If they could draw or make music, they wouldn’t need a robot to do it, and they clearly want to but don’t have the skills.
Desired isn’t the same thing as important.
I’m a musician, dudes come up to me like listen to this song I made, and it’s obviously suno…
I call them out on it and they’re like mumble mumble.
Is ai the only tool which makes a form of artwork “not count” for you or anything else?
Creating a piece of art myself is different than enjoying someone else’s creation. There’s a place for both. Lots of respect for, say, professional musicians. They have natural skills and years of hard work that I don’t and no amount of hobbying will get me close to them. But I still find satisfaction in twiddling around on a piano and writing my own tunes. AI helping people enjoy their hobby more is a good application, IMO.
Contrast that with people using it to “side-hustle” and try to scrape up some easy dollars by flooding the world with passionless slop, that’s a different thing.
No amount of AI in the creation of music is good. Learn how to not use it.
I respectfully disagree and think hobbies are for enjoyment. If someone makes music for personal enjoyment with the help of AI tools, good for them. If another person finds joy in making “real” music without AI assist, good for them too.
So long as they know they’re making artificial music.
Relevant
XKCDSMBCReal art comes from a person’s desire to connect with the world around them, or to try and express what they can’t using words. Either way, art is entirely human. AI makes sounds and images. It’s not art.
There’s a reason why AI is called artificial.
We finally have a proper rigid definition for what art is !
Why didn’t anyone think of drawing the line in the sand before? I can’t believe you are the first, it seems so simple now that you said it.
What a dumass response.
Ai isn’t their hobby
Ya, I enjoy playing guitar and making little finger picking riffs. I also enjoyed using music gen to mix different styles together and writing lyrics for them (eventually, it gets a bit old though).
I never even considered uploading those songs and sharing them, nor starting to churn out slop to make 5 bucks on Spotify. It’s legit asshole behavior imo. Spotify itself makes it hard enough to make money when you are a proper musician, I’m guessing it’s even harder now.
This… this is the reasonable course that’s shunned by our divisive culture nowadays. I personally don’t have the time or the space, but I do have a computer, so I use what tools I have. Local models ftw
I’ll take my downvotes now 😞
Jk, I’m on an instance that disables downvotes. Meaning folks have to write coherent comments for me to be aware they think I’m dumb/wrong/eeeeevil.
I could see tinkering with local models being a very satisfying hobby. I’ve always been curious about how accurate they can get on sentiment. E.g., a southern US woman saying “bless your heart” can have implied condescension while other regions it may be more of a straightforward good-faith comment; how and how well does a model get trained on that sort of thing.
There’s “skills,” and then there’s innate talent, and then there’s practice. Anyone who embraces AI art clearly doesn’t have the innate talent to recognize it’s crap, and their rabid eagerness to jump on the latest trend implies they probably doesn’t have the patience required for practice either.
Not that music and art classes and exposure aren’t important, but 12 years of mandatory gym classes definitely didn’t turn me into an athlete (if anything, it made me hate physical activity. Maybe if we had gone on hikes instead of playing dodgeball…)
But you know how to play dodgeball. Do you know what composition is?
If not, or even the fact that question is tricky for people, is to illustrate my point. People want to be able to draw, and we aren’t being taught how.
Sure I know how to play dodgeball, and I’ve had many, many gym classes worth of practice, but I was always absolute shit at it. Similarly, you can teach composition (or color theory or whatever other art technique you want), and have your students practice it, but most are never going to be more than just okay at creating art. “People just need to be taught the arts and then they won’t be seduced by the siren song of AI!” assumes that education can overcome innate limitations. I will never be a good athlete, just as most people will never be good artists/musicians/writers. Meanwhile here’s a tool that will produce (what AI users think is) an impressive facsimile of the real thing, and at a fraction of the effort with almost no barrier to entry.
I feel that the idea that only certain magically wired people can be artists is a myth. I also think that our idea that only good artists are valid is some capitalistic nonsense. “Bad” artists are also valid artists, and our attitude around people creating things should change.
Arts in school is just a tool to proliferate and transmit cultural values to the next generation to upkeep a certain base line in the population. Can’t change my mind (but im open to constructive criticism and input)
Here’s how to draw in two point perspective kids!
Sit fuming in the back fucking capitalist pigs trying to shove America down my throat fuck you Mrs. Dotterson I’m too woke to learn how to draw
I mean… yeah and so? Public schools exist specifically to create a baseline of knowledge and experience in the population. It’s part of a social contract that says, “by the time they reach adulthood, a person should be able to read, write, do math, and not want to burn everything down or kill people.”
Those values are shared by most of the world. It’s not surprising that schools reinforce those things, because that’s very specifically what they were created for. The alternative would be what? Not have schools?
I’m not sure if they really want to do art. My impression is, that those guys rather seek fame. And somehow got convinced that art is some kind of elitist thing, that leads to fame.
It’s not fame they seek. It’s validation.
Anecdotally, having spoken to a few people who do this; they seemed to enjoy getting results without the effort of learning the skill. Like a cheat code in a videogame. Plus the experience of playing with a new toy.
I think not everyone who wants to be artistic can be. I sort of hear music composition in my head. But despite playing a musical instrument all through college, I could never play anything by ear. And memorizing music was really hard. So if AI could get what I hear in my head out, that would be astounding. It can’t yet, but you get my point. I also have poor fine motor skill, so drawing is out. Even with a computer and mouse it just is too hard. That said, I think what this really says is that people have a desire to consume more art, and they are willing to use AI to get it.
If you had the education, you’d know how to do all the things you say you want to do.
I cannot pick up an Almighty Fan Brushtm (for those people old enough to remember), and paint you an apple. My wife can and so can our daughters.
But, I can design in CAD an injection mold, then machine it all out, then crank out a million of the little bastards.
Why, because my brain isn’t “wired” to think like an artist. But it is wired to think like an engineer and toolmaker.
Anyone, despite disposition, can learn to paint an apple. The idea that art is exclusive to those who can think a certain way is a myth.
Perhaps how I said it wasn’t clear. When I said playing an instrument through college, I meant getting lessons and playing with official school and college bands. I had lots of education. I understand logically how to do the things. But I was unable. It takes more than education to be an artist.
I genuinely disagree.
Making something, regardless of skill level or whether you achieve what idea you had in making it, is what makes an artist. A poor artist or one that’s not the best ever is still a valid artist, right? Then that should apply to you as well.
Hm, I suppose it is a question on semantics then. In the context of the original post, there is art I would like to create, but cannot, and if AI could help me achieve what I envision, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. So I suppose I could ohrase it as, not everyone can be the artist they want to be. In my case, sure, I could compose some music technically. But the massive gap from what is in my head and what would come out would be so frustrating I would not enjoy the hobby. And that is why I don’t do it. So if AI could make it so I would be willing to do it, that would be a good thing.
That would be a good thing? You don’t want a challenge or to grow? Develop a skill? You don’t get a sense of accomplishment if you just have a computer steal other people’s effort for you.
What? I want the computer to help me make the art I have in my head. How is that stealing? I want to say more crescendo, or make the low line lower. Or have me hum something and it write it. Then combine it with something else I hummed.
And I have plenty of areas to be challenged, and to develop. But only 24 hours in a day. I can’t be an expert in everything. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy a greater variety of things if I had help.And where do computers take the pictures they mash together for your convenience?
You aren’t making anything. You’re tracing.
They’re hacks. They don’t want to consume more art. They want to pretend to be skilled artists. They are trying deity validate themselves through pretending to have a skill.
I am sure “some” are. But contrary to popular belief, most people aren’t trying to be internet personalities. That is a very small percentage of the people who us AI to create art.
AI doesn’t create art.
Sadly. They’re all going to disappear. The new generations don’t want to work for rhings. And learning takes effort. They can be validated through creating artificial music.
I’ve got two kids in their teens. They learn and work harder than I did at that age.
I didn’t think this is true at all. People love making stuff and there’s a lot of younger people who are into things like crochet.
That is because you cannot use AI to crochet a coffee mug coaster. Take a look at in the AI “music” subs and communities. Tens of thousands of wannabe hack “musicians” all pretending to have written music.
It’s fucking gross.
If people didn’t still want to make things, craft stores wouldn’t exist. Music stores wouldn’t exist. Guitars would be a rarity. I follow a lot of zoomers who have entire channels dedicated to making things.
You think this shit happens overnight?
Apart from graphic design and advertising, art is difficult and risky for billionaires to profit off of. Human artists are notoriously flaky and difficult to work with. This is one reason Larry Ellison bought WB.
Billionaires want public schools to turn out people who are as close to robots as possible. We all know they’d prefer actual robots, but that’s not happening anytime soon, regardless of all the hype. So, public schools drop anything not reliably connected to billionaires profits. They’re thrilled at the prospect of getting rid of human artists.
tbh yeah. i don’t use ai but art stuff looks fun and i’d like to make things but i suck at it.
You can get better at it, and if you want some good tutorial books I have recommendations!
Then suck at it. Make bad art. Art isn’t a competition. So, who cares if it is bad?
It’s also time. People want to create but learning practising. Getting through the “I suck” stage is rough.
Been in mine for several decades now.
I don’t think that stage ever stops for anyone
I keep wanting to get more into music, but can never find the time/motivation to practice my scales.
I also tend to pick an instrument and abandon it every few years. I have nieces and nephews who occasionally get a second hand instrument.
Weirdly, I started to lost my sight a year or so ago, I had already coded a bunch of prototype games but if I can’t read it’s hard to code… might as well do the art side (my vision is like distorted I can still see but not whatever I’m looking directly at, like reading)
I’ve enjoyed the journey. Got a few games out and a Kickstarter brewing to spend time on the artwork.
My eyes let me follow my dreams by forcing me to lose my job 😂
lol people down voted you. People be nuts
Accidental downvoting (esp on mobile) is pretty easy, plus some users downvote posts that are in competition for visibility with their own posts (loser behavior, but it happens).
4 downvotes on a post with 163 upvotes is basically just noise.
Accidental downvoting (esp on mobile) is pretty easy
Isn’t it? It’s not so uncommon for me to see a post that I had evidently downvoted without noticing.
I never thought of it in those terms but I can see that being a possibility.
C’est la vie
People don’t go to RISD to learn to be an artist, they go for the connections.
Eh. I don’t think it says anything at all about their desire to be an artist. I think it says a lot more about their:
- greed (desire to be paid, regardless of what they’re being paid for)
- cheapness (not wanting to pay a proper artist)
- antisocial (as in: counter to the ethos of social collaboration; not as in “I want to be a potato today”) tendencies
- low ethical standards (not caring that the training sets for all of this are built almost exclusively from stolen contracts)
- self aggrandizement / narcissism (claiming aptitude and credit in a domain that you don’t actually have any skill in, but pretending you do anyways)
I don’t think wanting or not wanting to be able to do art is a major aspect of this at all. It’s largely about wanting the money and, sometimes, the recognition, without doing any of the work it normally takes for humans to get to that point of expertise.
Doubt.
You spend so much time using your clock and calculator on your phone you clearly want to be an engineer but don’t have the skills.
That’s actually a really illuminating analogy.
I can’t say I understand what people get out of playing with LLMs, but if they view writing code or drawing pictures like I view using a calculator then that explains a lot of the disconnect between the two camps.
I would 100% let some model draw me up a comic to shitpost without a second thought, and it by no means should be construed to mean that I wish I had chosen art for a career or a major or even a hobby.
This is basically just taking a shit on the sidewalk and leaving it there.
Ok? So is Mimi comics and pizzacake if you ask me.
Interestinger and interestinger. So you wish you could create the art (or pictures, whatever term you want to use), but the way you do it doesn’t matter, so you just use the LLM because that’s the easiest way to do it?
Would you normally try to soup something up in paint, or just do something else? I mean like before you could generate it with natural language.
I don’t personally use llms anymore, but when I did, it was for use cases where either I wanted a thing to be reasonably easy/fast or I would do without (a character sketch for DnD) or for visual representations that quick google searches weren’t turning up.
I watched a video where someone sent AI images to dress makers so they could make dresses. If I wanted a very specific type of dress, and I can’t draw this seems like a great way to communicate my desires and intentions.
I realize I’m a little bit of a liar. I will sometimes use Be My AI to help alt-text/caption pictures that happen to have a lot going on. So they get a list of snacks instead of something like “table with various snacks”.
So just FYI the rule of thumb with alt text that I’ve heard is: imagine you’re describing the picture you’re looking at to someone you’re talking on the phone with.
So that usually means keeping it brief and precise to only the aspects which are relevant to the context it’s being posted in.
Sorry if you’ve heard this already, but yet helped me a lot.
I upvote you because yes, but also I have a few light independent (non sighted) coworkers who like all the details.
Yeah I’ve done some minor photoshop before but that isn’t really the point.
It’s not even that I wish I could do it. Sometimes I think of a stupid meme like the “well yes but actually no” pirate and a picture of Mr Bean and Sean Bean or something and I could let an LLM shit that side by side out instead of using meme generator and like 10 minutes of thought. Or I could just… Not. I actually haven’t ever, but people who say “oh just draw it even if it’s stick figures” are full of shit. If I want to make a comic I’ll just do it who cares how.
Of course there is value in art, but that value doesn’t come in proportion to the huge number of people studying it and it doesn’t come from comics or memes either in my estimation. I don’t/wouldn’t use a language model for those things because I have penis envy, but rather because it’s easy for dicking around. People asking for relationship advice to Claude are also not secretly wishing they had gone to school for a BS in psych.
At the risk of being dismissive, people with liberal arts or art degrees can cool their tits: basically no one is using LLMs because we secretly wish we had gone down that road, and the ones that do… Well… Bless their hearts they are a small and special minority.
Thanks for taking the time to go into it. It seems like people are having this conversation in every community and every friend group and most of the time it’s just people talking past each other.
If that were true, there would be people saying they are engineers for doing this.
There aren’t.
But there’s people saying they’re artists and musicians for making slop…
