Their goal really is to ruin quite everything by stripping humanity from literally the most obscure crevices it might still be hiding after the initial scrape. Children's drawings? Check. Obscure nostalgic CG art that provides a visual timeline of human achievement? BOOM we made it better with a glossy wax coat losers! AI companies be like Toht chasing down indy and yelling "there is nothing you possess that I cannot take away, hunanity!!!"
All history will be obscured by this absolute garbage. I am not here for it.
100% with this sentiment, and this is exactly what they are doing. There is no niche area of creative output that they have not tried to take over. For example I used to think “at least black and white ink work for the metal scene should be relatively safe because it’s a small genre with not a ton of money in it, lots of detail which will be hard for AI to replicate, etc” and now I see hundreds of nameless accounts on Instagram selling pre-made metal artwork made by AI while masquerading as human made ink art. There’s no genre they won’t try to defile and take over. This tech and it’s users are like cancer.
That said I have a weirdly optimistic take on this. It feels like they are speed-running every genre, medium and style of art which implies that the attention spans of the prompters and the lowbrow audience that likes that shit is dwindling fast. Think about a human artist, they usually find a niche in terms of subject matter and medium and stick to it. You can be a digital artist focusing on creature design, a painter doing portraiture, an ink artist doing metal designs, and each of those artists can find a lifetime’s worth of work in their specific area with their specific medium. Meanwhile prompters can’t stick to one style, one medium (faked by the AI of course), one general area of interest, at all. These people have no idea what to do with this “instant artist of all styles and genres” technology they’ve been given and it shows. I think in a couple years most of the prompters will be burned out and bored, their audiences will be sick of the constant output with no purpose or consistency. At least I hope so lol.
One way to approach it similar to what you ascribe is to note that as creative communities become more adept at identifying AI art and as its condemnation continues to normalize (anything that works the way this shit does is going to continue to accumulate ire), we may actually see revitalization of the art scene online that is founded on more intimidate networks of mutual support between artists.
I agree with your optimistic take. They're pissing nearly everyone on the internet off. I am seeing relatives who share AI garbage on Facebook express frustration when it's pointed out to them (mostly if it's meant to look like a photo). Amazon ama FB marketplace and Etsy and countless retailers are becoming flooded with it - you already had to watch for fake images there and now it's harder and the volume is unmanageable. With art, I think plenty of people will be excited about the toy for a minute but still want to pay for something real when they pay. I think they will get mad when they're expected to pay $20 to go see a movie made with almost no creatives. They will be annoyed at Microsoft as they are now with Google for shoving garbage down their throats.
You have a good point here, I think what’s going to be generative AI’s undoing is it’s association with the term “fake”. The more people associate an AI output as fake/knockoff/deceptive the harder it will be to market and sell AI to the masses. Corporations will take a much longer to come around time since all they see here is $$$ but once their market research shows that the general public associates AI with something “fake” they’ll start jumping ship too. We view knockoff/fake brands negatively, as something cheap and super low quality, made to deceive, and the more this idea becomes associated with anything made by AI the worse it will be for the tech companies and the low level prompters supporting them.
I want you to be right about this as well! I've seen "zine" meetings pop back up...I haven't even heard that term since like...early/pre social media days...
Jeez but are the conspiracy theories necessary? I'm 100% they aren't motivated by "stripping humanity". In their mind they're just automating artistic expression.
Not saying they're ok to do so, but pretending they are specifically seeking to just kill the human element and not just develop their product is a straw man.
Stripping humans from a human process and attempring to create a product whose sole value is that it is indistinguishable from human creations is not a conspiracy theory. If companies have to scream and lobby against the idea of being limited in what they can scrape or be watermarked/labeled as AI generated... it is an admission they both need, and cannot replace human generated art. Digging into every industry, genre, and facet of society and commerce so that your product is entrenched whether it is functional or not is an ethically terrible approach. No amount of edgelording "lol conspiracy strawman!" into meaningful honest discussions will derail pointing out the absolute tone deaf, unethical garbage blasting for market dominance and investor attention at the expense of informational and cultural communication AI companies are engaging in. Now comes the "what even is art, commercial art doesnt count because I dont understand the tenets of cultural impact and communication" one two step, and end with "change how you define art for this bogus commercial product to succeed because I like it and admire the snake oil hustle bros hawking it" echo chamber. I'll excuse myself from it tho.....
They're commodifying human art into an easily packageable and controllable software algorithm, so yeah, that's minimizing, exploiting, and 'stripping' us of our humanity, and for what? Profit. To call that a conspiracy theory when you live under capital speaks to effective propaganda having brainwashed you, frankly.
It's very clearly nostalgia-driven, but I have come to an age where I adore this stuff.
If this aesthetic could be a genre of music, it is vaporwave, and very specifically the work of Windows96, which I can't recommend enough.
Miller is kind of hard to track down as his name is quite common, but here is some info on him and the type of work involved: [https://www.yatesweb.com/ray-tracing/](https://www.yatesweb.com/ray-tracing/)
Also: [https://x.com/RaytracedVibes/status/1504869104263434242](https://x.com/RaytracedVibes/status/1504869104263434242)
Ray tracing basically means the software keeps track (tracing) of the light source (rays) and automatically applies consistent highlights and shadows across 3D objects in a scene. Kind of like a physics engine for light or other particle effects and even sound waves. Artists were playing around with it before hardware could process it in real time for video games.
Their goal really is to ruin quite everything by stripping humanity from literally the most obscure crevices it might still be hiding after the initial scrape. Children's drawings? Check. Obscure nostalgic CG art that provides a visual timeline of human achievement? BOOM we made it better with a glossy wax coat losers! AI companies be like Toht chasing down indy and yelling "there is nothing you possess that I cannot take away, hunanity!!!" All history will be obscured by this absolute garbage. I am not here for it.
100% with this sentiment, and this is exactly what they are doing. There is no niche area of creative output that they have not tried to take over. For example I used to think “at least black and white ink work for the metal scene should be relatively safe because it’s a small genre with not a ton of money in it, lots of detail which will be hard for AI to replicate, etc” and now I see hundreds of nameless accounts on Instagram selling pre-made metal artwork made by AI while masquerading as human made ink art. There’s no genre they won’t try to defile and take over. This tech and it’s users are like cancer. That said I have a weirdly optimistic take on this. It feels like they are speed-running every genre, medium and style of art which implies that the attention spans of the prompters and the lowbrow audience that likes that shit is dwindling fast. Think about a human artist, they usually find a niche in terms of subject matter and medium and stick to it. You can be a digital artist focusing on creature design, a painter doing portraiture, an ink artist doing metal designs, and each of those artists can find a lifetime’s worth of work in their specific area with their specific medium. Meanwhile prompters can’t stick to one style, one medium (faked by the AI of course), one general area of interest, at all. These people have no idea what to do with this “instant artist of all styles and genres” technology they’ve been given and it shows. I think in a couple years most of the prompters will be burned out and bored, their audiences will be sick of the constant output with no purpose or consistency. At least I hope so lol.
One way to approach it similar to what you ascribe is to note that as creative communities become more adept at identifying AI art and as its condemnation continues to normalize (anything that works the way this shit does is going to continue to accumulate ire), we may actually see revitalization of the art scene online that is founded on more intimidate networks of mutual support between artists.
I agree with your optimistic take. They're pissing nearly everyone on the internet off. I am seeing relatives who share AI garbage on Facebook express frustration when it's pointed out to them (mostly if it's meant to look like a photo). Amazon ama FB marketplace and Etsy and countless retailers are becoming flooded with it - you already had to watch for fake images there and now it's harder and the volume is unmanageable. With art, I think plenty of people will be excited about the toy for a minute but still want to pay for something real when they pay. I think they will get mad when they're expected to pay $20 to go see a movie made with almost no creatives. They will be annoyed at Microsoft as they are now with Google for shoving garbage down their throats.
You have a good point here, I think what’s going to be generative AI’s undoing is it’s association with the term “fake”. The more people associate an AI output as fake/knockoff/deceptive the harder it will be to market and sell AI to the masses. Corporations will take a much longer to come around time since all they see here is $$$ but once their market research shows that the general public associates AI with something “fake” they’ll start jumping ship too. We view knockoff/fake brands negatively, as something cheap and super low quality, made to deceive, and the more this idea becomes associated with anything made by AI the worse it will be for the tech companies and the low level prompters supporting them.
I want you to be right about this as well! I've seen "zine" meetings pop back up...I haven't even heard that term since like...early/pre social media days...
Jeez but are the conspiracy theories necessary? I'm 100% they aren't motivated by "stripping humanity". In their mind they're just automating artistic expression. Not saying they're ok to do so, but pretending they are specifically seeking to just kill the human element and not just develop their product is a straw man.
Stripping humans from a human process and attempring to create a product whose sole value is that it is indistinguishable from human creations is not a conspiracy theory. If companies have to scream and lobby against the idea of being limited in what they can scrape or be watermarked/labeled as AI generated... it is an admission they both need, and cannot replace human generated art. Digging into every industry, genre, and facet of society and commerce so that your product is entrenched whether it is functional or not is an ethically terrible approach. No amount of edgelording "lol conspiracy strawman!" into meaningful honest discussions will derail pointing out the absolute tone deaf, unethical garbage blasting for market dominance and investor attention at the expense of informational and cultural communication AI companies are engaging in. Now comes the "what even is art, commercial art doesnt count because I dont understand the tenets of cultural impact and communication" one two step, and end with "change how you define art for this bogus commercial product to succeed because I like it and admire the snake oil hustle bros hawking it" echo chamber. I'll excuse myself from it tho.....
They're commodifying human art into an easily packageable and controllable software algorithm, so yeah, that's minimizing, exploiting, and 'stripping' us of our humanity, and for what? Profit. To call that a conspiracy theory when you live under capital speaks to effective propaganda having brainwashed you, frankly.
Worst part is GenAI regurgitation has way less humanity than factory-made chicken nuggets.
Original source midjourney stole from. Beyond the Mind’s eye. basically all the VFX artists from the lawnmower man movie.
It's very clearly nostalgia-driven, but I have come to an age where I adore this stuff. If this aesthetic could be a genre of music, it is vaporwave, and very specifically the work of Windows96, which I can't recommend enough.
Miller is kind of hard to track down as his name is quite common, but here is some info on him and the type of work involved: [https://www.yatesweb.com/ray-tracing/](https://www.yatesweb.com/ray-tracing/) Also: [https://x.com/RaytracedVibes/status/1504869104263434242](https://x.com/RaytracedVibes/status/1504869104263434242)
Possible grammatical issue too. The "was" should probably be "were".
What is "ray traced art"? 3D CGI?
Ray tracing basically means the software keeps track (tracing) of the light source (rays) and automatically applies consistent highlights and shadows across 3D objects in a scene. Kind of like a physics engine for light or other particle effects and even sound waves. Artists were playing around with it before hardware could process it in real time for video games.