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Comment by imiric | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why you see a distinction between models that generate text, and those that generate images, video or audio. They're all digital formats, and the technology itself is fairly agnostic about what it's actually generating.

Can't text also be considered art? There's as much art in poetry, lyrics, novels, scripts, etc. as in other forms of media.

The thing is that the generative tech is out of the bag, and there's no going back. So we'll have to endure the negative effects along with the positive.

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Simple: I am equally offput when LLMs are used for generating poetry, lyrics, novels, scripts, etc. I don't like it when low-effort generated slop is passed off as art.

I just think that LLMs have genuine use for non-artistic things, which is why I said it's dangerous but may be useful if we play our cards right.

I see. Well, I agree to an extent, but there's no clear agreement about what constitutes art with human-generated works either. There are examples of paintings where the human clearly "just" slapped some colors on a canvas, yet they're highly regarded in art circles. Just because something is low-effort doesn't mean it's not art, or worthy of merit.

So we could say the same thing about AI-generated art. Maybe most of it is low-effort, but why can't it be considered art? There is a separate topic about human emotion being a key component these generated works are missing, but art is in the eyes of the beholder, after all, so who are we to judge?

Mind you, I'm merely playing devil's advocate here. I think that all of this technology has deep implications we're only beginning to grapple with, and art is a small piece of the puzzle.

You make a good point. I'm just spitballing here, but I think what sets generative art apart for me is the element of deception.

I'd be perfectly fine with a hypothetical world in which all generated art is clearly denoted as such. Like you said, art is in the eyes of the beholder. I welcome a world in which AI art lives side-by-side with traditional art, but clearly demarcated.

Unfortunately, the reality is very different.

AI art inherently tries to pass off as if it were made by a human. The result of the tools released in the past year is that my relationship with media online has become adversarial. I've been tricked in the past by AI music and images which were not labelled as such, which fosters a sort of paranoia that just isn't there with the examples you mentioned.

the offensive part is that it's creative theft by digesting other people's creative works then reworked and regurgitated. It's 'fine' when it's technical documentation and reference work, but that's not human expression.

So pre-LLM were you offended when someone posted their personal poetry or artwork on internet if it was clear they had put little effort into it? Somehow I doubt it.

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