By that logic, [snip]
The problem with the backlash against AI art is that it's similar to when people used to say that telephone conversations don't count as "real" conversations or refused to ride a train because "humans weren't meant to travel 30 miles an hour" - it's a fear of technology. But the longer it exists, the more people get used to it, and the more it improves, the more likely it is that people will slowly acclimatize to the idea and accept it as just another tool an artist can use. 40 years ago the Academy Awards didn't want to give special effects Oscars to movies that used CGI because it was "cheating". Now CGI is almost standard in even the simplest of productions.
There's nothing inherently wrong with AI art. If robot arms and computers in factories, automated operators on phones, and self-serve cashiers in stores (or online storefronts that bypass cashiers entirely) haven't utterly destroyed human civilization, this isn't going to be the step that somehow dooms us as a species (no matter how paranoid artists are about it, as they suddenly confront the cold hard reality that they're not irreplaceable either).
Computers have been making tons of jobs obsolete for decades now. Technology in general has been making jobs obsolete for centuries. But that doesn't mean we should all give up on any new innovations because telegraph operators or Pony Express riders might be out of work.
You make excellent points, Gnome, but IMO you are missing the point. By your reasoning, If primitve man couldn't tearopen the mastadon's skin, or kill the bear with his/her bare hands, or couldn't make his own blood turn blue to write on the walls of caves, then he shouldn't use it.
Man is a toolmaker. As a species, we use them because we cannot keep ourselves warm agains the cold, or fight against predators or prey. We cannot swim or run or do anything for very long. We use tools to compensate for our own design 'flaws.'
As you said, AI is just a tool, like a phone, a bicycle or a computer. THE DIFFERENCE is that it is a human using the phone. It is a human pedaling and steering the bike. It is a human using the computer.
With AI - both predictive or generative [the difference between the two lies in what they do - predictive AI analyzes existing data to make predictions, while generative AI generates new content based on learned patterns] - removes a lot of
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in a product. And while AI analysis threatens that segment of the workforce that crunches numbers and such, it isn't any more predictive than, say a calculator or a weather report.
Generative AI removes the human from the equation altogether, and that is where the [somewhat porous] distinction lies. Whereas [most of us] know that nazis are shite topics to talk about and espouse beliefs in [and I'm looking at you, Marine le Pen], Microsoft's AI product TAY - in less than 24 hours - claimed that 'Hitler did nothing wrong.' It had its plug pulled almost immediately after.
Had the AI gone rampant? Probably not. The AI had taken a lot of the datasets presented in discussion groups and followed down several rabbit holes and was overwhelmed by the incessant flame wars from white nationalists and, well, neo-nazis.
Where a human would usually say 'thet sheet ees jess whack, mayn', there were no such borders on the newborn AI. Without the wetware of having lived a life full of emotional experiences, there was no filter to decide right and wrong, or art versus imitation, or craft versus mental Legos.
My point is that Man makes the tool. Man uses the tool to enrich their inner lives. The tool does not use Man.
That's the distinction. That's the problem with AI art and AI writing. Art and writing are almost uniquely human experiences, and surrendering those deprive us of the Human Experience.
It isn't solely about losing jobs. It's about losing a part of us that make us, Us.