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Comment by petralithic | Hacker News Reader

I've talked to people like this and when you dig deep enough, it's a fear of the economic effects of it, not actually any strongly held belief of AI inherently not being intelligent or emotional. Similarly, and I'm speaking generally here, ask artists about coding AI and they won't care, and ask programmers about media generation AI and they also won't care. That's because AI outside their domain does not (ostensibly) threaten their livelihood.

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I am not an artist, yet I care about media generation "AI", as in I resent it deeply.

Like I said, I'm speaking generally. There are a few like you who do, for whatever reason, but most artists hate it because they, at the most basal level, see it as a threat, especially when it came out. You should've seen what engineers on HN said about GitHub Copilot said when that first came out too.

this is a claim shockingly contrary to what every artist I know, and I myself as an amateur, believe

Which artists care about coding AI like Copilot? All the ones I talked to simply do not care. Regarding economic means, I asked them whether they'd care if they lived in a post scarcity society where they could make art all day and not have to worry about their material needs being met, ie they're rich, and it turns out if that were the case, they didn't care about what people did with AI, be it image generation or code generation.

As an artist, I do not dread AI's artistic capabilities from a philosophical standpoint because its apparent "humanity" is a distilled average entirely divorced from the contexts in which its stolen art inputs are provided. In this way, it is categorically devoid of meaning.

As a software developer, I dread AI's capabilities to greatly accelerate the accumulation of technical debt in a codebase when used by somebody who lacks the experience to temper its outputs. I also dread AI's capabilities, at least in the short term, to separate me and others from economic opportunities.

That's because, if I'm inferring correctly what you're implying in the last sentence, you work primarily as a software developer. Try telling a working artist your first paragraph or that they shouldn't worry about AI taking their commission work for example and see what they think.

so here's the thing, artists like making the art, skipping the making leaves you with nothing

most artists I know are against AI because they feel it is anti-human, devaluing and alienating both the viewer and the creator

some can tolerate it as a tool, and some (as is long art tradition) will use it to offend or be contrarian, but these are not the common position

if I were a spherical cow in a vacuum with infinite time, and nobody around me had economic incentives to make things with it, I could, maybe, in the spirit of openness, tolerate knowing some people somewhere want to use it... but I still wouldn't want to see its output

They don't have to use AI though, they can leave people who do alone. But that's not what I see, I see artists getting mad at the latter and when I dig deep, it turns out they're scared it'll take their digital commission work. This has primarily been my experience talking with artists I commission as well as people online on Twitter and reddit for example.

sure, it's hard for an artist to compete on price with AI, and the ones who depend on this kind of ultra low budget work will have a hard time (and have a direct economic self-interest in advocating against)

but again, that's not what I see in the people around me

And that's my point. It was never about the philosophy, it was always about the economics. That's what frustrates me, why lie? If it's money you want then ask for it, don't make up some bullshit.

But are philosophy and economics so neatly separable in this case? Say you hold the philosophical belief that humans creating art is important but the economics don't allow it. In that case the root of your argument is philosophical and the economics factor into it but are not the single argument itself.

Well, the trope of the starving artist exists for a reason. One does not need to be employed as a full time artist to create art, and thus art can come from anywhere, the value of economics is an entirely separate issue because no one should expect to be able to do a leisurely activity as an economically viable occupation indefinitely. Does it happen, yes of course, but it shouldn't be expected to always continue.

Where can I sign up for the post scarcity society? Asking for my artist friends.

You can't, hence my point about their fear being economic, not philosophical.

Sounds like you were maybe having some one-sided conversations with all the many artists you spoke to.

Ah yes, because you disagree with me, I must have been having one sided conversations. I suppose some people just can't accept other people's experiences without denigrating them.

I'm no artist (I even failed high school art) and I think AI media generation is a travesty.

> I've talked to people like this and when you dig deep enough, it's a fear of the economic effects of it

You hear what you want to hear. You think fine artists - and really, how many working fine artists do you really know? - don't have sincere, visceral feelings about stuff, that have nothing to do with money?

We can talk anecdata all day. I do know fine artists, for example sculptors and painters, as well as many digital creators, as I commission pieces from them for prints in my place, and I've talked to all of them about AI out of curiosity.

If you dig deep enough isn’t the same thing true of people like yourself? Do you truly believe that the large language models we currently have, not some fantasy AI of the distant future, are emotional and intellectual beings? Or, are you more interested in the short term economic gains of using them? Does this invalidate your beliefs? I don’t think so, most everyday beliefs are related to economic conditions.

How could a practical LLM enthusiast make a non-economic argument in favor of their use? They’re opaque usually secretive jumbles of linear algebra, how could you make a reasonable non-economic argument about something you don’t, and perhaps can’t, reason about?

When did I say I believe AI to be intelligent or emotional? Of course I use it for economic factors, but I'm honest about it, not wrapping it up in some intellectual, solipsizing arguments. I'm not even sure what non-economic arguments you're talking about, my point is that at the end of the day most people care about the economic impact it might have on them, not anything about the technology itself.

I don’t think the author is hiding his economic anxiety behind solipsism. He states plainly he doesn’t like the deskilling of work.

My point is why are your economic motivations valid while his aren’t?

Who said my economic motivations are or aren't valid? My point is that people shouldn't lie, to others or to themselves, and to state their motivations plainly. While the author does do so, I am talking about other people who do hide behind solipsism, thus that is why my comment is not a top level comment about the article but a reply to a specific comment that says "one of my friends...", hence why I said "people like this" where "this" refers to their friend, not the author.

I care because it's outright theft. That's what AI companies do and what you are an accessory to.

AI is not intelligent or emotional. It's not a "strongly held belief" it simply hasn't been proven.

It's as much theft as piracy is.

> AI is not intelligent or emotional.

Yes, I agree, my point is that people use arguments against these types of issues instead of stating plainly that their livelihood will be threatened. Just say it'll take your job and that's why you're mad, I don't understand why so many people try to dance around this issue and make it seem like it's some disagreement about the technology rather than economics.

And most "AI" evangelists are actually stock holders.

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