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Comment by spijdar | Hacker News Reader

The same question could be poised of art in general. I know that response would (and probably should) ruffle peoples' figurative feathers, but I think it's worth considering. A lot of art isn't "necessary for society".

The question still stands, "are the benefits worth the cost to society", but it bears remembering we do a lot of things for fun which aren't "necessary for society".

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I used to think like what you describe, but I've fallen on the side of "art is just more emotionally resonant human communication". And most of the time human communication with more effort and thought behind it. AI art falls short on both being human and, on average, having more effort or thought behind it than your general interaction at the supermarket.

I will say, it can be emotionally resonant though - but it's a borrowed property from the perception of human communication and effort that made the art the models were trained on.

If you want to say the complete destruction of truth is worth it because some people are having "fun" then idk.

I was worried about the complete destruction of truth, but it seems that's not the result of commoditized image generation. False AI-generated images have been widespread for years, and as far as I've seen, society has adapted very well to the understanding that images can't prove anything without detailed provenance. I'd argue that this has been helped, actually, by random people on the Internet routinely generating plausible images of events that obviously didn't happen.

>society has adapted very well to the understanding that images can't prove anything without detailed provenance

Donald Trump is the president of the United States.

I don't understand the response. Do you think that Donald Trump would not be president of the United States if powerful image models hadn't been invented? Or perhaps you're referring to the AI-generated media he's often posted since being elected; when he showed a video of getting in a fighter jet to dump poo on protesters, do you think many people believed that was a real thing he actually did?

I'm more reacting to the premise that society is positively adapting to the post truth world. Which it clearly is not. Half the population of the US is already living in a fake news mirror universe where everything is inverted. More convincing fake news is not going to help.

And this is just straight out of Putin's playbook, if everything is fake then people just stop beliving in the concept of truth altogether.

I think it's neither going to help nor hurt. My experience is that today, even people "living in a fake news mirror universe" understand that an image does not prove anything unless you can explain where you got it from and why anyone should believe it's authentic.

You shouldn't have believed photos since Stalin had Yezhov airbrushed out of them. The only thing that makes a photo more trustworthy than a painting is that it "looks" more real, and passes itself off as true. But there have always been photographic fakes, manipulation and curation of the photos to push a message. AI will finally end this and people will realise that the image of the thing is not the thing itself.

You are vastly, vastly underselling what is being lost. You can no longer look at a piece of art without first asking "is this even real", that is a collosal loss to the experience of being human. You can't just appreciate anything anymore without questioning it.

>You shouldn't have believed photos since Stalin had Yezhov airbrushed out of them.

It isn't just about propaganda photos, it is about -litearlly everything-, even things people have no incentive to fake, like cat videos, or someone doing a backflip or a video of a sunset.

I agree, but if you enjoy the art, why does it really matter who made it, like I enjoy looking at sea shells, no one made them, but they are nice to look at?

The difference between "art in general" and this is scale and speed. Sure, I'll grant you that people are going to engage in deception with or without this but the barrier to entry with this is literally on the floor. Do you have a $5 prepaid VISA? You can generate whatever narrative you want in 30 seconds. Replace the $5 Prepaid VISA with the pocketbook of a three letter agency and it starts getting crazy.

>starts getting crazy

Got pretty wild w/the Iranian propaganda that reportedly _resonated with Americans_ (didn't verify that claim)

Slopaganda - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-team-b...

Art is for the producer, and if they feel it’s necessary for them to produce it than it’s necessary for them, and what is necessary for the individual extends to the society they’re in.

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