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Finally something that explicitly ties AI into the culture war: Why I HATE A.I. Art - by Vaush
I endorse pretty much all of the points he makes in this video. I do recommend watching the whole thing all the way through, if you have time.
I went into this curious to see exactly what types of arguments he would make, as I've been interested in the relationship between AI progress and the left/right divide. His arguments fall into roughly two groups.
First is the "material impact" arguments - that this will be bad for artists, that you're using their copyrighted work without their permission, that it's not fair to have a machine steal someone's personal style that they worked for years to develop, etc. I certainly feel the force of these arguments, but it's also easy for AI advocates to dismiss them with a simple "cry about it". Jobs getting displaced by technology is nothing new. We can't expect society to defend artists' jobs forever, if they are indeed capable of being easily automated. Critics of AI art need to provide more substantial arguments about why AI art is bad in itself, rather than simply pointing out that it's bad for artists' incomes. Which Vaush does make an attempt at.
The second group of arguments could perhaps be called "deontological arguments" as they go beyond the first-person experiential states of producers and consumers of AI art, and the direct material harm or benefit caused by AI. The main concern here is that we're headed for a future where all media and all human interaction is generated by AI simulations, which would be a hellish dystopia. We don't want things to just feel good - we want to know that there's another conscious entity on the other end of the line.
It's interesting to me how strongly attuned Vaush is to the "spiritual" dimension of this issue, which I would not have expected from an avowed leftist. It's clearly something that bothers him on an emotional level. He goes so far as to say:
and, what was the real money shot for me:
Now, on the one hand, "leftism" and "Marxism" are absolutely massive intellectual traditions with a lot of nuance and disagreement, and I certainly don't expect all leftists to hold the same views on everything. On the other hand, I really do think that what we're seeing now with AI content generation is a natural consequence of the leftist impulse, which has always been focused on the ceaseless improvement and elevation of man in his ascent towards godhood. What do you think "fully automated luxury gay space communism" is supposed to mean? It really does mean fully automated. If everyone is to be a god unto themselves, untrammeled by external constraints, then that also means they have the right to shirk human relationships and form relationships with their AI buddies instead (and also flood the universe with petabytes of AI-generated art). At some point, there seems to be a tension between progress on the one hand and traditional authenticity on the other.
It was especially amusing when he said:
I guess everyone becomes a reactionary at some point - the only thing that differs is how far you have to push them.
I have noticed the analogy, which is part of why I’m slightly surprised that this forum is so pro-AI. I mean, given the LessWrong origins of this forum, it makes sense they’d be pro-AI. But this is a decidedly reactionary slice of that original LW readership. How can the same group of people be so reactionary on so many issues while also supporting the prospect of AI-induced complete social disruption. Yes yes, it doesn’t have to be the same individuals making both types of posts, but still.
The analogy doesn't quite fit for where the rubber meets the road, does it? When it comes to deeming something created by Midjourney "real art," what does that actually involve for the individuals involved? Nothing, really; a particular arrangement of pixels being "real art" or not is mainly a metaphysical question that doesn't interact with our physical reality to much of an extent. At the end of the day, the arrangement of pixels is the arrangement of pixels, and people will continue to use that arrangement of pixels for things that arrangement of pixels are good at doing, regardless of whether we consider it "real art" or not.
When it comes to deeming a transwoman a "real woman," what does that actually involve for the individuals involved? It means, among other things, having some sort of enforcement regime by which people talking about the transwoman are limited in the terms they can use. It's not just a metaphysical question that people can make an invisible mental categorization as they wish and go about their day; it's a physical question with physical consequences that differ greatly depending on the categorization.
Yes: "is this image art, or is it merely beautiful?" All I can say is that's a nice problem to have.
Art historically has a long tradition of pushing the boundaries of what can be considered "art". Duchamp's Fountain is probably the most notable example here.
Of course technology enabling new types of art is also a new trend: at times we've had crises about whether recorded music would displace musicians, or synthesizers would displace specific instrumentalists, or photography painters. In most cases the answer is "somewhat", and I expect AI art will probably be disruptive, but at the same time the authenticity of a human creator will probably remain the pinnacle of status in most cases.
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