this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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I suspect they hate it not because of any features of the actual images themselves, but for what it means to how society as a whole treats art.
For some it's simply financial. Their career is at stake, an industry that they thought was a stable source of employment is now on the leading edge of a huge shake-up that might not need them at all in the future.
For others it's seen as an attack on their personal self-worth. For years - for generations - there has been a steady drumbeat insistence that art is what makes humans "special." Both specific artists, and humanity in general. It was supposed to be a special skill that we had that set us above the animals and the machines. And now that's been usurped.
It's like the old folk take of John Henry, the steel-driving man who made a heroic last stand against Skynet's forces in the railroad construction industry. People want to think humans are irreplaceable and art seemed like a rock-solid anchor for that. Turns out it was actually not.
Spot on!
Agree and I sympathize with all the points.
On the financial point, we, as a society, badly need to stop depending on jobs for survival before it's too late. But I know that we're unlikely to change until a lot of people get hurt.
And on the self-worth point, it feels awful to be replaced, even if the money isn't an issue. People take pride in their work and want their work to be celebrated. Yet, we're quickly approaching a point where it's going to be very difficult for people to create art by hand that can hold a candle to AI art. Sure, there's still many master artists, but they got where they are through hard work. How many new potential artists will be willing to put in that hard work when any random Joe Blow can generate something better in seconds? Human made art (from scratch) won't go away, but it is harder to feel good about what you create when it feels like your art has no place anymore.
I suspect that society isn't going to stop depending on jobs for survival until it's too late. That is, it'll only implement something like UBI or equivalent solution once most jobs have been replaced and there's a legion of permanent unemployed who are forcing the issue to be addressed. Unfortunately that just seems to be the way of things, very few problems ever get addressed preemptively.
IMO this isn't really a reason to try to slow down AI, because that will only slow down the eventual UBI-like solution to it. At this point I don't think "change human nature first" is a viable approach.