I find it crazy that Black Ops, a series that’d surely sell gangbusters with minimal marketing thanks to word of mouth, gets a marketing budget bigger than the GDP of a small country. Yet a new IP that noone has heard of yet gets a far smaller budget. It seems completely back to front, to me.

I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that fan art cannot, by it’s very nature, by classed as original and therefore shouldn’t be able to be sold?

I have yet to meet any artist with this kind of deep anti-AI sentiment

Unfortunately this isn’t the case. Just look at the anti AI discourse from people like Steven Zapata or Karla Ortiz, or the discussion on platforms like Mother’s Basement or Art Cafe. There are plenty of artists who absolutely believe that AI art is worthless, without merit and is coming to destroy ‘real artists’.

I think that’s an overly simplistic description of how LLMs work, but I take your point. My response would be: how is a LLM trained on other artists work any different to a human artist taking inspiration from other human artists? Is an artist who creates fan art of Batman also derivative? In your argument it’s a clear breach of copyright, so should we be going after anyone who has ever drawn a picture of Batman as having broken the law?

You forgot to mention ‘AI slop’…

Well said. These anti AI arguments tend to be a prime example of protectionism. ‘Technology is great until it comes for my area of expertise, in which case my area of expertise must be protected at all costs because my work has greater value’.

The argument being made is: "AI is currently slop but there is a reasonable expectation that it will be pushed until it is indistinguishable from human work, and therefore devaluing of human work.

Again, if the work is ‘indistinguishable’ then I don’t see how AI art ‘devalues’ human work any more than the work done by another human. This just sounds like old fashioned competition, which has existed as long as art itself has.

I don’t like AI because it’s just another way that “corporate gonna corporate” and it never ends up working out for the mere mortals’ benefit

Corporations abusing technology to the disbenefit of people is nothing new, unfortunately, and isn’t unique to AI (see Email, computers, clocking in machines, monitoring software etc). That speaks to a need for better corporate oversight and better worker rights.

misinformation is already so prevalent and it’s going to continue to get worse (we have seen this already–trump abuses it continually).

This is a good point, but again AI is hardly the first time technology has been used to spread lies and misinformation. This highlights a fundamental problem with our media and a need to teach better critical thinking in schools etc.

They’re all valid concerns but in my opinion they suggest AI is being used as an enabler, and not that the problems in question are the sole product of it. Sadly if we stopped using anything and everything that was misused for nefarious means we’d go back to the stone age.

My job here is done! Away!

AI is generally bad because it tends to steal content from human creators…

Again, this is an argument that I see a lot, that’s simply not true. AI is not stealing anything. Theft is a specific legal term. If I steal your TV, I have your TV and you don’t. If AI is trained on some content that content still exists. Whatever training takes place steals nothing.

…because corporations want another excuse to throw more workers on the street in favor of machines…

Your point is a valid one, but this not unique to AI and is the inevitable result of the onward march of technology. The very thing we’re using to communicate right now, the Internet, is responsible for billions of job losses. That’s not a valid reason to get rid of it. Instead of blaming AI for putting people out work, we should be pressuring governments to implement things like UBI to provide people with a basic living wage. That way people need not fear the impact the advance of technology will have on their ability to feed and house themselves.

There are some AI uses that are good though, such as AI voice generation to help those that can’t speak to communicate with the world and not sound like a robot.

These are great examples.

Sure, but there’s never a qualifier in these arguments. It’s just ‘hur dur AI bad’ which is lazy and disingenuous.

Given how harder it’s becoming to tell apart AI slop from something made by a human…

If AI is that good, it’s not ‘slop’, is it? I see this argument all the time. Apparently AI is both awful slop, devoid of merit and also indistinguishable from human made content and a threat to us all. Pick a side.

All of which should be done by human beings. Period.

Currently, maybe. But technology is fantastic at accuracy, better than humans in many regards. Gemini might have a way to go before it gets there, but it or its successors will get there and it’s moving fast.

Productivity is irrelevant here

I’m not sure it is. Productivity also refers to efficiency of services. If AI can make the services of the National Archives more productive for its staff and/or the public then surely that’s a good thing?

🎵 Tesla Optimus! Humans in disguise! 🎵

Maybe they should turn that mirror on themselves. Take a long look at the ‘non decent humans’ within their own ranks:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/4/23901575/ubisoft-executives-arrest-sexual-harassment-investigation

Second recommendation for Affinity Photo as a Photoshop replacement. 👍

Stopping tax evasion by implementing a global tax cooperative so nations can stop competing in a downward race on tax rates

You may or may not be aware that the OECD has already begun implementing something like that:

https://www.bdo.global/en-gb/insights/tax/international-tax/pillar-two-updates-status-of-implementation-around-the-world

Oh for sure. How we regulate AI (including how we power it) is really important, definitely.

Typical lack of nuance on the Internet, sadly. Everything has to be Bad or Good. Black or White. AI is either The best thing ever™ or The worst thing ever™. No room for anything in between. Considering negative news generates more clicks, you can see why the media tend to take the latter approach.

I also think much of the hate is just people jumping on the AI = bad band-wagon. Does it have issues? Absolutely. Is it perfect? Far from it. But the constant negativity has gotten tired. There’s a lot of fascinating discussion to be had around AI, especially in the art world, but God forbid you suggest it’s anything but responsible for the total collapse of civilisation as we know it…

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I mean they could start by actually addressing the toxic work culture and dealing with that hateful cunt Yves Guillemot:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ubisoft-has-reportedly-made-minimal-changes-following-abuse-allegations