people in another place i hang out online have been chewing on AI again. the terms of the discussion from leftosphere are as follows: it sexually harasses, steals from artists, and destroys the environment. everybody who uses it is both an embarrassing incompetent human joke, and also an evil capitalist scumbag out to destroy all that is good in the world. these are the articles of faith, and the beginning and end of that discourse.
as somebody who is usually 95% agreeing with all discourse lefty, to be the horrible sinner don’t feel great. i’m crouching in the outer darkness with my evil magicks, sustaining my lichly existence on the marrow of virgin bones, jealous of those allowed to live in light and beauty.
or maybe not. the hAIte is so thorough on the left that it also provides an interesting way to measure the boundaries of popular left beliefs. i increasingly see people who look at the same situation, look at that same discourse, and wonder “whut in ternation are they goin on about?”
these, i think, are the same people who do not quite understand most of the shit very online people are into; people who spend more time in culturally mixed company, more time away from keyboards. i could get fooled by the flow of my days into feeling like online is the whole of human thought, and seeing that dominated by certain noisy opinions, feel like those are the end of the story.
in the real world, the revolutionary labor-saving power of AI tech is too good to ignore. people will use it, for good or ill, and eventually it will be so mundane as to no longer provoke the pitchforks like this. i’m keen to get there. this fruitless conversation is tired as hell.
–
Reddit has decided that I’m interested in subreddits arguing over AI. Mostly defending AI. About 80% of it is complaining about artists harassing other artists for using AI (even when they didn’t).
I’m considering blocking these subreddits. Even if I’m sympathetic, it’s bound to just distort my view of how common it is.
it’s believable that it would be common based on the heat of the rhetoric, but again, perspectives can be distorted by online shitness – algorithmas incluye.
sorry Bekenstein Bound, you ran afoul of my “no doomerism” policy. (see the sidebar.) you’re not banned, but that comment is not going to see the light of day for any longer than it did.
Well the subreddits sure make artists look miserable. Not even just because of AI, they’re just miserable in general. But all the origami artists I know aren’t miserable.
i attribute that to being addicted to the idea of a dream job and unable to visualize art outside of the capitalist context. there’s no class solidarity in turning into a melodramatic baby the second your job can be lost to automation. welcome back to the working class, bitches. it’s been like this.
I agree that nothing is likely to stop the spread of AI and its use, but I’m inclined to go easy on the people who are angry about it. When something is taking your ability to make a living away, it’s very difficult to be objective about it. That was true for the original Luddites two centuries ago, and it’s still true now. There is also a psychological cost for many people. Lots of people find it degrading and devaluing when the work they once took pride in doing can be done by machinery and automation. Again, this has been true for many successive groups of working people for two hundred years or more. Maybe it is unwise to get too much of one’s sense of self-worth from one’s job or jobs, but for a lot of people their job and broader career is central to their self-esteem, and it can be a huge blow to lose it.
i’d be easier on them if they weren’t taking giant shits on other people fucken constantly, but i find everything you said agreeable. just, from where i’m sitting, as an artist that never had a chance of making a living in art, ground body into hamburger doing hyperexploited shit labor jobs for decades, now doing inadequately compensated social work for a living, grinding my brains into hamburger, i’m not gonna be feeling very generous. *especially* with glad-handing cal arts nepo baby emeff who actually got the job at disney or wherever.
i got more sympathy for the art hobos rattling tin cans on patreon, but when they’re dropping giant deuces on me and mine, again, wears on that sympathy.
springa73@6:
+1
Adding to that: there should be non-job options for making ends meet (the basic necessities, at least), and no social stigma for being jobless.
Money should be about rationing what’s scarce, and no more. Too often it’s also used as a tool to exclude and to punish.
good discourse, bud. ubi + rent control or some kind of universal housing scheme could especially help the arts, lead to artistic innovation that can rarely happen under corporate control.