Well, besides the actual frustration of trying create prompts, I still found the experience on the whole distasteful. It felt dirty. This may be the a cultural/social bias rubbing off on me, but even generating the little I did was kind of guilt-inducing; like I felt like I needed to keep the door to the room closed. So, I guess I can say I did not enjoy it.
But then I watched a trailer for a robot movie set to "It's a Wonderful World" (for once without irony!) and I remembered that, at least for a lot of the early "pioneers" (for a lack of a better word), this was probably the goal. I may be assigning reasoning and agendas to people that are wholly not backed up by reality (this is a comment, so I feel like baseless speculation is allowed here), but we've been talking about the possibilities of "AI" for a while. Most of the major science fiction authors and film makers have taken a crack at the idea of a very human robot, and most have ultimately come down on the side of the robot (not all, of course; you still get the occasional robot apocalypse, after all, but even The Matrix and Terminator sequels explicitly showed sympathetic machine characters). Like, they made chess-playing robots (though it is actually debatable how even the famous ones actually do against high level human players), then they made that robot who could play Jeopardy (now, Watson, he kicked the shit out of his human adversaries, though perhaps being able to answer trivia questions, even oddly formatted ones, is not actually that impressive for a computer, in hindsight), and the next step was to finally rebut the "machines can't make art" with "well, let's see if we can make one that can".
Now, I'm reminded on Stephen King talking about personal definitions of art, and pointing out, as the guy who writes horror, it doesn't do for him to have a very strict one; likewise, as a "furry movie critic", I usually find myself bypassing the question of "is it art?" and just kind of assuming it is and instead focusing on whether or not it's "good" or not. So, I'm kind of punting on the question of "is AI art actually art" and instead answering the question with another question: "If it is art, is it any good?"
Not really. I mean, this is very subjective, so if an AI generated piece does speak to you, or if struggling to create prompts that actually do what you want them to do is personally satisfying, well, you do you (there are other reasons maybe, even if you do consider it worthwhile, it may be better not do it anyway, but we'll get to that). But personally, it's not actually very much fun generating this stuff, even setting aside my being so obviusly biased I almost feel like generating and sharing the little I did here should rightfully garner me, well, at least a little side-eye.
I'm usually not one of the more economically leftist furries (I'm socially left, but usually find my eyes glazing over in boredom and confusion when confronted by "Marxist" ideologies; Bernie bros still scare me), but AI generative art does feel like an actually pretty open and close case of capitalism poisoning the well. My (perhaps incorrectly romanctic) view is that generative AI began as a purely scientific endeavor (can we make a robot that can create art?) but was corrupted by uber-capitalist tech bros (how can we sell a robot that can create art?). I feel like if AI generative art was still about actually trying to make robots more human, the ethical concerns about art scraping would be, if not entirely gone, at least somewhat alleviated. I remember the old days, the before times, you know, the late 2010s, when stuff like "This Person Does Not Exist" (and it's furry version, "This Fursona Does Not Exist") roamed the land. Nobody really objected to those, because these were mostly innocent, playful attempts to "do the thing".
Well, it got to the point where it can be debateably proven they "did the thing" (if perhaps not well, and perhaps only very debateably), but these were pretty expensive undertakings, and when generative AI ceased being a project and started being a product that our troubles began. It feels like a common tech grift; the obvious antecedent is blockchains and their spawns of crypto-currency and NFTs, though I've commented elsewhere that about fad game consoles like the Wii and Xbox Kinect. Products sold on the idea "this is the future, buy now or get left behind" (or, as our more aggressively hostile anon friend kind of started me off put it, "adapt or die"), but then, in hindsight, obviously weren't.
See, the "grift" (and it often is a grift) is that "I know it's a bit janky now, but imagine how it'll be in a decade", but the thing is, there's no real incentive to improve. The original researchers were inspired to see if they could "do the thing"; now that the "thing" is "done", it's time for them to move on. Meanwhile, the people trying to sell it don't actually have any motivation to improve the product either; improving the product costs money, which means less profit for them. They may promise to improve the product, but there is no incentive for them to do so, to point where there is actually some incentive to stagnate. The grift is that they are selling you a promise that they blatantly have no intention of keeping. (Once again, if my take on the original reasons to do generative AI were overly romanctic, this may be assigning overly cynical reasoning to some of its modern proponents. Human behavior is more complicated than just "you're either a pure scientist/artist or a cynical salesman", but I did point out examples of this happening before.)
I'm definitely departing from the economic left critics here, and those on the left of me are probably seething at my use of the term "product" in a discussion that had before been about "art", but "generative AI as product" is actually where it is weakest. Because art is "subjective", sure, I can say it's not very good art, but, that's just like my opinion, man. (Hell, one of my criticisms of what I posted is that it's too detailed, and I still stand by that as a valid criticism, but I can see a proponent of AI reading that and going "what".) And, well, product is still subjective, but not as. If we're selling generative AI as a tool that let's "creative" people who can't draw or whatever create whatever they want, I mean, no. It just doesn't do that. It objectively does not do that. It's not actually a very good product; if it's an art tool, it's too unpredictable to be really useful. As a scientific experiment, generative AI is almost noble. As art, it is questionable. As product, it is indefensible.
Let's talk about what makes art "good" a while longer, though. As it is subjective, even the criteria of judgment are subjective. Should outside context be ignored, or is it just as important as the piece itself? And what do we mean when we say a piece of art is good? Do we mean purely aesthetically, or are we talking "good" and "bad" in moral/ethical sense? You can argue that we should leave "right or wrong" out of it, and that's your little red wagon, but it's not everybody's. Historically, moral/ethical concerns (and political/ideological and even religious/theological concerns) have been used to both defend and attack artworks, and the subjective nature of art means these attacks are not automatically wrong.
And the truth is that AI generated "art" has a lot of thorny ethical issues. These issues are perhaps debateable, but they exist. But, ultimately, for me, I can't help but see the context of this technology (even when used by those with the best intentions) helping to line the pockets of pretty shitty people who are knowingly passing off a shoddy product, and even more than the scraping, that's really what doesn't sit right with me. So, I still think, a few experiments aside, it's a pass from me.
Well, besides the actual frustration of trying create prompts, I still found the experience on the whole distasteful. It felt dirty. This may be the a cultural/social bias rubbing off on me, but even generating the little I did was kind of guilt-inducing; like I felt like I needed to keep the door to the room closed. So, I guess I can say I did not enjoy it.
But then I watched a trailer for a robot movie set to "It's a Wonderful World" (for once without irony!) and I remembered that, at least for a lot of the early "pioneers" (for a lack of a better word), this was probably the goal. I may be assigning reasoning and agendas to people that are wholly not backed up by reality (this is a comment, so I feel like baseless speculation is allowed here), but we've been talking about the possibilities of "AI" for a while. Most of the major science fiction authors and film makers have taken a crack at the idea of a very human robot, and most have ultimately come down on the side of the robot (not all, of course; you still get the occasional robot apocalypse, after all, but even The Matrix and Terminator sequels explicitly showed sympathetic machine characters). Like, they made chess-playing robots (though it is actually debatable how even the famous ones actually do against high level human players), then they made that robot who could play Jeopardy (now, Watson, he kicked the shit out of his human adversaries, though perhaps being able to answer trivia questions, even oddly formatted ones, is not actually that impressive for a computer, in hindsight), and the next step was to finally rebut the "machines can't make art" with "well, let's see if we can make one that can".
Now, I'm reminded on Stephen King talking about personal definitions of art, and pointing out, as the guy who writes horror, it doesn't do for him to have a very strict one; likewise, as a "furry movie critic", I usually find myself bypassing the question of "is it art?" and just kind of assuming it is and instead focusing on whether or not it's "good" or not. So, I'm kind of punting on the question of "is AI art actually art" and instead answering the question with another question: "If it is art, is it any good?"
Not really. I mean, this is very subjective, so if an AI generated piece does speak to you, or if struggling to create prompts that actually do what you want them to do is personally satisfying, well, you do you (there are other reasons maybe, even if you do consider it worthwhile, it may be better not do it anyway, but we'll get to that). But personally, it's not actually very much fun generating this stuff, even setting aside my being so obviusly biased I almost feel like generating and sharing the little I did here should rightfully garner me, well, at least a little side-eye.
I'm usually not one of the more economically leftist furries (I'm socially left, but usually find my eyes glazing over in boredom and confusion when confronted by "Marxist" ideologies; Bernie bros still scare me), but AI generative art does feel like an actually pretty open and close case of capitalism poisoning the well. My (perhaps incorrectly romanctic) view is that generative AI began as a purely scientific endeavor (can we make a robot that can create art?) but was corrupted by uber-capitalist tech bros (how can we sell a robot that can create art?). I feel like if AI generative art was still about actually trying to make robots more human, the ethical concerns about art scraping would be, if not entirely gone, at least somewhat alleviated. I remember the old days, the before times, you know, the late 2010s, when stuff like "This Person Does Not Exist" (and it's furry version, "This Fursona Does Not Exist") roamed the land. Nobody really objected to those, because these were mostly innocent, playful attempts to "do the thing".
Well, it got to the point where it can be debateably proven they "did the thing" (if perhaps not well, and perhaps only very debateably), but these were pretty expensive undertakings, and when generative AI ceased being a project and started being a product that our troubles began. It feels like a common tech grift; the obvious antecedent is blockchains and their spawns of crypto-currency and NFTs, though I've commented elsewhere that about fad game consoles like the Wii and Xbox Kinect. Products sold on the idea "this is the future, buy now or get left behind" (or, as our more aggressively hostile anon friend kind of started me off put it, "adapt or die"), but then, in hindsight, obviously weren't.
See, the "grift" (and it often is a grift) is that "I know it's a bit janky now, but imagine how it'll be in a decade", but the thing is, there's no real incentive to improve. The original researchers were inspired to see if they could "do the thing"; now that the "thing" is "done", it's time for them to move on. Meanwhile, the people trying to sell it don't actually have any motivation to improve the product either; improving the product costs money, which means less profit for them. They may promise to improve the product, but there is no incentive for them to do so, to point where there is actually some incentive to stagnate. The grift is that they are selling you a promise that they blatantly have no intention of keeping. (Once again, if my take on the original reasons to do generative AI were overly romanctic, this may be assigning overly cynical reasoning to some of its modern proponents. Human behavior is more complicated than just "you're either a pure scientist/artist or a cynical salesman", but I did point out examples of this happening before.)
I'm definitely departing from the economic left critics here, and those on the left of me are probably seething at my use of the term "product" in a discussion that had before been about "art", but "generative AI as product" is actually where it is weakest. Because art is "subjective", sure, I can say it's not very good art, but, that's just like my opinion, man. (Hell, one of my criticisms of what I posted is that it's too detailed, and I still stand by that as a valid criticism, but I can see a proponent of AI reading that and going "what".) And, well, product is still subjective, but not as. If we're selling generative AI as a tool that let's "creative" people who can't draw or whatever create whatever they want, I mean, no. It just doesn't do that. It objectively does not do that. It's not actually a very good product; if it's an art tool, it's too unpredictable to be really useful. As a scientific experiment, generative AI is almost noble. As art, it is questionable. As product, it is indefensible.
Let's talk about what makes art "good" a while longer, though. As it is subjective, even the criteria of judgment are subjective. Should outside context be ignored, or is it just as important as the piece itself? And what do we mean when we say a piece of art is good? Do we mean purely aesthetically, or are we talking "good" and "bad" in moral/ethical sense? You can argue that we should leave "right or wrong" out of it, and that's your little red wagon, but it's not everybody's. Historically, moral/ethical concerns (and political/ideological and even religious/theological concerns) have been used to both defend and attack artworks, and the subjective nature of art means these attacks are not automatically wrong.
And the truth is that AI generated "art" has a lot of thorny ethical issues. These issues are perhaps debateable, but they exist. But, ultimately, for me, I can't help but see the context of this technology (even when used by those with the best intentions) helping to line the pockets of pretty shitty people who are knowingly passing off a shoddy product, and even more than the scraping, that's really what doesn't sit right with me. So, I still think, a few experiments aside, it's a pass from me.