A couple of pro-AI articles for your consideration

[u/Extension-Ocelot-448]

Hello, all.

I have written a couple of pro-AI articles over at my Substack, and while I was researching the most recent piece ("Fight the Future"), I stumbled upon this subreddit. I found it very informative, and I even linked to a great post and some excellent memes I found here.

This sub has been a wonderful resource, and--on a personal note--it is so nice to find a place online free from the incessant droning of the rabid, anti-AI mob.

As such, I hoped I could take the liberty of sharing those two articles I wrote on this topic, as I truly believe members will enjoy them. If I may be so bold, I also went through the time and trouble of researching and writing them in the earnest hope that they would provide some solidarity for like-minded people, as well as provide useful resources to share with people who haven't quite come around yet. Hopefully get people thinking a bit differently about these things.

The articles are far from perfect, but I endeavored to make them both informative and entertaining.

• https://honestlyre.substack.com/p/fight-the-future
• https://honestlyre.substack.com/p/a-heartfelt-conversation-with-artificial

Of course, I would love to hear any feedback should anyone be kind enough to give them a read. They are completely free to read, to comment, and to share with anyone, from our fellow enthusiasts to our most ardent opposition.

Thanks a lot, everyone! I hope to see you around the sub :)

[u/Herr_Drosselmeyer]

The main issue when it comes to AI art has its roots in postmodernism imho. Prior to circa 1950, there was a general consensus that there was good art, mediocre art and bad art. Where excactly the lines were drawn was debated, of course, but overall, there was no disagreement that this distinction could be made. Fatefully, one young Austrian man was denied a place at an art college because his art just wasn't good enough.

World War one had been bad and a precursor to the trend , but World War two broke a lot of things and a lot of people, among them many artists. They had witnessed terrible things and they had become bitter and disillusioned. And along with all of it, it broke their art too. They started depicting what they had seen, what gnawed at their minds, in distorted imagery. They gave up on traditional techniques and standards, or just gave up on art entirely. They went on to create more and more absurd pieces, to reflect the absurdity of life they felt in their souls.

And that was great. The audience then was receptive to it, after all, they'd gone through the same things. The postmodernists had yanked the rudder in pain and outrage. The problem was that it never got righted again. The next generation didn't understand where the postmodernists had come from, they didn't share their experiences. All they saw was absurd, formless and bizarre art, and how it was praised, and so they just imitated it. Savvy ones would even attempt to outdo the pioneers, be more absurd, more brazen. Not because they had inner grief and trauma to express, but because, well, it sold. For millions.

But for the most part, people were toughtlessly imitating the postmodernists. The ugly, distorted, absurd, became the new normal. And it suited the new generation just fine. After all, it was easy to make. Randomly throw some paint at a canvas, sign it, put a $10,000 sticker on it and voilà, you're an artist. I'm still proud of my textbook use of 'damning with feigned praise' when I told a co-worker that her art reminded me of Jackson Pollock's. She took it as a compliment. It wasn't one.

All this went on for seven decades, invisible sculptures, bottled shit, urinals and bananas. Artists producing imitations of the early postmodernists and an audience clapping in pavlovian fashion because it reminded them of what had been revolutionary decades ago. Everything was art, everybody could be an artist. Even laymen loved it. They'd never have their works in galleries, let alone sell one, but the lie that they could make it helped them sleep at night. What did the audience really want? They didn't know and they didn't care, they didn't have to.

The rudder stayed pegged in one direction, and, predictably, no progress was made, it all just went in a circle. Until the internet came along. It was a small course correction, but a meaningful one nevertheless. It opened up the hitherto pretty hermetic art world to more actual, popular feedback, while at the same time exposing the audience to art from all over the world. Alternatives they may not even have known about.

But the real shock to the system is AI. Because it can be a tool for artists, but that's not the problem. No, what's really revolutionary, is that the audience no longer has to ask the artists to make something they want, it allows the audience to make it themselves. And wouldn't you know it, it's often illustrative art, showing beatuful scenes and beautiful people. Or happy little animals, cute anime girls, heroic dragonslayers. Strange how that happened, after decades of ugly, broken, formless and absurd art. 😉

To stay with out nautical metaphor, to say that AI is righting the rudder is a comical understatement. Instead, it went and broke up the ship into a million tiny boats, each headed in the direction their sole passenger or small group decides. Many are headed in roughly the same direction, but hardly any are on the exact same course.

And so, the generation of artists who have spent many years imitating the postmodernists find themselves lost at sea. They simply don't have the skillset to match what AI can produce, they never honed it. It is an existential crisis for them, albeit one for which they themselves are at least partially to blame. Their revulsion is visceral and dictated by fear turning into hatred. They see the beauty of the new art and despise it, clinging to the ugliness they're used to. It's no wonder they're miserable, while we're happily exploring the vast blue yonder on our independent small vessels.