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Notes -
To which tribe shall the gift of AI fall?
In a not particularly surprising move, FurAffinity has banned AI content from their website. Ostensible justification is the presence of copied artist signatures in AI artpieces, indicating a lack of authenticity. Ilforte has skinned the «soul-of-the-artist» argument enough and I do not wish to dwell on it.
What's more important, in my view, is what this rejection means for the political future of AI. Previous discussions on TheMotte have demonstrated the polarizing effects of AI generated content — some are deathly afraid of it, others are practically AI-supremacists. Extrapolating outwards from this admittedly-selective community, I expect the use of AI-tools to become a hotly debated culture war topic within the next 5 years.
If you agree on this much, then I have one question: which party ends up as the Party of AI?
My kneejerk answer to this was, "The Left, of course." Left-wingers dominate the technological sector. AI development is getting pushed forward by a mix of grey/blue tribers, and the null hypothesis is that things keep going this way. But the artists and the musicians and the writers and so on are all vaguely left-aligned as well, and they are currently the main reactionary force against AI.
Political stances on AI will not follow from ideology, but from economic and social consequences.
Mind you, I believe most such stances are downstream of consequences, and the principles are more like mnemonics. But this is a particularly strong case, because politicians are not technologists. AI will remains largely unregulated until something becomes prominent enough for action. If that’s racial, the Democrats will probably demand regulation. If it’s economic, I could see a populist angle from either party, depending on who is injured.
Compare early Internet regulation, where the reception wasn’t “does this tech suit our principles” but “oh god people can post *what?*”
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