But people said the same thing about photography and painting 150 years ago!
This is entirely different from that. Landscaping had aesthetic value after photography because people were able to embellish and stylize landscapes in ways they didn’t actually exist in real life. There is no way to “escape” from AI into more stylization. All it takes is enough of those new stylized images and it’ll be able to replicate it. This is different from photography because photography can’t learn.
But people want human expression!
Yes, they do, but they’ll probably only realize this after a couple decades of art [almost] completely uninspired by the human condition and depression and anxiety skyrockets. In the short term, people will only care that they can type into a field and get what they want without any significant investment. Good luck finding an art job that isn’t just making prompts in that economy (And if you say that making prompts is the same as being a painter or illustrator, yes it is art but no it isn’t the same and fuck you).
I rest my case, art automation is cool but under capitalism it’ll only be used to devalue artists further, and drive them deeper into poverty. It would be a great tool in a society capable of regulating itself but WE DON’T LIVE IN THAT SOCIETY AND I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO POINT THAT OUT.
STOP LISTENING TO :melon-musk: :debatebro-l: AND SUPPORT YOUR ARTIST COMRADES NOW
Now that I got your attention with my inflammatory statements, please commission your artist comrades and support them in their struggle to exist in what is already a very punishing world to live in. I promise to give any of you that do big hugs, I love you all, and bye.
Some thoughts on AI art and AI/software in general:
The impact of AI on artists is not unique to them. The same goes for all skilled fields affected by AI/software, but again, the effect is not uniquely produced by software. Rather, all of these instances are a sequential step towards capitalism’s end point: complete proletarianization and reduction of all strata into a two-class system via the hyper-accumulation of capital.
The impact of technology on art is the same as the impact of the power loom on the weaver. Previously, you had artisans and a craft, with a single individual involved in all aspects of the production process and thus unalienated from their labor. Following capital development, you have laborers/technicians and a production process, with intense division of labor that grinds down workers into their unadulterated labor power. It’s easy to see how artists’ traditional interfacing with the art market (through direct sale, commission and patronage) lines up with the earlier, while studio systems for animators and SFX artists lines up with the later.
With that in mind, participating as a consumer in the art market will not reverse the trends of capital development. Neither would a socialist revolution to be frank. The Soviets did not smash the textile mills like as the Luddites thought to do, but sought to utilize capital development in a manner that benefited human development.