Why don't indie devs use AI-generated images as art?

[thesecret1]

It could all be stopped with a worldwide moratorium on AI research (similar to the consensus re. poison gas weapons, etc. - "this is bad for all of us, so all of us need to stop, and we will police this")

Poison gas offers no benefit outside of war, where it's basically mutually assured destruction kind of thing. AI confers massive benefits even at peacetime, with both parties getting richer rather than destroyed. Or that's the idea, at least.

Not that I think AI is yet at that sort of stage - but if this nonsense keeps going, it will eventually be.

Will it, though? That's just an opinionated projection, which can just as easily be countered with "no, it will be fine". A much better argument would be needed to reach such a consensus.

As to the competition point, so what? Outside of pure and applied sciences and military (which as we've seen, even centrally controlled economies were capable of keeping up), most of the innovations people "compete" in are artificially stimulated - which is another point against the libertarian line of argument (IOW, it's not that capitalists compete to service real needs better, it's that they stimulate artificial wants for more and more nonsense that nobody really needs).

Well, technically speaking, all you really need is a place to sleep and some food and water. You know, a pod with some bugs to eat, etc. But in competition over the favour of the people, it is what they want that matters. I mean consider the Eastern Block during the Cold War. Most of the people, most of the time (let's not cherrypick) got all they really needed. They had food, they has a place to sleep, they got clothes and cars, they got radios, etc. But the people in the West had more. They drove flashier cars, they wore nicer clothes, they had more electronic devices, they could get exotic fruit any time of the year (while in the Eastern Block, whenever things like bananas were actually on offer, people stood massive lines to get them for what a luxury item they were considered to be), they had better TVs, their houses looked better and so on and so on. The eastener had everything he needed and then some, but he had less than the westener, and that pissed him the fuck off. He also wanted such luxuries, and tried to get them in whichever way he could (often by low level corruption and nepotism). And he knew that the fact the westener has those things and he doesn't is chiefly the fault of his government, which the government had to alleviate in other ways. Thus, the West outcompeted the East. If you disregard this, you will just end up with your country either bankrupt (as you try to raise the living standard despite your economy being outcompeted) or couped by your own population, pissed off that they cannot get what neighbouring countries do.

But economic efficiency has to be balanced by other considerations, in a republic that has its eyes open for present and future costs to the well-being of its people, as well as benefits.

Sure, but those considerations need to be backed up by something you can actually point at. For example, environmental regulations do hamper the economy. But any politician can just grab a picture of smog-filled Shanghai or whatever and go "You don't want your city to look like that, do you?". What will you back your AI concerns with? Ask people to go watch Matrix? Until there's an actual, significant problem going on in the real world (rather than just a theory) that you can point at and blame the AI for, you don't really have much ground to stand on.

 

[oblivionenjoyer]

The problem with that is that if you decide to stunt technological progress in the name of stability and such, other countries won't, and will outcompete you. Imagine if luddites got their way and the government decided to stop factory automatization in some country. How could it even hope to compete? Maybe running some hardcore sweatshops where wages would be so low they'd undercut the machines? I don't think that's a path that benefits anyone.

Today's markets may not be free, but note that the powers that be do not try to stop the current, merely direct it. You cannot stop automatization with AI at this point, it's too late. You can only adapt.

And you know, I really don't see it so negatively. In the article, they say that two people can now do the work of ten. Isn't that a great thing? It means that if you ran, for example, an indie game studio, your costs went down by a large chunk (or your productivity skyrocketed). This means that you need less capital to start such a studio (you are paing fewer people, after all), meaning more people will be able to start one. More studios then mean more jobs. It's a net benefit by far.

Oh sure, there will always be winners with every change, but there will also be losers. Has anyone ever seriously done a cost/benefit on it though?

It could all be stopped with a worldwide moratorium on AI research (similar to the consensus re. poison gas weapons, etc. - "this is bad for all of us, so all of us need to stop, and we will police this"). Not that I think AI is yet at that sort of stage - but if this nonsense keeps going, it will eventually be. Are we human beings or lemmings?

As to the competition point, so what? Outside of pure and applied sciences and military (which as we've seen, even centrally controlled economies were capable of keeping up), most of the innovations people "compete" in are artificially stimulated - which is another point against the libertarian line of argument (IOW, it's not that capitalists compete to service real needs better, it's that they stimulate artificial wants for more and more nonsense that nobody really needs).

Economy for man, or man for economy? Are we supposed to have lives of which our economic activities are just one part, or are we merely cogs in an economic machine (or more realistically, playthings of a plutocracy)?

I wouldn't want to give the impression that I'm against markets and competition on apriori grounds, free markets are a necessary, functional part of any economy. But economic efficiency has to be balanced by other considerations, in a republic that has its eyes open for present and future costs to the well-being of its people, as well as benefits.

This is like someone during the Industrial Revolution saying "what if we just banned all the machines!!!"

The March of Progress is unrelenting and indifferent.

 

[gurugeorge]

It could all be stopped with a worldwide moratorium on AI research (similar to the consensus re. poison gas weapons, etc. - "this is bad for all of us, so all of us need to stop, and we will police this")

Poison gas offers no benefit outside of war, where it's basically mutually assured destruction kind of thing. AI confers massive benefits even at peacetime, with both parties getting richer rather than destroyed. Or that's the idea, at least.

Not that I think AI is yet at that sort of stage - but if this nonsense keeps going, it will eventually be.

Will it, though? That's just an opinionated projection, which can just as easily be countered with "no, it will be fine". A much better argument would be needed to reach such a consensus.

Be serious, they're just going to keep going and going until it happens. AI research is peak autism and it has to be reined in.

This is why nerds used to be bullied, have their lunch money stolen and (going back far enough) culled.

As to the competition point, so what? Outside of pure and applied sciences and military (which as we've seen, even centrally controlled economies were capable of keeping up), most of the innovations people "compete" in are artificially stimulated - which is another point against the libertarian line of argument (IOW, it's not that capitalists compete to service real needs better, it's that they stimulate artificial wants for more and more nonsense that nobody really needs).

Well, technically speaking, all you really need is a place to sleep and some food and water. You know, a pod with some bugs to eat, etc. But in competition over the favour of the people, it is what they want that matters. I mean consider the Eastern Block during the Cold War. Most of the people, most of the time (let's not cherrypick) got all they really needed. They had food, they has a place to sleep, they got clothes and cars, they got radios, etc. But the people in the West had more. They drove flashier cars, they wore nicer clothes, they had more electronic devices, they could get exotic fruit any time of the year (while in the Eastern Block, whenever things like bananas were actually on offer, people stood massive lines to get them for what a luxury item they were considered to be), they had better TVs, their houses looked better and so on and so on. The eastener had everything he needed and then some, but he had less than the westener, and that pissed him the fuck off. He also wanted such luxuries, and tried to get them in whichever way he could (often by low level corruption and nepotism). And he knew that the fact the westener has those things and he doesn't is chiefly the fault of his government, which the government had to alleviate in other ways. Thus, the West outcompeted the East. If you disregard this, you will just end up with your country either bankrupt (as you try to raise the living standard despite your economy being outcompeted) or couped by your own population, pissed off that they cannot get what neighbouring countries do.

There's a lot of buyer's remorse in the former Eastern Bloc now. That's partly what the shitshow in Ukraine is about. (The US: "Here are some sanctions, you don't get to have MacDonalds" Russians: "lol")

I think I may have mentioned this anecdote before, but shortly after the fall of the Wall, I visited some poor relations in Poland, and asked them if they liked the changes (being a gung-ho libertarian at the time, I expect glowing reports). Not so much. They acknowledged the freedom of speech positives, but noticed the increasing fragmentation of society, and they noticed the fact that for all their faults, the Communist systems did in fact look after their poor, ill, dysfunctional, etc. Costs and benefits, and it's not at all clear what the final balance was.

The problem there was that Communists had the bizarre idea that a command economy could be total, and that it wasn't such a difficult problem (cf. Lenin's famous bookkeeping quote). They retreated from that over time, and things were getting better for them as their systems tended more towards Social Democracy (a blend of free market and central direction), but the major damage had already been done in the early years of the Bolshevik coup.

But economic efficiency has to be balanced by other considerations, in a republic that has its eyes open for present and future costs to the well-being of its people, as well as benefits.

Sure, but those considerations need to be backed up by something you can actually point at. For example, environmental regulations do hamper the economy. But any politician can just grab a picture of smog-filled Shanghai or whatever and go "You don't want your city to look like that, do you?". What will you back your AI concerns with? Ask people to go watch Matrix? Until there's an actual, significant problem going on in the real world (rather than just a theory) that you can point at and blame the AI for, you don't really have much ground to stand on.

By the time something you can "point to" happens, it's going to be too late. The point is to try and foresee, to project, to spitball, to head potential trouble off at the pass. That's what intelligent people are supposed to do, and what "consultants" to government in various areas, committees and all the rest of it, are supposed to be for.

But no! Let the AI autism continue unabated! Let the "free market" rip! Because reasons.

WHY are human beings doing AI research, and are there good reasons why they should NOT do it?

 

[gurugeorge]

The problem with that is that if you decide to stunt technological progress in the name of stability and such, other countries won't, and will outcompete you. Imagine if luddites got their way and the government decided to stop factory automatization in some country. How could it even hope to compete? Maybe running some hardcore sweatshops where wages would be so low they'd undercut the machines? I don't think that's a path that benefits anyone.

Today's markets may not be free, but note that the powers that be do not try to stop the current, merely direct it. You cannot stop automatization with AI at this point, it's too late. You can only adapt.

And you know, I really don't see it so negatively. In the article, they say that two people can now do the work of ten. Isn't that a great thing? It means that if you ran, for example, an indie game studio, your costs went down by a large chunk (or your productivity skyrocketed). This means that you need less capital to start such a studio (you are paing fewer people, after all), meaning more people will be able to start one. More studios then mean more jobs. It's a net benefit by far.

Oh sure, there will always be winners with every change, but there will also be losers. Has anyone ever seriously done a cost/benefit on it though?

It could all be stopped with a worldwide moratorium on AI research (similar to the consensus re. poison gas weapons, etc. - "this is bad for all of us, so all of us need to stop, and we will police this"). Not that I think AI is yet at that sort of stage - but if this nonsense keeps going, it will eventually be. Are we human beings or lemmings?

As to the competition point, so what? Outside of pure and applied sciences and military (which as we've seen, even centrally controlled economies were capable of keeping up), most of the innovations people "compete" in are artificially stimulated - which is another point against the libertarian line of argument (IOW, it's not that capitalists compete to service real needs better, it's that they stimulate artificial wants for more and more nonsense that nobody really needs).

Economy for man, or man for economy? Are we supposed to have lives of which our economic activities are just one part, or are we merely cogs in an economic machine (or more realistically, playthings of a plutocracy)?

I wouldn't want to give the impression that I'm against markets and competition on apriori grounds, free markets are a necessary, functional part of any economy. But economic efficiency has to be balanced by other considerations, in a republic that has its eyes open for present and future costs to the well-being of its people, as well as benefits.

This is like someone during the Industrial Revolution saying "what if we just banned all the machines!!!"

The March of Progress is unrelenting and indifferent.

Abstractions heaped on abstractions.

 

[oblivionenjoyer]

The problem with that is that if you decide to stunt technological progress in the name of stability and such, other countries won't, and will outcompete you. Imagine if luddites got their way and the government decided to stop factory automatization in some country. How could it even hope to compete? Maybe running some hardcore sweatshops where wages would be so low they'd undercut the machines? I don't think that's a path that benefits anyone.

Today's markets may not be free, but note that the powers that be do not try to stop the current, merely direct it. You cannot stop automatization with AI at this point, it's too late. You can only adapt.

And you know, I really don't see it so negatively. In the article, they say that two people can now do the work of ten. Isn't that a great thing? It means that if you ran, for example, an indie game studio, your costs went down by a large chunk (or your productivity skyrocketed). This means that you need less capital to start such a studio (you are paing fewer people, after all), meaning more people will be able to start one. More studios then mean more jobs. It's a net benefit by far.

Oh sure, there will always be winners with every change, but there will also be losers. Has anyone ever seriously done a cost/benefit on it though?

It could all be stopped with a worldwide moratorium on AI research (similar to the consensus re. poison gas weapons, etc. - "this is bad for all of us, so all of us need to stop, and we will police this"). Not that I think AI is yet at that sort of stage - but if this nonsense keeps going, it will eventually be. Are we human beings or lemmings?

As to the competition point, so what? Outside of pure and applied sciences and military (which as we've seen, even centrally controlled economies were capable of keeping up), most of the innovations people "compete" in are artificially stimulated - which is another point against the libertarian line of argument (IOW, it's not that capitalists compete to service real needs better, it's that they stimulate artificial wants for more and more nonsense that nobody really needs).

Economy for man, or man for economy? Are we supposed to have lives of which our economic activities are just one part, or are we merely cogs in an economic machine (or more realistically, playthings of a plutocracy)?

I wouldn't want to give the impression that I'm against markets and competition on apriori grounds, free markets are a necessary, functional part of any economy. But economic efficiency has to be balanced by other considerations, in a republic that has its eyes open for present and future costs to the well-being of its people, as well as benefits.

This is like someone during the Industrial Revolution saying "what if we just banned all the machines!!!"

The March of Progress is unrelenting and indifferent.

Abstractions heaped on abstractions.

No, it was just one singular analogy which you're clearly too retarded to grasp.

 

[what am i doing]

It could all be stopped with a worldwide moratorium on AI research (similar to the consensus re. poison gas weapons, etc. - "this is bad for all of us, so all of us need to stop, and we will police this"). Not that I think AI is yet at that sort of stage - but if this nonsense keeps going, it will eventually be. Are we human beings or lemmings?

So basically great powers will continue AI while adding it to the list of things they can use as excuses for kicking the shit out of small countries for.

 

[V17]

Well, technically speaking, all you really need is a place to sleep and some food and water. You know, a pod with some bugs to eat, etc. But in competition over the favour of the people, it is what they want that matters. I mean consider the Eastern Block during the Cold War. Most of the people, most of the time (let's not cherrypick) got all they really needed. They had food, they has a place to sleep, they got clothes and cars, they got radios, etc. But the people in the West had more. They drove flashier cars, they wore nicer clothes, they had more electronic devices, they could get exotic fruit any time of the year (while in the Eastern Block, whenever things like bananas were actually on offer, people stood massive lines to get them for what a luxury item they were considered to be), they had better TVs, their houses looked better and so on and so on. The eastener had everything he needed and then some, but he had less than the westener, and that pissed him the fuck off. He also wanted such luxuries, and tried to get them in whichever way he could (often by low level corruption and nepotism). And he knew that the fact the westener has those things and he doesn't is chiefly the fault of his government, which the government had to alleviate in other ways. Thus, the West outcompeted the East. If you disregard this, you will just end up with your country either bankrupt (as you try to raise the living standard despite your economy being outcompeted) or couped by your own population, pissed off that they cannot get what neighbouring countries do.

Though I generally agree with your position, I want to chime in here because as an easterner I don't think the analogy has solid foundations. I will try to give my own view, but I will not try to specify how it would change your argument.
I think a tl;dr would be that the eastern states provided most basic material needs but not social and intellectual needs and those are the reason why they fell, no the fact that the west owned more/better stuff.

While "the neighbor has better and more expensive shit than I do, I gotta get it too/get even better" existed and provided motivation, I'm not sure it was the main driving factor. People get used to a lot if the conditions last for long enough and one of the biggest features of communism was that you had little responsibility, which also helps make people complacent and accept whatever comes, within some norms. I honestly believe that many people didn't really mind having worse/less stuff by itself that much, though they certainly weren't happy about it.

I think the bigger problem is that the whole system was based on principles that are socially and economically dysfunctional. Economical dysfunction doesn't just mean that people get less (which may not be that big of an issue), but also that things do not get better and the gap between you and a functional western society is only getting bigger and bigger. In other news there is no hope, you get no coping mechanism in tune of "our system is better, so we will win eventually". Socially dysfunctional means a lot of things in this context, but imo some of the most important is that in order to keep people in line the ruling party had to use fear. This meant that saying the wrong words when talking about politics could cause you to never get a job in your field again and be forced to work as a night guard or your kids never having the chance to get to a good school. It could not be avoided because it was not just or at least rational, if the party disliked you, they would always find something to legally screw you with.

And the people who wielded this power over others were usually complete fucking retards, which I believe is also crucial.

Living like that is not pleasant even if all your basic needs are met. It also causes people to sort of "mentally resign" from politics and some parts of society - they stop being proactive about improving their surroundings, do not innovate etc., because firstly too much activity is often viewed as going against the party line and secondly nobody appreciates it anyway. It creates a kind of a learned helplessness that you can still quite strongly see in modern Russia for example. The opposite of both activism and genuine entrepreneurial spirit. Funny that Ukraine was mentioned here, I have some ties to Ukraine (being Czech myself) and in the last decade Ukrainians seem to have been slowly getting rid of this helplessness and many started to see a way towards prosperity, which I think is one of the reasons why they fight so hard.

In other words I believe that people may really be able to accept living with less as long they have a feeling that the system around them works reasonably well, is to some degree just and there is some hope in the distance. But living in a system that seems stale and hopeless and rules with fear on top of that either really breaks the spirit of its citizens (which to some degree happened) or eventually crumbles.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I must admit, I was somewhat sceptical at first...
But it's fucking over.

There's zero fuckin' reason to hire more than 1 artists for normal 2d art. You can proompt something with more soul and quality than any generic chink MMO art.

 

[thesecret1]

Be serious, they're just going to keep going and going until it happens. AI research is peak autism and it has to be reined in.

Sorry dude, but "It's totally going to happen, trust me bro" is not really something that can be taken seriously. What you describe could be impossible, or it could be centuries away. Would you ban the steam engine because, down the road, it would eventually lead to the AI taking over? Of course not. You want to reap as much benefit as you can, and only stop if it seems like the danger is immediate.

There's a lot of buyer's remorse in the former Eastern Bloc now.

There really isn't. Next to nobody wants to go back to communism. The remorse is mostly in two parts: 1. that the transition to a free market was botched so massively that it crippled us, 2. that we shouldn't have signed our sovereignity away. And even then it's only among a part of the society. Over here (Czech Republic), I'd say about 50% of the population are staunch EU dicksuckers.

In any case, this doesn't really matter to the argument itself. If you outcompete, you outcompete. Even if you win through lies, in the end, you defeat the enemy. Claiming moral superiority after your system is overthrown is kind of pointless.

By the time something you can "point to" happens, it's going to be too late. The point is to try and foresee, to project, to spitball, to head potential trouble off at the pass. That's what intelligent people are supposed to do, and what "consultants" to government in various areas, committees and all the rest of it, are supposed to be for.

But no! Let the AI autism continue unabated! Let the "free market" rip! Because reasons.

WHY are human beings doing AI research, and are there good reasons why they should NOT do it?

As I noted above, should such a danger seem real, and close at hand, then such a discussion would take place. But before then, when danger is merely theoretical and far away? Of course not.

While "the neighbor has better and more expensive shit than I do, I gotta get it too/get even better" existed and provided motivation, I'm not sure it was the main driving factor. People get used to a lot if the conditions last for long enough and one of the biggest features of communism was that you had little responsibility, which also helps make people complacent and accept whatever comes, within some norms. I honestly believe that many people didn't really mind having worse/less stuff by itself that much, though they certainly weren't happy about it.

I think the bigger problem is that the whole system was based on principles that are socially and economically dysfunctional. Economical dysfunction doesn't just mean that people get less (which may not be that big of an issue), but also that things do not get better and the gap between you and a functional western society is only getting bigger and bigger. In other news there is no hope, you get no coping mechanism in tune of "our system is better, so we will win eventually". Socially dysfunctional means a lot of things in this context, but imo some of the most important is that in order to keep people in line the ruling party had to use fear. This meant that saying the wrong words when talking about politics could cause you to never get a job in your field again and be forced to work as a night guard or your kids never having the chance to get to a good school. It could not be avoided because it was not just or at least rational, if the party disliked you, they would always find something to legally screw you with.

And the people who wielded this power over others were usually complete fucking retards, which I believe is also crucial.

Living like that is not pleasant even if all your basic needs are met. It also causes people to sort of "mentally resign" from politics and some parts of society - they stop being proactive about improving their surroundings, do not innovate etc., because firstly too much activity is often viewed as going against the party line and secondly nobody appreciates it anyway. It creates a kind of a learned helplessness that you can still quite strongly see in modern Russia for example. The opposite of both activism and genuine entrepreneurial spirit. Funny that Ukraine was mentioned here, I have some ties to Ukraine (being Czech myself) and in the last decade Ukrainians seem to have been slowly getting rid of this helplessness and many started to see a way towards prosperity, which I think is one of the reasons why they fight so hard.

In other words I believe that people may really be able to accept living with less as long they have a feeling that the system around them works reasonably well, is to some degree just and there is some hope in the distance. But living in a system that seems stale and hopeless and rules with fear on top of that either really breaks the spirit of its citizens (which to some degree happened) or eventually crumbles.

I live here too, and the material aspect was crucial. Had USSR not gone bankrupt (in part due to trying to match the West in living standards), you can be certain that we'd still be living under communism today. Mental resignation from politics also meant resignation from resistance for the most part, and the vast majority of people would have even supported communism had it actually worked. The need to dissent against the ruling policy stemmed less from some ideology principles, and more from the fact that it didn't fucking work, and the living standards were lagging behind the West. Hell, you could even see this verified recently during COVID. Unprecendented breach of rights, government passing laws that it itself admits were illegal... and the bulk of the population cheered that shit on. Hell, in the elections afterwards, they even elected parties that supported that shit throughout. Clearly, so long as the living standards remain relatively high, the government can do whatever it wants without repercussions.

 

[Norfleet]

There's zero fuckin' reason to hire more than 1 artists for normal 2d art. You can proompt something with more soul and quality than any generic chink MMO art.

Yeah, but that's a one-shot. Now let's say the horned dude in the center is a character. Can you get me more of him? Not more dudes like him. I want to see more of that guy. Can this do more than just a character portrait?

 

[thesecret1]

Yeah, but that's a one-shot. Now let's say the horned dude in the center is a character. Can you get me more of him? Not more dudes like him. I want to see more of that guy. Can this do more than just a character portrait?

It can. People use it like that all the time too.

 

[The Wall]

Yeah, but that's a one-shot. Now let's say the horned dude in the center is a character. Can you get me more of him? Not more dudes like him. I want to see more of that guy. Can this do more than just a character portrait?

It can. People use it like that all the time too.

Exactly. Midwits gonna midwit, I guess. They love talking about subject they have done ZERO research on. Let alone serious research
By the end of this year, any Codexer with good work ethics, should be able to start making his own small RPG project. Literally
But most people are Consumers, not Creators. Cattle that waits to be fed with Entertainment

 

[Norfleet]

Yeah, but that's a one-shot. Now let's say the horned dude in the center is a character. Can you get me more of him? Not more dudes like him. I want to see more of that guy. Can this do more than just a character portrait?

It can. People use it like that all the time too.

Neat. Where do I get one? Any examples of continuity with these art samples? I've seen earlier attempts with this, and the results doesn't really look like they're supposed to be the same character, but just disjointed one-shots of random similar people chained together.

 

[thesecret1]

Yeah, but that's a one-shot. Now let's say the horned dude in the center is a character. Can you get me more of him? Not more dudes like him. I want to see more of that guy. Can this do more than just a character portrait?

It can. People use it like that all the time too.

Neat. Where do I get one? Any examples of continuity with these art samples? I've seen earlier attempts with this, and the results doesn't really look like they're supposed to be the same character, but just disjointed one-shots of random similar people chained together.

They're doing it with stable diffusion and others, check any artsy site like Pixiv, for example, and you'll see dozens of them. Probably requires more effort with prompt and more attempts to generate exactly what you want (not doing that produces your disjointed one-shots). There's also image-to-image AI tools where you throw the AI an existing image and tell it how it should change it. It takes some know-how (I don't use it myself so I wouldn't know) but entire galleries of the same character, often wearing the same clothes, doing various stuff shows that it is indeed possible

 

[deama]

Probably one good reason why it's not used as often as it should given it's quality, is probably people advocating against the idea because they feel bad about putting artists out of a job.

I know of an acquaintance that actively posts on twitter or other places that this AI art is bad and is stealing images from artists and is putting artists off a job.
I don't agree with her at all, but there's lots of plebs and simps out there that do, so this will probably take a good while.

 

[Norfleet]

I don't care if it puts artists out of a job, though. If anything, I consider that a positive, because artists are some of the most insufferably annoying people I've ever had to interact with and anything which decreases or eliminates the need to interact with such creatures is automatically good. Besides, I'm sure unemployment will produce suffering, and suffering will have them up their game, since true art requires suffering, but I'm willing to settle for ersatz-art because I don't even like graphics that much.

Also, most artists are furries and weebs and those people are disgusting subhuman filth and deserve to suffer.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I must admit, I was somewhat sceptical at first...
But it's fucking over.

There's zero fuckin' reason to hire more than 1 artists for normal 2d art. You can proompt something with more soul and quality than any generic chink MMO art.

I mean, if your job is to paint images as bland as these, then yeah, you kinda deserve losing your job to AI.

 

[Semiurge]

AI art is good for sparking off the imagination, but bad for most other purposes unless the purpose is to instill a feeling of dread. AI images all lack consistency and possess details that make them uncanny. They are like dream visions, they convey the intended meaning, but are inorganic and fluid. A machine's superficial interpretation of human reality, lacking the physical laws that human intuition reveals.

 

[gurugeorge]

Be serious, they're just going to keep going and going until it happens. AI research is peak autism and it has to be reined in.

Sorry dude, but "It's totally going to happen, trust me bro" is not really something that can be taken seriously. What you describe could be impossible, or it could be centuries away. Would you ban the steam engine because, down the road, it would eventually lead to the AI taking over? Of course not. You want to reap as much benefit as you can, and only stop if it seems like the danger is immediate.

But many people smarter than me (certainly, and probably you too) have been ringing alarm bells about it for a few decades now. Are they wrong (or "less wrong" )?

There's a lot of buyer's remorse in the former Eastern Bloc now.

There really isn't. Next to nobody wants to go back to communism.

I didn't mean to say people necessarily want to "go back," what I meant was more like "out of the frying pan, into the fire."

In any case, this doesn't really matter to the argument itself. If you outcompete, you outcompete. Even if you win through lies, in the end, you defeat the enemy. Claiming moral superiority after your system is overthrown is kind of pointless.

Yeah, I get the point, but if we're basically outcompeting each other to extinction, what then?

It's a Prisoner's Dilemma type of situation. Unrestrained individual rationality can lead to the worst outcome for all. It would be better to establish a meta (comparable to Omerta in the PD situation) based on a higher sense of rationality for the group (in this case, of all humanity).

 

[gurugeorge]

AI art is good for sparking off the imagination, but bad for most other purposes unless the purpose is to instill a feeling of dread. AI images all lack consistency and possess details that make them uncanny. They are like dream visions, they convey the intended meaning, but are inorganic and fluid. A machine's superficial interpretation of human reality, lacking the physical laws that human intuition reveals.

Yeah from an aesthetic point of view, that's my sense of it, there's a hallucinatory or dreamlike quality, which may be aesthetically appealing in some circumstances, but is in danger of further degrading our sensibilities if it becomes widespread.

It's the same with AI writing or chat - as I've said several times, it toddles along nicely for a bit, but then you bump up against something that makes you realize it doesn't understand what it's saying. It's just working on syntax, on what word or type of word goes along with another (which, to be sure, probably works well enough for programming).

Which is basically a cargo cult - the superficial appearance of an aeroplane without the gubbins that make it fly.

But then on the other hand, do we really want AI to develop a real understanding of what it's doing? That's the other potential nightmare (supposing it's possible).

 

[Semiurge]

It's the same with AI writing or chat - as I've said several times, it toddles along nicely for a bit, but then you bump up against something that makes you realize it doesn't understand what it's saying. It's just working on syntax, on what word or type of word goes along with another (which, to be sure, probably works well enough for programming).

This is also what it's like to communicate in a common language without being a native speaker of it. And also what it must be like to be on the receiving end of this communication.

 

[thesecret1]

But many people smarter than me (certainly, and probably you too) have been ringing alarm bells about it for a few decades now. Are they wrong (or "less wrong" )?

Sorry, but after COVID Games, I cannot take appeals to authority seriously. Besides, if they've been doing it for decades then they were demonstrably wrong on the immediate part, no?

I didn't mean to say people necessarily want to "go back," what I meant was more like "out of the frying pan, into the fire."

True, but again, claiming moral victory decades after the fact is rather useless.

Yeah, I get the point, but if we're basically outcompeting each other to extinction, what then?

Well, are we? And if we are, are we at a point where we need to hit the brakes right now, or fall off the cliff? If you hit the brakes too soon, you will end up outcompeted and defeated, your fate in the hands of those who did not hit them.

It's a Prisoner's Dilemma type of situation. Unrestrained individual rationality can lead to the worst outcome for all. It would be better to establish a meta (comparable to Omerta in the PD situation) based on a higher sense of rationality for the group (in this case, of all humanity).

You keep neglecting the part where, if we hit the brakes too soon, we cheat ourselves of massive boons. Imagine if people listened to those experts you mentioned decades ago, and stopped all research in it. We'd have gained nothing, and just missed out on the benefits. That's not to mention the fact the catastrophe you mention is by no means proven to actually be coming. Really, what you describe is not rational attitude, but rather a hysterical reaction to hypothetical danger.

 

[Sarathiour]

Yeah, but that's a one-shot. Now let's say the horned dude in the center is a character. Can you get me more of him? Not more dudes like him. I want to see more of that guy. Can this do more than just a character portrait?

It can. People use it like that all the time too.

Neat. Where do I get one? Any examples of continuity with these art samples? I've seen earlier attempts with this, and the results doesn't really look like they're supposed to be the same character, but just disjointed one-shots of random similar people chained together.

They're doing it with stable diffusion and others, check any artsy site like Pixiv, for example, and you'll see dozens of them. Probably requires more effort with prompt and more attempts to generate exactly what you want (not doing that produces your disjointed one-shots). There's also image-to-image AI tools where you throw the AI an existing image and tell it how it should change it. It takes some know-how (I don't use it myself so I wouldn't know) but entire galleries of the same character, often wearing the same clothes, doing various stuff shows that it is indeed possible

I tried looking a bit around, so I'll take this as an example : AI generated thot on twitter
It's a grifting account, so obviously the guy is trying to make it as similar as possible. I don't have the expertise to know if the guy is actually talented, so I will only judge what we can see here.

So in my opinion, he did succeed so far at keeping the same face, but there is clearly a bunch of trick to it.
-First of all, it look very plastic, but thot that kept abusing filter can only blame themselves, because you're going to see the same kind of fake smooth skin around on any instahtot profile.
-The second trick is to roughly keep the same position for the face. It's mostly the same angle, down to the tilt of the head, which obviously help the reproduction with minor cosmetic variance tremendously.

If you're not massive retard, you probably still won't get fooled for now, but thing is, world is currently full of them.

 

[thesecret1]

Yeah, but that's a one-shot. Now let's say the horned dude in the center is a character. Can you get me more of him? Not more dudes like him. I want to see more of that guy. Can this do more than just a character portrait?

It can. People use it like that all the time too.

Neat. Where do I get one? Any examples of continuity with these art samples? I've seen earlier attempts with this, and the results doesn't really look like they're supposed to be the same character, but just disjointed one-shots of random similar people chained together.

They're doing it with stable diffusion and others, check any artsy site like Pixiv, for example, and you'll see dozens of them. Probably requires more effort with prompt and more attempts to generate exactly what you want (not doing that produces your disjointed one-shots). There's also image-to-image AI tools where you throw the AI an existing image and tell it how it should change it. It takes some know-how (I don't use it myself so I wouldn't know) but entire galleries of the same character, often wearing the same clothes, doing various stuff shows that it is indeed possible

I tried looking a bit around, so I'll take this as an example : AI generated thot on twitter
It's a grifting account, so obviously the guy is trying to make it as similar as possible. I don't have the expertise to know if the guy is actually talented, so I will only judge what we can see here.

So in my opinion, he did succeed so far at keeping the same face, but there is clearly a bunch of trick to it.
-First of all, it look very plastic, but thot that kept abusing filter can only blame themselves, because you're going to see the same kind of fake smooth skin around on any instahtot profile.
-The second trick is to roughly keep the same position for the face. It's mostly the same angle, down to the tilt of the head, which obviously help the reproduction with minor cosmetic variance tremendously.

If you're not massive retard, you probably still won't get fooled for now, but thing is, world is currently full of them.

It's also trying to look realistic, which is easier to nitpick than 2D art. But 2D characters for a video game? This easily suffices for whatever you need

 

[gurugeorge]

But many people smarter than me (certainly, and probably you too) have been ringing alarm bells about it for a few decades now. Are they wrong (or "less wrong" )?

Sorry, but after COVID Games, I cannot take appeals to authority seriously. Besides, if they've been doing it for decades then they were demonstrably wrong on the immediate part, no?

The concern wasn't immediate because most of the smart people knew it wasn't as close as the boosters were predicting, but the urgency is that we need to get a meta, human-wide perspective on this now, before it does (potentially - I still have my doubts, but that's another issue) happen.

You keep neglecting the part where, if we hit the brakes too soon, we cheat ourselves of massive boons. Imagine if people listened to those experts you mentioned decades ago, and stopped all research in it. We'd have gained nothing, and just missed out on the benefits. That's not to mention the fact the catastrophe you mention is by no means proven to actually be coming. Really, what you describe is not rational attitude, but rather a hysterical reaction to hypothetical danger.

Is AI actually all that much of a boon? Let's say with mechanisation, there was an argument that you were taking away boring work. But is doing art boring work? Is writing boring work? Office type stuff, sure, that's boring enough and we could happily see that being done by machines. But when it's reaching into things that are more personal and human like art and writing, then I think we're getting into dangerous territory.

Again, do we make these things for us, for our benefit, or are we to be mere cogs in its machine? If you take away everything and it's done by machines, what is there left for human beings to do, how do they give meaning to their lives? Work - looking on the bright side of it, the effort of doing a project, against the recalcitrance of matter, or the difficulty of problems encountered - is itself a form of fulfillment. Hedonism gets boring after a while, so what's left? Mouse Utopia?