Well, I think what we're dealing with, romanctic are not, is basically a grift; whether or not I'm being romanctic or not doesn't really matter, because even if all that matters is the finished product, well, I've seen the finished product. It's not that good. I'm just theorizing on why the finished product is not that good.
Like, that's really the thing that's bugging me; it's not only the pro-AI crowd assuming that AI "art" is "revolutionary". The anti-AI "art" crowd is also carrying a lot of water for their enemies, because a lot of their arguments just seem to assume AI "art" is also good. Like, the grift Green Reaper repeated is the idea that artists will be forced to use AI because anybody who doesn't will be at a disadvantage, but I'm arguing, will they? I'm going so far as to say that's not an argument, that's a sales tactic. It's how pay-to-win player vs. player video games work; if you don't pay for in game advantages, you will lose to those who do. But the difference between AI and pay-to-win video games is that paying for video game upgrades gives you a provable advantage; no one has proven to my satisfaction that AI generated "art" is actually advantageous.
Furthermore, the second part of the grift from those saling AI is that you need to get in now, because, oh, it's just in its infancy, just wait until we really start cooking, it's going to get so much better, you guys, you just don't even know. And my response is, once again, will it, though? Like, I'm definitely not being romanctic here; I'm thinking like a god damn investor, and I'm saying "your current product is shoddy, and I'm not interested in waiting for you to get your shit together, either." There's some irony there; on one hand, those pushing AI are appealing to the lazy impulses of those who want skip the creative process, while at the same time asking us to respect their creative process! I guess I don't like creating smarter AIs, I like having created smarter AIs, huh?
The whole thing about this argument, both sides (and, yes, I'm doing a "both sides", shut up), is that it's just not that special. Like, it's neither a revolutionary leap forward in technology, nor an existential crisis in art. Like, I really was kind of impressed with the stuff Green Reaper linked to on e6ai (though, off topic note, maybe he should have put a NSFW warning on that link, now that I think about it), but impressed in a "yeah, I could probably jack off to that" way, not a "THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING" way. You can procedurally generate furry smut. Cool. It's a fucking gimmick. That's all. That's my honest opinion.
I've seen too much "revolutionary" technology that got people excited for a couple years at a time ... and just aren't around anymore. You remember the Nintendo Wii's codename before it was announced was "Revolution". Those motion controls caused a lot of curiosity, and a lot of positive press, and did make Nintendo a shit-ton of money. But when's the last time you actually played a game with motion controls? Like I remember when the console launched, one of the launch titles was Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which was on multiple consoles, but the Wii version was specifically given a push, with television spots showing a kid making the Spider-Man hand gesture to make Spider-Man in the game shoot his webs. Which is, first of all, basically false advertising. That's not how you made Spider-Man shoot webs; you basically pushed a button, and the motion controls were more like you wiggled the "nunchuk" attachment a little to open doors. Second of all, when Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 came out a couple years later, the Wii version didn't even have any motion controls, even the silly "wiggle the nunchuk to open doors" mechanics. A sequel to a game sold on a console sold on motion controls didn't even use them anymore because nobody cared about the gimmick more than a few months. The Wii was still a success because it was Nintendo, and they may have sold the console on a gimmick, but they're Nintendo, and you know their first party games were going to be high quality, gimmick or not.
And the second part of the grift was there, too. That was how the gimmick of the Wii was sold; first of all, "it's revolutionary", and second of all, "yeah, okay, really we just have a neat bowling simulator right now, but just imagine what we'll do with a bit more time later on!" And then they didn't actually do that, because they didn't need to. Turns out, yeah, people do want to swing Link's sword, but they've always been able to swing Link's sword just by pushing a button, and that works. Like, that was my question when I saw the Wii controls; how are they going to make Super Smash Bros. work with motion controls? Turns out, they had absolutely no intention of making a Smash game with motion controls, and they had GameCube controller ports available from the console launch, because they obviously knew it was a gimmick. And I could go on about Second Life and the Segway and other examples of "this is revolutionary" new technologies that were sold on their very "revolutionary-ness" and "wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't seen nothing yet!", and I'm getting deja vu, because I still ain't seen nothing yet.
Like, Green Reaper is saying that "Work is ongoing on making sustained/persistent generation, it's totally not there yet in video but I can also see it getting a lot better. To me it seems quite feasible to go from one dimension to another." but, I'm saying, historically, no. I don't think it's feasible, but furthermore, I don't even think they're working on it. Why the fuck should they? I can't fucking trust Nintendo to follow through, why should I believe the "I don't want to write, I want to have written" people?
Well, I think what we're dealing with, romanctic are not, is basically a grift; whether or not I'm being romanctic or not doesn't really matter, because even if all that matters is the finished product, well, I've seen the finished product. It's not that good. I'm just theorizing on why the finished product is not that good.
Like, that's really the thing that's bugging me; it's not only the pro-AI crowd assuming that AI "art" is "revolutionary". The anti-AI "art" crowd is also carrying a lot of water for their enemies, because a lot of their arguments just seem to assume AI "art" is also good. Like, the grift Green Reaper repeated is the idea that artists will be forced to use AI because anybody who doesn't will be at a disadvantage, but I'm arguing, will they? I'm going so far as to say that's not an argument, that's a sales tactic. It's how pay-to-win player vs. player video games work; if you don't pay for in game advantages, you will lose to those who do. But the difference between AI and pay-to-win video games is that paying for video game upgrades gives you a provable advantage; no one has proven to my satisfaction that AI generated "art" is actually advantageous.
Furthermore, the second part of the grift from those saling AI is that you need to get in now, because, oh, it's just in its infancy, just wait until we really start cooking, it's going to get so much better, you guys, you just don't even know. And my response is, once again, will it, though? Like, I'm definitely not being romanctic here; I'm thinking like a god damn investor, and I'm saying "your current product is shoddy, and I'm not interested in waiting for you to get your shit together, either." There's some irony there; on one hand, those pushing AI are appealing to the lazy impulses of those who want skip the creative process, while at the same time asking us to respect their creative process! I guess I don't like creating smarter AIs, I like having created smarter AIs, huh?
The whole thing about this argument, both sides (and, yes, I'm doing a "both sides", shut up), is that it's just not that special. Like, it's neither a revolutionary leap forward in technology, nor an existential crisis in art. Like, I really was kind of impressed with the stuff Green Reaper linked to on e6ai (though, off topic note, maybe he should have put a NSFW warning on that link, now that I think about it), but impressed in a "yeah, I could probably jack off to that" way, not a "THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING" way. You can procedurally generate furry smut. Cool. It's a fucking gimmick. That's all. That's my honest opinion.
I've seen too much "revolutionary" technology that got people excited for a couple years at a time ... and just aren't around anymore. You remember the Nintendo Wii's codename before it was announced was "Revolution". Those motion controls caused a lot of curiosity, and a lot of positive press, and did make Nintendo a shit-ton of money. But when's the last time you actually played a game with motion controls? Like I remember when the console launched, one of the launch titles was Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which was on multiple consoles, but the Wii version was specifically given a push, with television spots showing a kid making the Spider-Man hand gesture to make Spider-Man in the game shoot his webs. Which is, first of all, basically false advertising. That's not how you made Spider-Man shoot webs; you basically pushed a button, and the motion controls were more like you wiggled the "nunchuk" attachment a little to open doors. Second of all, when Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 came out a couple years later, the Wii version didn't even have any motion controls, even the silly "wiggle the nunchuk to open doors" mechanics. A sequel to a game sold on a console sold on motion controls didn't even use them anymore because nobody cared about the gimmick more than a few months. The Wii was still a success because it was Nintendo, and they may have sold the console on a gimmick, but they're Nintendo, and you know their first party games were going to be high quality, gimmick or not.
And the second part of the grift was there, too. That was how the gimmick of the Wii was sold; first of all, "it's revolutionary", and second of all, "yeah, okay, really we just have a neat bowling simulator right now, but just imagine what we'll do with a bit more time later on!" And then they didn't actually do that, because they didn't need to. Turns out, yeah, people do want to swing Link's sword, but they've always been able to swing Link's sword just by pushing a button, and that works. Like, that was my question when I saw the Wii controls; how are they going to make Super Smash Bros. work with motion controls? Turns out, they had absolutely no intention of making a Smash game with motion controls, and they had GameCube controller ports available from the console launch, because they obviously knew it was a gimmick. And I could go on about Second Life and the Segway and other examples of "this is revolutionary" new technologies that were sold on their very "revolutionary-ness" and "wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't seen nothing yet!", and I'm getting deja vu, because I still ain't seen nothing yet.
Like, Green Reaper is saying that "Work is ongoing on making sustained/persistent generation, it's totally not there yet in video but I can also see it getting a lot better. To me it seems quite feasible to go from one dimension to another." but, I'm saying, historically, no. I don't think it's feasible, but furthermore, I don't even think they're working on it. Why the fuck should they? I can't fucking trust Nintendo to follow through, why should I believe the "I don't want to write, I want to have written" people?