I could talk about this all day, but I think the struggle, as you say, is so important to how we make art. I've heard a lot of people suggest that this will democratize art (everyone can make it now!) but I think that sorely misses the point about what art is and what artists do. The difficulty isn't coming up with the ideas or concepts to feed into a prompt machine, it's in finding the right language to communicate with another person, to share in the common experience and struggle about what it means to be alive. The books you read, the art you study--consuming and thinking about existing art takes hours, and this too is part of the creative process. Prompting a machine to write a novel in the style of Hemingway does not mean you can write like Hemingway. I'm reading Mario Vargas Llosa's Notes on the Death of Culture, and you could say I have some FEELINGS.
"We are inviting this tool to do our things for us" is the part I ask people to pause at. Who's the "we" here? Some people are playing around with seeing what art it can generate, yes, but for the most part the "we" are the already highly paid people who want to see even more enormous profits and think they can do that by replacing people (and their pesky sick days and health insurance policies and wages) with AI.
Naomi Klein had probably the best piece on the actual risks in this regard (including environmental; the energy this stuff needs to function is mind-boggling) in The Guardian, but I really love science fiction writer Catherynne Valente's essay about it. It's fierce and ragey and on fire and well worth reading if only for passages like this: "ChatGPT doesn’t need to feel alive. It will go as long as we put things into it to make it go. Not us though! We aren’t going to face the emptiness life without the buffer of art and distraction, are you kidding me? Take away the cashier position and no one is going to ring up groceries to fulfill their own needs and longings. It’s not a thing. Take away art and we’re going to art harder just to spite you."
(Also, for anyone who wants a detailed breakdown of why self-driving cars are unlikely to ever be much of our future, there's an infrequent newsletter written by someone who used to run an autonomous vehicle company and does a great job explaining why they don't work: https://apperceptive.substack.com/p/driving-is-a-social-process)
Good stuff Anna. I think AI is a great tool for those of us who have already gone through the perseverance of learning, but what will it do for the next generation? What will they learn instead, that we would have if we weren't busy bumping our heads against our own mistakes time and again?
I get your point and some I like and agree. It is very ableist to say that because you and others are able to do these hard tasks and had the privilege of education and time and resources to learn than it is bad for people to use these tools to try to work and connect and create. I am a home health care helper and I have been using GPT in Microsoft to help my clients some are well in their 70s and 80s write letters to health care doctors and medicare offices to write letters to disagree with care decisions. There is no writer to help and no lawyer to draw up the letters and i cannot help. i also use ai apps to help my patients take their old photos and make them easier to see and take out the wrinkles and folds because of the age. I don't think it right to say your use of these new websites is ok and everyrone else is not right and disgusting because you draw a line.
I love this Anna, thank you. Hurray for real people & let's hope realness triumphs in the long term...
I could talk about this all day, but I think the struggle, as you say, is so important to how we make art. I've heard a lot of people suggest that this will democratize art (everyone can make it now!) but I think that sorely misses the point about what art is and what artists do. The difficulty isn't coming up with the ideas or concepts to feed into a prompt machine, it's in finding the right language to communicate with another person, to share in the common experience and struggle about what it means to be alive. The books you read, the art you study--consuming and thinking about existing art takes hours, and this too is part of the creative process. Prompting a machine to write a novel in the style of Hemingway does not mean you can write like Hemingway. I'm reading Mario Vargas Llosa's Notes on the Death of Culture, and you could say I have some FEELINGS.
When I hear speed...I just hear money. No one needs more “efficiency” they just want cheap labor. 💔💔
Footnote 1! Do I laugh or cry?!
"We are inviting this tool to do our things for us" is the part I ask people to pause at. Who's the "we" here? Some people are playing around with seeing what art it can generate, yes, but for the most part the "we" are the already highly paid people who want to see even more enormous profits and think they can do that by replacing people (and their pesky sick days and health insurance policies and wages) with AI.
Naomi Klein had probably the best piece on the actual risks in this regard (including environmental; the energy this stuff needs to function is mind-boggling) in The Guardian, but I really love science fiction writer Catherynne Valente's essay about it. It's fierce and ragey and on fire and well worth reading if only for passages like this: "ChatGPT doesn’t need to feel alive. It will go as long as we put things into it to make it go. Not us though! We aren’t going to face the emptiness life without the buffer of art and distraction, are you kidding me? Take away the cashier position and no one is going to ring up groceries to fulfill their own needs and longings. It’s not a thing. Take away art and we’re going to art harder just to spite you."
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/the-great-replacement-not-that-one?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
(Also, for anyone who wants a detailed breakdown of why self-driving cars are unlikely to ever be much of our future, there's an infrequent newsletter written by someone who used to run an autonomous vehicle company and does a great job explaining why they don't work: https://apperceptive.substack.com/p/driving-is-a-social-process)
Good stuff Anna. I think AI is a great tool for those of us who have already gone through the perseverance of learning, but what will it do for the next generation? What will they learn instead, that we would have if we weren't busy bumping our heads against our own mistakes time and again?
I get your point and some I like and agree. It is very ableist to say that because you and others are able to do these hard tasks and had the privilege of education and time and resources to learn than it is bad for people to use these tools to try to work and connect and create. I am a home health care helper and I have been using GPT in Microsoft to help my clients some are well in their 70s and 80s write letters to health care doctors and medicare offices to write letters to disagree with care decisions. There is no writer to help and no lawyer to draw up the letters and i cannot help. i also use ai apps to help my patients take their old photos and make them easier to see and take out the wrinkles and folds because of the age. I don't think it right to say your use of these new websites is ok and everyrone else is not right and disgusting because you draw a line.
How do you plant a garden during lunch hour? Ask AI.