"Fucking Hell" - first thing I yelled to myself when I saw that headline
Kudos for the project, of course, but it just saddens me a bit more. Nothing is sacred anymore.
Kudos for the project, of course, but it just saddens me a bit more. Nothing is sacred anymore.
More correctable in these models would be the balance between the letterforms. Surely if there was some kind of prompt you could tell it to not make those Ms in that bold serif font to be obnoxiously wide?
Either way, as of now, what this gets us is exactly 90% less useful and probably of lower quality than the stuff you can get for free on dafont.com. I know it will progress, but I imagine the best use case for generative AI and font creation for commercially viable fonts would be to give roughs glyphs to fill out a large character set as an aid for a professional type designer.
And surely there will be a chorus of people insisting that it doesn't matter. Well, you're wrong. If you blindly showed people a headline, book, poster or whatever with properly kerned type and then one without, they will see how much more polished the properly kerned page is, even if they couldn't tell you specifically why. In a lot of situations, that really, really matters, even to people who haven't developed the ability to point out the differences.
However, none of the people in the creative space I see complaining about these models ever cried for: all of the jobs surrounding the horse industry (stables, horseback couriers, etc); thatches roof weavers; textiles weavers; knockeruppers; the people that manually lit street lamps; etc.
Of course many argue that industrialisation also created many more jobs, but I certainly suspect there were fewer than it consumed.
However the end result is that we are all generally better off for it. I think the reason the argument against machine learning models is flawed is that it is just neo-Luddism; it's hypocritical to complain about the loss of an industry or a specific job, or specific task of a role to technology whilst reaping the benefits of previously lost jobs - artists wear machine woven fabrics, after all; They use technology assembled by pick and place machine - we all do.
The big _however_, however, is that we can do better as a society to support transitions like this. We shouldn't stop technology if it has clear benefits for humanity, but unlike previous eras where those who were "replaced by machines" were forgotten, we need to assist and help anybody who is affected by this transition. This is how we should be doing things these days.
I find the same argument for train drivers, with the fear of being (rightfully) replaced by self driving trains, a technology that has been available for a long time now. Yes, of course they'd prefer to continue driving trains. But the ability to dramatically lower costs to riders of public transport outweighs this, and companies involved in such transitions (and wider society) need to take care of people involved in such transitions; free cross-training within the same industry, or free training within whatever industry they choose. Financial support through the transition period that their studies take. We can have and eat our silicon cake, we just have to be kind about it.
that seems like exactly the sort of business that deserves to be taken over by AI.
Why does this sadden you?
I'm quite happy everything is being done by AI, time will be freed for other things that are more important.
Manual font making will not go away though and now anyone can make their own fonts for free.
And people who make fonts, create art, and write prose generally do these things because they like doing them, not because they're forced to. These technologies aren't automating drudgery, they're automating things that give people's lives meaning. What's the endgame here exactly?
The big font makers no longer have a hold on extremely pricey fonts that are inaccessible, the general endgame is most software is going free and open source thanks to AI, and that is a good thing.
Won't the AIs be able to infer what would best maximize engagement for their owners and type the specifications necessary to create whatever the entity running them would want their users to consume?
All of us paying a set of subscriptions to the FAANGs, for literally every aspect of our lives.
What if you had a "personal font"? Sure, you have a user name, but what if you had a custom-generated font which communicates your personality to other people on the Internet? The font could be on a spectrum between static (generated once and reused indefinitely) and dynamic (continuous online learning of personal information causes an adjustment of the font).
I'm just making up an example here, but say you're feeling sad, and your smart technology figures out you're feeling sad. When you send a text message to family, then your personal font takes on "sad" characteristics.
While a human being decides that on the Youtube app, you can add a video to "watch later", but when it pops up in the feed, there's no option to remove it from "watch later" (except to go to that specific section), I'll be unhappy with human UX. We can only fit so many scenarios on our head I guess.
Same thing as a software developer; I do my best, but I'm sure there are bugs that I write in, certain states that I don't end up writing test cases for because I never quite thought of them. If it takes an AI/ML tool to help me be better at this, or to do it for me then I am so keen.
If it can be specified, it can be automated.
You don’t actually believe anything was ever sacred to being with do you?
No this might not be the most beautiful font with the most perfect kerning or optimized code. But if it’s functional enough for the person who requests it, that should be good enough shouldn’t it? Most things people are printing on their 3d printers aren’t high quality designed parts either. Plenty of scientists and accountants have scripts and code that would make most developers cringe, but if it’s good enough then why be bothered?
The ability of people to make things with tools that they otherwise never would have been able to make before without dedicating months or years of time they may not have is awesome and we should be excited for it. I’ve watched 70 year old grandmothers learn to make little home movies of their grandkids in iMovie. No they weren’t doing “real” film editing and certainly weren’t learning any skills that would transfer to avid or Final Cut. And so what? That home movie cut together with a minimum of skill and a whole lot of technology hiding the esoterica was probably more meaningful and joy inducing for that woman than most blockbuster cinematics produced by the best minds.
The grandma doesn't need generative fonts. She already has fonts that ship with her phone and computer. She already has iMovie for her grandkid videos. Does she need the ability to generate videos of political figures saying things they didn't say?
Obviously, what concerns us is a race to the bottom for the value of all human output.
>The grandma doesn't need generative fonts. She already has fonts that ship with her phone and computer. She already has iMovie for her grandkid videos. Does she need the ability to generate videos of political figures saying things they didn't say?
Would you say the same about people, their computers and programing languages? You already have the programs that ship with your computer. You already have Internet Explorer and Solitaire. Do you really need the ability make viruses and worms? Do you really need the power to create ransomware or crash the network?
>Obviously, what concerns us is a race to the bottom for the value of all human output.
The value of human output will always be there. Go get a quote for a hand carved and built table. Go get a quote for a bespoke set of clothes. See how much a custom song will cost you. Commission a book and get back to me on the price. Heck just go get a quote for some contractor work. Human output is in no danger of losing value.
What people are really concerned about is the reduction in the number of people that can capitalize on that output at any given time. When only 100 people can craft a custom font, 100 people have lots of work for lots of money as long as there is demand for custom fonts of any type. When a machine can generate a custom font for anyone, the only people that can make money from crafting a font are the number that can fulfill the demand for HUMAN created custom fonts. That's what people are worried about. Automation comes for us all, and we'd be better off spending time figuring out how to ensure people can still live a healthy, productive and free life in that new world than wringing our hands about how "depressing" it all is and fighting against the inevitable march of technology.