Because then artists aren’t getting paid but you’re still using their art. The AI isn’t making art for you just because you typed a prompt in. It got everything it needs to do that from artists.
So it’s more of an ethical “someone somewhere is probably being plagiarized and that’s bad” thing and not really a business or pragmatic decision. I guess I can get that but can’t see many people following through with that.
Some people got mad at a podcast I follow because they use AI generated episode covers. Which is funny because they absolutely wouldn’t be paying an artist for that work, it’d just be the same cover, so not like they switched from paying someone to not paying them.
The issue is similar to using other people’s data for profit. It’s easy to not feel that’s the case because “it’s the AI that does that, not me.”
There’s a lot of concerns around it. Mine is that we have longer periods of style with minimal variety because of artist stagnation due to lack of financial backing. Though, this is for all gen AI as it depends on humans for progression, else it stagnates. People are already getting AI art fatigue because it feels like that old 2005–2015 Adobe Illustrato vector art everyone was doing, because it is. It was an incredibly popular and overused style back then, so itt’ brimming with it in comparison to other art styles it got from the internet. It already looks dated, but acceptable because it’s familiar to most. It depends on more artists progressing our art to be able to do the same. But it won’t do that as fast if art culture is slowed due to lack of support.
It’s gutting entire swaths of middle-class careers, and funneling that income into the pockets of the wealthy.
If you’re a single-person startup using your own money and you can’t afford to hire someone else, sure. That’s ok until you can afford to hire someone else.
If you’re just using it for your personal hobbies and for fun, that’s probably ok
But if you’re contributing to unemployment and suppressed wages just to avoid payroll expenses, there is a guillotine with your name on it.
Before if you chose not to hire someone, you’d be competing against better products from people who did hire someone. Hiring someone gave them a competitive advantage.
By removing the competitive advantage of hiring someone, you’re destroying an entire career path, harming the economy and society in general.
A lot of AI use I’m personally seeing is shit most wouldn’t spend money on or stuff where instead of paying for a stock photo they just generate shit and be done with it. Would they have ever paid someone to do the work and especially would anyone have agreed to do such small work that’d never pay anything reasonable, most likely no.
Before if you chose not to hire someone, you’d be competing against better products from people who did hire someone. Hiring someone gave them a competitive advantage.
I guess I don’t believe in quite as much in the invisible hand of capitalism. I rather think it’s a race to the bottom with companies buying some cheap slop to use on their webpage or whatever from a stock photo company and now people pay AI companies for it, if anyone. Can’t see the big impact of that sort of shit being replaced.
I also think capitalism is a race to the bottom, but I believe it is so because it subverts the value of labor. It’s shit like AI that makes it a race to the bottom.
shit most wouldn’t spend money on or stuff where instead of paying for a stock photo they just generate shit and be done with it.
Then pay for the stock photo. There, an artist is being paid for their work. But realistically the little stuff you’re talking about is the occupation of entire departments in megacorps.
Paying a stock photo “artist” or some AI slop “artist”, I’m not sure it makes any difference. The stuff AI generates is already so sloppy generic corporate bs that it’s hard to think of anyone deserving to paid anything for it anyway. It’s mimicking a horrid generic art style and a horrid generic art style like that isn’t owned by a particular artist anyway.
Why wouldn’t you though?
Because then artists aren’t getting paid but you’re still using their art. The AI isn’t making art for you just because you typed a prompt in. It got everything it needs to do that from artists.
So it’s more of an ethical “someone somewhere is probably being plagiarized and that’s bad” thing and not really a business or pragmatic decision. I guess I can get that but can’t see many people following through with that.
Some people got mad at a podcast I follow because they use AI generated episode covers. Which is funny because they absolutely wouldn’t be paying an artist for that work, it’d just be the same cover, so not like they switched from paying someone to not paying them.
The issue is similar to using other people’s data for profit. It’s easy to not feel that’s the case because “it’s the AI that does that, not me.”
There’s a lot of concerns around it. Mine is that we have longer periods of style with minimal variety because of artist stagnation due to lack of financial backing. Though, this is for all gen AI as it depends on humans for progression, else it stagnates. People are already getting AI art fatigue because it feels like that old 2005–2015 Adobe Illustrato vector art everyone was doing, because it is. It was an incredibly popular and overused style back then, so itt’ brimming with it in comparison to other art styles it got from the internet. It already looks dated, but acceptable because it’s familiar to most. It depends on more artists progressing our art to be able to do the same. But it won’t do that as fast if art culture is slowed due to lack of support.
Because that’s a harm to society and economy.
It’s gutting entire swaths of middle-class careers, and funneling that income into the pockets of the wealthy.
If you’re a single-person startup using your own money and you can’t afford to hire someone else, sure. That’s ok until you can afford to hire someone else.
If you’re just using it for your personal hobbies and for fun, that’s probably ok
But if you’re contributing to unemployment and suppressed wages just to avoid payroll expenses, there is a guillotine with your name on it.
Please don’t use the “but it creates jobs” argument.
Me shitting in the street also “creates jobs” because someone has to clean it.
It feels like you’re directing that at me, but I agree with you, so I’m not sure what tone that was written in
I think what matters if you would’ve otherwise hired someone. Otherwise I can’t see it making any impact.
And in a lot of cases you would’ve paid for stock photo company anyway
I don’t agree:
Before if you chose not to hire someone, you’d be competing against better products from people who did hire someone. Hiring someone gave them a competitive advantage.
By removing the competitive advantage of hiring someone, you’re destroying an entire career path, harming the economy and society in general.
A lot of AI use I’m personally seeing is shit most wouldn’t spend money on or stuff where instead of paying for a stock photo they just generate shit and be done with it. Would they have ever paid someone to do the work and especially would anyone have agreed to do such small work that’d never pay anything reasonable, most likely no.
I guess I don’t believe in quite as much in the invisible hand of capitalism. I rather think it’s a race to the bottom with companies buying some cheap slop to use on their webpage or whatever from a stock photo company and now people pay AI companies for it, if anyone. Can’t see the big impact of that sort of shit being replaced.
I also think capitalism is a race to the bottom, but I believe it is so because it subverts the value of labor. It’s shit like AI that makes it a race to the bottom.
Then pay for the stock photo. There, an artist is being paid for their work. But realistically the little stuff you’re talking about is the occupation of entire departments in megacorps.
Paying a stock photo “artist” or some AI slop “artist”, I’m not sure it makes any difference. The stuff AI generates is already so sloppy generic corporate bs that it’s hard to think of anyone deserving to paid anything for it anyway. It’s mimicking a horrid generic art style and a horrid generic art style like that isn’t owned by a particular artist anyway.
Honestly that’s kinda worse, because it’s specifically replacing entry-level jobs
Replacing jobs in one place and giving them elsewhere. It is what it is.