I heard about C2PA and I don’t believe for a second that it’s not going to be used for surveillance and all that other fun stuff. What’s worse is that they’re apparently trying to make it legally required. It also really annoys me when I see headlines along the lines of “Is AI the end of creativity?!1!” or “AI will help artists, not hurt them!1!!” or something to that effect. So, it got me thinking and I tried to come up with some answers that actually benefit artists and their audience rather that just you know who.
Unfortunately my train of thought keeps barreling out of control to things like, “AI should do the boring stuff, not the fun stuff” and “if people didn’t risk starvation in the first place…” So I thought I’d find out what other people think (search engines have become borderline useless haven’t they).
So what do you think would be the best way to satisfy everyone?
There is no easy solution, hence companies trying to push extreme tactics like C2PA. I’m not even convinced at all about it, because people will definitely figure out how to fake image metadata. It’ll also take ages for it to become a standard, and it can’t be a worldwide standard when you know some people will reject it.
Realistically the best option is accepting that AI art is a thing and at the very least making sure it stays open source. It would be terrible if only large companies would have access to this tech. Meanwhile artists can make something like a timelapse video to prove their art is genuine. Some people are also guessing with the rise of “artificial” art, art IRL will be way more valuable like theaters, statues, paintings etc.
I don’t like to be a pessimist, but as a musician and writer, and seeing how the value of my work has steadily decreased years before AI became mainstream, I don’t see how “real” art will become more valuable. Maybe on an individual/personal level, but not in the industry as a whole. Especially once an untrained person can’t tell the difference between AI and “handmade” art.
I think the slew of flops at the box office is a sign that people are rejecting this. Putting aside what AI could do, right now everything that’s generated feels vapid in a sense, and I don’t think that’s entirely because it came from a machine. The creators were just that uninspired.
I’m personally happy that the film industry is struggling while works like Spiderverse and Helluva Boss and going against the status quo.
I mean, there’s a reason that Marvel/DC comics are nowhere near as popular as they used to be while manga gets several aisles at the bookstore.
It still hurts to see people around me lose motivation because of AI though.
AI art is like the knock off movie studios. It uses someone else’s ideas and rehashed it in the most generic way possible because that is what it is designed to do.
Considering the amount of processing power needed to make a decent AI model, I’m pretty sure it’s already solely controlled by large companies. Plus, if it becomes legally required then people can’t exactly reject it.
In my personal opinion, I don’t think AI art is inherently bad and I’d put it on the same level as that particular style of soulless corporate art. I’m confident that people who actually care about the quality of whatever it is they’re making will commission real artists. And the existence of AI art wouldn’t take away the enjoyment of creating something with your own hands. But I’m not a professional artist so I think my opinion is irrelevant anyway. If actual artists have a problem with it, then it needs to be addressed.
While I mostly agree with you in that there’s no way most people would be on board with C2PA, it’s an entirely different matter if it becomes legally required. I don’t know how likely it is but it doesn’t seem impossible.
(Also the impersonation argument feels contrived to me. Just get your info from the source 4Head)
Well, it just bothers me that I know many people who still think art and other creative pursuits should be relegated to hobby status and I should get a “real” job. And the fact that AI is doing things that humans are supposedly meant to do for fun just doesn’t sit right with me.
Well, yeah, but not exactly. The best image generation model is Stable Diffusion which is open source. There’s a huge open source community vastly improving image generation and creating amazing features for it that outpace companies. Stable Diffusion XL is almost done and also set to be open source. There’s also a big push for language models to be open source, but we’re not there yet.
I totally agree but sadly it’s where technology has lead us. It turns out making image/text/software generating AIs are so much easier than robots that automate the boring stuff. Physical robots aren’t there yet. I don’t think computer scientists intended to destroy art, but more just “this seems like a logical next step that AI can do”.
The big problem just lies in money. Millions of people will lose their jobs quicker than they think over AI advances, and it’ll be a slow transition until we can create an economic system that can sustain them. The “just get a real job” crowd are in for a rude awakening when they realize there will be no “real job” 10 years later.
But ah well, I’d encourage people to just enjoy the rollercoaster ride and see how it goes rather than shouting at computers.
At a certain point the AI could probably make a convincing time lapse. Just thinking out loud, it really is a tricky problem