In my opinion, AI just feels like the logical next step for capitalist exploitation and destruction of culture. Generative AI is (in most cases) just a fancy way for cooperations to steal art on a scale, that hasn’t been possible before. And then they use AI to fill the internet with slop and misinformation and actual artists are getting fired from their jobs, because the company replaces them with an AI, that was trained on their original art. Because of these reasons and some others, it just feels wrong to me, to be using AI in such a manner, when this community should be about inclusion and kindness. Wouldn’t it be much cooler, if we commissioned an actual artist for the banner or find a nice existing artwork (where the licence fits, of course)? I would love to hear your thoughts!

  • jsomae@lemmy.ml
    2514·
    1 month ago

    If I drew something myself, those artists would also not be paid. I can understand a deontological argument against using AI trained on people’s art, but for me, the utilitarian argument is much stronger – don’t use AI if it puts an artist out of work.

    • BennyTheExplorer@lemmy.worldOP
      4110·
      1 month ago

      It’s not about anyone getting paid, it’s about affording basic respect and empathy to people and their work. Using AI sends a certain message of 'I don’t care about your consent or opinion towards me using your art", and I don’t think, that this is a good thing for anyone.

      • jsomae@lemmy.ml
        1911·
        1 month ago

        Well yeah, I don’t care about IP rights. Nothing has been materially stolen, and if AI improves, then the result could some day in theory be indistinguishable from a human who was merely “inspired” by an existing piece of art. At the end of the day, the artist is not harmed by AI plagiarism; the artist is harmed by AI taking what could have been their job.

              • jsomae@lemmy.ml
                63·
                1 month ago

                the human brain follows the laws of physics; it therefore follows that human creativity is already computational.

                • patatas@sh.itjust.works
                  46·
                  1 month ago

                  Three problems with this:

                  1. If computation means “anything that happens in the universe” then the term ‘computation’ is redundant and meaningless.
                  2. We do not know or understand all of the physical laws of the universe, or if those laws indeed hold universally.
                  3. Our consciousness does not operate at the level of atomic physics; see Daniel Dennett’s ‘compatibilism’ defense of free will vs Robert Sapolsky’s determinism. If we’re vulgar materialists, then it follows that there is no free will, and thus no reason to advocate for societal change.
                  • jsomae@lemmy.ml
                    4·
                    1 month ago
                    1. Your argument should not require appealing to desire to have the word computation be less redundant. (I don’t really think there’s a meaningful difference between computation and physics, we just generally use the term computation to refer to physical processes which result in useful information.) But why don’t we define computation as being “anything that can be done on a conventional computer (with sufficient time and memory)” – i.e. Turing-computable.
                    2. It is not relevant that we may not know all the physical laws of the universe; what matters only is whether there are laws or not. A scientist cannot cause free will to disappear from the universe simply by learning new facts about the laws of physics. (I would argue that if this were apparently true, then there was no free will to begin with.)
                    3. My understanding of compatabilism is that free will and determinism are compatible; in other words, the laws of physics can give arise to free will (consciousness, as you put it). I think there are some additional twists in compatabilism I don’t entirely understand, but that’s the gist as far as I have seen. In any case, compatabilism seems to me to be compatible with the idea that one can simulate a human brain; since the simulation and the original would produce the same result, then if one has free will, the other must have free will too. (Simulating it multiple times will always result in the same thing, which therefore means that it’s the same conscious experience – the same free will – each time, and not different instances of free will. In other words, consciousness is fungible with respect to simulation.) Simulation=computation, so therefore human creativity is computable.

                    Please note that I’m not arguing that current AIs actually are on the level of human creativity, just that there’s no law against that eventually being possible.

                  • lad@programming.devEnglish
                    3·
                    1 month ago

                    If we’re vulgar materialists, then it follows that there is no free will, and thus no reason to advocate for societal change.

                    No free will doesn’t imply no change. Lifeless systems evolve over time, take rock formation as an example, it was all cosmic dust at some point. So no, even if we do accept that there is no free will that shouldn’t mean perfect stasis

        • Evotech@lemmy.world
          34·
          1 month ago

          Thank you, you can’t both love piracy (which lemmy overwhelmingly does) and hate AI

          • dil@lemmy.zip
            1·
            1 month ago

            plenty of examples where piracy harms no one devs get paid no matter what, ppl working on and making shows like south park that have 5 year deals, many devs get fired right after a game gets released they dont benefit if it does well, indie games i never pirate, I use the 2 hour steam window instead to see if I want it

            ai on the other hand lol, actively takes away jobs

      • GaMEChld@lemmy.world
        910·
        1 month ago

        If I saw the artwork myself and it inspired my artwork, would it be any different? Everything is based on everything.

    • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
      112·
      1 month ago

      Yeah, but if you drew it yourself then they wouldn’t expect to be paid. Unless you plagiarised them to the degree that would trigger a copyright claim, they would (at worst) just see it as a job that they could have had, but didn’t. Nothing of theirs was directly used, and at least something original of theirs was created. Whereas AI images are wholly based on other work and include no original ideas at all.

      • jsomae@lemmy.ml
        143·
        1 month ago

        You’re posting on lemmy.ml; we don’t care much for intellectual property rights here. What we care about is that the working class not be deprived of their ability to make a living.

          • jsomae@lemmy.ml
            41·
            1 month ago

            I agree that they are not mutually exclusive, which is why I usually side against AI. On this particular occasion however, there’s a palpable difference, since no artist is materially harmed.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
        4·
        1 month ago

        You haven’t explained how it would be different in any way. Human artists learn by emulating other artists, and vast majority of art is derivative in nature. Unless a specific style is specified by the user input, AI images are also not plagiarised to the degree that would trigger a copyright claim. The only actual difference here is in the fact that the process is automated and a machine is producing the image instead of a human drawing it by hand.