stopthatgirl7Aug 9, 2023

The Fear Of AI Just Killed A Very Useful Tool

I do understand why so many people, especially creative folks, are worried about AI and how it’s used. The future is quite unknown, and things are changing very rapidly, at a pace that can feel out…

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/08/the-fear-of-ai-just-killed-a-very-useful-tool/

The Fear Of AI Just Killed A Very Useful Tool

I do understand why so many people, especially creative folks, are worried about AI and how it’s used. The future is quite unknown, and things are changing very rapidly, at a pace that can feel out…

Techdirt
Show threaddonuts

AI people just love to disingenuously claim that anybody who criticizes AI "fears" the technology. This is their way of dismissing all critics or skeptics as luddites, and is usefully based entirely of their desire to profit somehow off of the trend.

Artists don't "fear" AI... They simply want big tech billionaires to stop stealing their copyrighted art works or other intellectual property in the hopes of generating infinite junk "content".

Aug 9, 2023 at 5:34amWeb
Show threadstopthatgirl7Aug 9, 2023
Yeah, but that’s not what this tool was? It analyzed writing styles, not copied them.
Show threadCyanFenAug 9, 2023
That’s also what art AI does. It analyzes art styles, then creates unique works based on its “inspiration”
Show threadstopthatgirl7Aug 9, 2023

This doesn’t make anything from it, though. It gives you word counts, like how much passive voice was used and how many -ly adverbs. There’s nothing unique created from it.

That’s honestly the issue being pointed out here - people see “AI” and have knee jerk reactions, without seeing how it is being used here. I’m completely against AI being used to make “art” or do writing, but that’s not what what this tool did at all. But folks assumed it did.

Show threadchemical_cutthroatAug 9, 2023
Still waiting on that copyright infringement evidence all of the anti-ai people claim is out there.
Show threadHamartiogonicAug 9, 2023
There are also financial incentives to oppose the adoption of content generating AI. As the spinning jenny replaced hand spinning and electric trolleys replaced horse drawn streetcars, there was always strong financially motivated opposition. How is it different this time?
Show threadSkyeStarfallAug 9, 2023

Because at some point we will automate people completely out of jobs, and then they will have nowhere to go. Our system isn’t set up to handle that.

People are already struggling to find jobs with a liveable wage.

Show threaddorkian_grayAug 9, 2023

Won’t someone think of the poor scribes that the printing press will put out of a job?

Look, I get the arguments, but they are wrong. Even “stealing content” is completely wrong. It’s taken down, shuffled around, and recombined. It works pretty much the same way as human learning, just with fewer layers. The people who oppose AI are afraid of it, because they don’t truly understand how it works. Case in point ^

Show threadHamartiogonicAug 9, 2023
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was thinking of. Let’s say your borrow a bunch of books from the local library and read them in order to refine your writing skills. Later, you’ll write a book that is more or less inspired by all of the books you’ve previously read. Do you owe something to the hundreds of authors you got inspired by? Even if you bought those books, do you think the other authors would could still demand something extra because clearly those books weren’t really used for mere entertainment. Instead, they were used to train a new writer.
Show threadBakedGoodsAug 9, 2023
AI made creating art accessible for the masses. What these artists are doing now is going to limit it’s creation to corporations. Great.
Show threadstopthatgirl7Aug 9, 2023
Stealing people’s hard work to spit out pale copies isn’t making art “accessible for the masses.” Artists worked hard to be able to produce the art AI spits out.
Show threadBakedGoodsAug 9, 2023
AI doesn’t make copies, in the same way that I don’t make copies when looking up what a dog looks like and then try to draw a dog.
Show threadbrap_gobboAug 9, 2023
Art is already accessible to the masses. It was accessible to cavemen. It’s called picking up a pencil, rock, mud, paper, paint, macaroni, feathers, literally anything in your world and making something of it. Everyone has the ability to be an artist. What the AI bros are complaining about is that they want an easy and instant way to replace years and lifetimes of perfecting one’s craft, while piggybacking off of and stealing said labor to profit from it.
Show threadBakedGoodsAug 9, 2023
I think you’re being dramatic and playing right into the hands of corporations who wants to control generated art.
Show threadbrap_gobboAug 9, 2023

As someone who has been obsessed with learning about art, technology, and business my entire life, your attitude reflects the dollar-seeking and exploitative behaviors in upper corporate America I have seen and dealt with many times. It’s one of the reasons why I left it.

It’s not hard to be an artist. Every human being with the ability to express themselves in some way is an artist. You are cheaply wanting to skip the steps of either developing your own skills or hiring someone else to create art for you. You are contributing to a world where artists are learning that they should not openly share their creations because it’ll be taken from them, ripped into pieces, and used for profit while they get nothing. These discussions are happening right now.

Show threadFMT99Aug 9, 2023

Your comment doesn’t appear to apply to this article at all. It explicitly states that this tool was neither stealing copyrighted art nor a billionaire funded venture.

In this case it really was the unfounded fear of AI that killed a useful tool via misplaced outrage.

Show threadMiladyAug 9, 2023
It’s always “us vs them” huh. I’ll wager you don’t know anything about AI