it. That's just a premise that you're stating. I'll simply deny it until you provide evidence. The burden of proof is on you.

 

[O_Bruce]

Solar, wind, and water power, my friend. Free electricity if done right.

Prove it. That's just a premise that you're stating. I'll simply deny it until you provide evidence. The burden of proof is on you.

1. Ah yes, because maintaining infrastructure to generate energy from sun, wind or water is certainly going to be free, both in term of resources, money and labour. And even more certainly, efficient and sufficient to cover humanity's needs.

2. Basic psychology, my friend. Have you heard about "Mouse utopia" or similar experiments? In advance - excuse me for speaking of top of my head. You can provide a mice population literally everything they need, make their life so easy, full of pleasure, instant gratification, unlimited access to sexual partners and so on and so on. The result of all of that was that in time, the population of mice not only became null to all that good thing, it also lost the drive to do anything, including self-preservation. Now, humans aren't mice and vice versa, and we absolutely don't live in such a utopia (and conducting such experiments on humans would be extremely unethical), so it can't ever be verified to be 1-1 comparison. But, with the years of observation, I can easily tell where things are going. Social media are the best example of people like that. Little intentionality in their actions, driven by algorithms, little thought, seeking instant gratification, their nervous systems being so bombarded with dopamine they become null to good things they have. Them developing personality issues, become narcissistic. Arguing over petty shit, blowing problems out of proportion, inventing a fictional problems. For pete's sake, just 15 years ago to become noteworthy you did something challenging. Nowadays, you eat tidepods or literally brag about shit you stole. That's dumbing down of humanity, and that's without AI doing everything for us.

Now think about the logical conclusion. If people act so dumb with very little going on in their lives, imagine what happens when there won't be anything for them to do at all.

 

[m7600]

1. Ah yes, because maintaining infrastructure to generate energy from sun, wind or water is certainly going to be free, both in term of resources, money and labour. And even more certainly, efficient and sufficient to cover humanity's needs.

The infrastructure's construction as well as its maintenance could be automated. It could quite well cover all of humanities needs, if we reach stage 1 of the Kardashev scale.

2. Basic psychology, my friend. Have you heard about "Mouse utopia" or similar experiments? In advance - excuse me for speaking of top of my head. You can provide a mice population literally everything they need, make their life so easy, full of pleasure, instant gratification, unlimited access to sexual partners and so on and so on. The result of all of that was that in time, the population of mice not only became null to all that good thing, it also lost the drive to do anything, including self-preservation. Now, humans aren't mice and vice versa, and we absolutely don't live in such a utopia (and conducting such experiments on humans would be extremely unethical), so it can't ever be verified to be 1-1 comparison. But, with the years of observation, I can easily tell where things are going. Social media are the best example of people like that.

Nah, I'm not buying it. This is a false equivalence fallacy. You said it yourself, mice aren't people. They have no concept of money or labor.

Social media are the best example of people like that. Little intentionality in their actions, driven by algorithms, little thought, seeking instant gratification, their nervous systems being so bombarded with dopamine they become null to good things they have. Them developing personality issues, become narcissistic. Arguing over petty shit, blowing problems out of proportion, inventing a fictional problems. For pete's sake, just 15 years ago to become noteworthy you did something challenging. Nowadays, you eat tidepods or literally brag about shit you stole. That's dumbing down of humanity, and that's without AI doing everything for us.

Those behaviors could be due to any number of different causes. You're stating that the cause is that they don't have a job. And even if they don't have a job, correlation does not equal causation. Show me a research paper that supports your conclusion, specifically one published in a peer-reviewed journal like Nature or Science. A false equivalence with mice won't cut it.

 

[O_Bruce]

The infrastructure's construction as well as its maintenance could be automated. It could quite well cover all of humanities needs, if we reach stage 1 of the Kardashev scale.

We are going to into comedic territory at this point. I could keep pointing out things requiring costs and maintenance and you'll just respond that it will also be automated. This will go on into inifity without fail. All you need to realize your mistake here is to start thinking more than one step at a time.

Nah, I'm not buying it. This is a false equivalence fallacy. You said it yourself, mice aren't people. They have no concept of money or labor.

If I told you that mice and people are equal, you'd have a worthless parody of a point here. I EXPLICTLY stated this is NOT 1-to-1 comparison. What mice are, however, are fairly intelligent and social mammals. Humans are even more complex, intelligent and social mammals. Like it or not, biology works on the same principles in both species. That includes things like reactivity to stimuli, libido, and motivation - on the very basic level on how that works anyway. Biology doesn't change its rules just because one organism is more psychologically complex and intelligent than the other.

Those behaviors could be due to any number of different causes

There's certainly more to this, true. In psychology, it is utterly foolish to assume there's one case to everything.

They have no concept of money or labor.

True. But animals, especially those who live in the wild are under constant pressure to survive. Be it finding things to eat, water to drink, shelter, running from predators, finding a mate, and so on and so on. Humans don't have to fight for their survival every day - we substituted that with working. You work, and you get the money as compensation for your work. You use money to buy goods and services you need to survive and for comfort/luxury.

I'll add one jab to that. You don't seem to know how money works and the meaning of work yourself. Funny.

You're stating that the cause is that they don't have a job

You don't have the slightest idea what my statement is. It goes much further than "lol, that's what happens when you don't have a job". Think more than one step ahead.

Show me a research paper that supports your conclusion, specifically one published in a peer-reviewed journal like Nature or Science.

Reasons why I won't bother with that:
1. I treat this conversation like that one with a random stranger I meet somewhere in public. I am talking out of the top of my head with general knowledge I acquired years ago while I was studying psychology for about 5 years. I won't be searching for relevant papers in conversations like this, especially when I have something to do.
2. You don't have any kind of proof to your statement yourself. Even if I apply point 1 principles to you as well, all I have is a person whose outlook is very short-sighted. Regardless of what I point out specifically, you'd just respond with something similar to "it will also be automated", without a hint of a thought of the larger picture, and therefore without considering that somewhere along this chain of automation, something can go wrong. Or that there might be problems with the implementation of said automation.
3. Your reaction to such a paper would be just another "nah", therefore wasting my time.

We cannot be friends.

 

[Antimatter]

I can see the merit in both points of view. Thanks for sharing them, you two! The intent is not to win an argument (you can't do that online), but to share your view and make others think. You've succeded in that. And no obligation to be friends, just being in the same room and talking is more than enough.

It would be better for me that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself. ~Socrates

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

I had to google what the Kardashev scale is.

The intent is not to win an argument (you can't do that online)

True. We have rules for that. So if settling a score ever becomes the purpose, please don't hesitate to approach your resident Krogan battlemaster and meet at the clearing behind the tavern.
Please state if you prefer the traditional fists and headbutting, drinking contest, or poetry slam, and give us a bit of time in advance to prepare some snacks for the spectators, ahem, I mean witnesses.

Loser has to clear the basement but is allowed to keep the dead rats.