As much as I agree with the author, I’m almost positive he’s wrong about the majority of people hating AI art. It’s ubiquitous at this point, and by its nature that means tons of people are using it themselves. And, as long as it remains free, people are going to keep doing so.
Maybe that will change when physical reality overtakes hype-driven economics. Until then I can only hope AI art gets looked at the same way clipart was in the early 2000s someday soon. It is unbearably cringe.
Yeah, there’s nothing in that article to back up this claim:
If your initial reaction to reading that and seeing that is some variation of “ughhh” or rolling your eyes or “fuck this guy” congrats. You are normal. If it wasn’t I cannot stress to you enough that you are an outlier.
I suspect I (we) just surround ourselves with people that are likely to share our opinions on AI. But I keep hearing anecdotes about Facebook boomers, children, and corporate types just eating that shit up.
Yeah, it’s another symptom of the same malaise that led to widespread adoption of Facebook. Great stuff for those who don’t mind (or aren’t aware of) being disempowered.
Douglas Adams once said that one of the greatest pitfalls for an author is obviousness. LLM algorithms are based on choosing the most obvious output based on the prompts given, so by default, you’re always going to get Muzak instead of bebop. The middle-of-the-road path is bland, lukewarm, turgid soup.
It’s ubiquitous at this point, and by its nature that means tons of people are using it themselves.
The fact that everyone is exposed to it doesn’t imply it’s by choice. Everyone in major cities used to be exposed to smog and other toxic shit, but most of it wasn’t directly generated by them. There were a few greedy sociopaths churning it all out.
As the occasionally prophetic and always contrarian FZ put it 53 years ago:
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm deliciousWith the stuff that I say
I'm the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I'm the slime oozin' outFrom your TV set
Replace “TV set” with “internet” and it could have been written last week.
The difference with AI art is that it’s not a byproduct of a moneymaking venture, it’s the product itself and it doesn’t get made unless someone prompts a generator to make something. Not saying the slop being generated for ads isn’t widespread, just that marketing slop existed way before AI art did. If the general population didn’t respond to AI art well, it wouldn’t be in ads (or at least not the ones targeted widely) because it wouldn’t make enough money to be worthwhile.
I don’t like AI art, but I also don’t want to frame it as a big conspiracy. It removes friction that artists used to benefit from, and the output is something most people are at worst neutral to (for now). Granted, that friction was removed by stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from artists to train the models, but your average consumer doesn’t care about that at all.
As much as I agree with the author, I’m almost positive he’s wrong about the majority of people hating AI art. It’s ubiquitous at this point, and by its nature that means tons of people are using it themselves. And, as long as it remains free, people are going to keep doing so.
Maybe that will change when physical reality overtakes hype-driven economics. Until then I can only hope AI art gets looked at the same way clipart was in the early 2000s someday soon. It is unbearably cringe.
Yeah, there’s nothing in that article to back up this claim:
I suspect I (we) just surround ourselves with people that are likely to share our opinions on AI. But I keep hearing anecdotes about Facebook boomers, children, and corporate types just eating that shit up.
Yeah, it’s another symptom of the same malaise that led to widespread adoption of Facebook. Great stuff for those who don’t mind (or aren’t aware of) being disempowered.
Douglas Adams once said that one of the greatest pitfalls for an author is obviousness. LLM algorithms are based on choosing the most obvious output based on the prompts given, so by default, you’re always going to get Muzak instead of bebop. The middle-of-the-road path is bland, lukewarm, turgid soup.
The fact that everyone is exposed to it doesn’t imply it’s by choice. Everyone in major cities used to be exposed to smog and other toxic shit, but most of it wasn’t directly generated by them. There were a few greedy sociopaths churning it all out.
As the occasionally prophetic and always contrarian FZ put it 53 years ago:
I may be vile and pernicious But you can't look away I make you think I'm delicious With the stuff that I say I'm the best you can get Have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozin' out From your TV setReplace “TV set” with “internet” and it could have been written last week.
The difference with AI art is that it’s not a byproduct of a moneymaking venture, it’s the product itself and it doesn’t get made unless someone prompts a generator to make something. Not saying the slop being generated for ads isn’t widespread, just that marketing slop existed way before AI art did. If the general population didn’t respond to AI art well, it wouldn’t be in ads (or at least not the ones targeted widely) because it wouldn’t make enough money to be worthwhile.
I don’t like AI art, but I also don’t want to frame it as a big conspiracy. It removes friction that artists used to benefit from, and the output is something most people are at worst neutral to (for now). Granted, that friction was removed by stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from artists to train the models, but your average consumer doesn’t care about that at all.