Hacker News Reader

"Will my daughter compare herself to these things without knowing they aren't real and go insane..." This is already the case today with airbrushed and photoshopped models in media and ads. It's more a question of education than of an issue in the real world. Teach her not to give a f*k about what others say, that is the most valuable lesson.

Humans are social and emotional beings first before they ever become rational. The "illusory truth effect" still affects people, if you see or hear a lie long enough you start believe it unconsciously.

It's basically how advertising works, familiarity over rationality.

So I don't think education is enough.

That is such a non-answer. It's like saying "guns don't kill people, other people kill people". Yes. Also, unhelpful and pretentious.

> In my personal life, I have friends addicted to ChatGPT. While we are talking, they are talking to chatgpt for advice, for jokes, for planning David Bowie themed parties. They literally run everything thru this AI first

Time for new friends

Abandoning friends at the first sign of problems, without at least trying to help them leads long term to a society where almost everyone has fallen down and has been abandoned.

Yes, I was half-joking however in my experience such interventions, no matter their intentions, often fail and may sometimes be considered too invasive/offensive.

> Time for new friends

ChatGPT can help you with that.

I'm terrified of AI for the same reason the movie 'Idiocracy' scares the shit out of me

That's not reassuring, considering the Q society / IdioQracy having taken shape in the US.

I think some of the concern is overblown, some isn't.

The Replika AI stuff is definitely concerning because it deprives people of actual relationships by subsituting something artificial that can never supplant something physical/real. Kind of like the movie Her (2013). But this is already happening with stuff like onlyfans.

The stable diffusion stuff shouldn't threaten artists, in the same way that digital art doesn't threaten traditional artists. It's just another tool to be integrated into their workflow. Use it as a starting point to refine, or for inspiration. Did early animators feel threatened by computers? Sure, but it meant they didn't need to hand trace every frame for rotoscoping. Did Phil Tippett feel threatened by CGI superceding his stop motion in Jurassic Park? Probably, but he evolved to integrate his knowledge into the CGI performances. They also ended up using scale models/animatronics for basically motion capture, using elements from stop motion. He still pursues his stop/go motion passion as well.

AI instagram models aren't anymore threatening than current instagram models, since they already set unrealistic expectations based on fake personalities and lives.

Yeah, a problem is people anthropomorphizing it and by doing so they assume it has more intelligence than it actually has. Its an interesting technology, but you're right to be concerned (as am I). I honestly don't think anything can be done to prevent it though, especially as SV companies disregard ethics and want to just produce products without thinking about the repurcussions. Maybe there will be a backlash eventually against AI as people once again strive only for human relationships. Maybe society will be stratified along those lines. The best you can hope for is that people continue to think and question.

The stable diffusion stuff shouldn't threaten artists, in the same way that digital art doesn't threaten traditional artists.

It's a fairly unpopular viewpoint that you're taking here, but I also agree with you.

Unless you can actually think of what you want and AI produces it, just like how some people are so good at illustrating they can basically draw exactly what they see in there mind, it's not going to change everything for artists.

I mean there might be cases where I'd use DALL-E to generate some images for a mock-up website design, but I'd still probably higher a designer to create a proper portfolio, provide style guidance etc.

Same for photograph, if I was working on something that was "about" a real thing, like a travel blog, I'd still be working with photographers to take real photos, because...authenticity is important, at least I feel it is, else people would've just used Getty images and thrown there cameras away for the last 30 years.

Hate to break it to you but this is already happening. I know 2 people who fired illustrators and used mid journey instead.

The feedback cycle with humans was too long and they were expensive… with AI the iteration is so rapid that you can try new ideas and make all sorts of adjustments without incurring much cost

You're not breaking anything to me, I know it's going on, I just don't see the point in worrying about it?

If you're friends are good artists they will find something cool to make using the new technology, something cooler than the dude who fired them can produce with DALL-E.

Maybe next time the turn around time is too slow, they'll use some technology to speed that up and deliver more stuff faster.

You live you learn.

On the other hand, not sure how much you've used these tools, I'm sick of giving the "yes they're impressive disclaimer" but they still don't deliver you what you actually want, you still need to work for that. They can't read your mind and even if they could, some people would probably still have some cooler ideas people will want.

Honestly, there are so, so, so many creative agencies, already, they have work for a reason, because people who actually have work to do are too busy being "prompt engineers", choosing the right art etc. Yes there will be an impact, but I doubt this is going to be the end of all creative work. I've worked at plenty of startups, enterprises etc, where the creative people did a lot more than just create images.