Comment by gtirloni | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gtirloni | Hacker News Reader

Imediatelly reminded of the anonymous quote: "I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do laundry and dishes."

I understand it's a bad argument because 1) people may need assistance to do art/writing and 2) the advancements gained from teaching AI to do art can be applied to other non-artistic endeavors (e.g. piano AI could be really good to operate machines with lots of buttons and no computerized interface).

However, the cost cutting side of the argument is the one that bothers me because companies/people WILL use AI like that in place of actual humans because they're likely to be cheaper in the future. So that pianist or musician playing in a local restaurant can be sure their job will be automated away by a subpar AI and real humans will be relegated to very expensive locations (an extension of replacing humans with recorded music, in a way).

My pessismist side thinks greed will be the downfall of humanity.

The pianist playing in a restaurant was optimized by the player piano (which would only play if you put a nickel in) back in the late 1800s. Muzak put the final nail in that coffin in 1954.

The player piano technology comes from the barrel organ, which seems to have been on the first pipe organs.

I think if ones perspective of manual art changes, so does that of AI art, sorta like shifting priorities in life. Some priorities are higher than others. And past a certain point, AI art becomes a tempting option beneath a certain motivation level.

If for example you find manual art more fun to practice than AI art, you'd be less inclined to give AI companies money to generate art, since you could perhaps spend hours and hours practicing and have fun.

And of course if you don't find manual art enjoyable, but still don't want to give up on the "art" idea entirely, AI art crosses the threshold into enjoyability, so the end product is at least in front of your eyes.

As for how to learn how to make one type of art more fun than the other, if ones preferences are set in stone, it's pretty tough. The AI/non-art-inclined crowd might invert your quote so the laundry and dishes get prioritized, because different people have different priorities.

I agree, but live performance in the age of recording is already a luxury good, and it is unlikely an AI would replace live performance any more than a player piano or CD player would (or has.)

I can't see how in a world full of recordings how in person, live performance art could get anything but vastly more valuable.

I saw a stage performance of Clue a few weeks ago. It was lovely. Nothing was AI generated, and couldn't be, because it was people physically making art live. How nice.

I will continue to pay for those experiences and to prioritize them over recorded ones.

No doubt it'll be more valuable but the number of opportunities (to watch and play at those) will decrease globally.

People want robots do (low-value && computationally intensive) tasks - I think it's fair and okay by now to say unfolding wet clumps came out of a washing machine belongs to a class of tasks that are computationally intensive for human brains.

Your comment reminded me of a scene from the movie "El Mariachi". In it, the title character walks into a bar looking for a job as a Mariachi, and is faced with the bar owner telling him something like "Why do I need a Mariachi when I can have a full band?", then pointing to a guy resting in the corner next to an organ (an "electronic organ", of the family type, as opposed to, you know, a hammond or something like that). The resting guy presses the "demo" button and the organ plays Mariachi music on its own ...

I share your pessimism partially, but I also wonder: if the system keeps optimizing for profit, at some point there just won't be enough people in the world to sell products and services to. I don't know what the answer is.

Edit: typo

The only real answer here.

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