<p>IrecentlypostedanarticleaboutthebenefitsofAItechnologythatIhadChatGPTwriteformeandcopy-pastedverbatim,downtothebrokennumberedlist.Ididn't even read it. It'sthemostconcise,elegantwayIcouldcomeupwithtoexpresshowseeingAIartmakesmefeel.(TheironyofmyhavingusedonlygenerativeAItoolstomakeastatementlikethatisnotlostonme.)</p>
<p>IfyoureaditandmanagedtomakeittotheendwithoutclockingthatIdidn't write it, first off my apologies for wasting your time. Second, fuck, I seriously need to fix my writing style. Third, you probably get what I mean. It feels like I'mbeingscammed,likesomeone'stryingtofarmmeforattentionwithoutactuallyhavingbotheredtomakesomethingworthmytime.</p>
<p>Tobeginwith,Ireallydon't like the term "AI", nor do I like the term "AI art". I frankly think neither word applies. I'llkeepusingtheformer,becauseit's a concise way to communicate what I'mtalkingabout,butIrefusetocalltheoutputofthesesystems"art".It'sAI-generatedimagesnow.</p>
<p>Thisishowallmodern"AI"systemswork,fromChatGPTtoMidjourneytoGithubCopilottoprobablytheYoutuberecommendationalgorithmatthispoint.Iwanttostressthatthisisn't intelligence, not in a human sense. These things aren'tminds.Thecurrentlypopularconceptof"AI"boilsdowntoappliedstatistics.That's not to say it'sinherentlybadorworthless-machinelearningisagenuinelyimpressivetechnologythatmightevenfindsomelegitimateusesonedayifwecanfindawaytokickMoore's Law back into gear. It'sjustnotintelligence.</p>
<p>I'll admit, I enjoyed it at first. I was entertained by Youtube videos where some guy with slightly more programming skill than me and a tortured, wheezing GTX 1070 throws together a <span title="GAN stands for "Generative Adversarial Network". It'satypeofmachinelearningmodel.ItwaspopularforimagegenerationamonghobbyistsbackwhenthisstuffwasonmyYoutubehomepage.It'snotreallyimportanthere,though.">GAN</span> model in Python and we get to watch it utterly fail to make human faces or compose jazz music or get a little simulated character to walk in a normal way or whatever. I laughed at those bizarre AI-generated screenplays that were presented like "Iforcedacomputertowatchallof[Seinfeld]" as though a text-generating model would even be able to parse that. You know the ones. I even enjoyed those videos where AI voice replicas of recent US presidents play Minecraft together.</p>
<p>Itstoppedbeingfunnywhenthesethingsgotgoodenoughtobeusedforevil.Eventuallypeoplegotboredofmachinelearningtomfoolery,andthenoverthecourseofacoupleyearsthesethingsquietlygot<em>good</em>.Notquitehuman-level,butgoodenoughtobemorecost-effectivethanhumansatshittingoutmass-producedslopandcapableofgeneratingfakesthatseemrealifyoudon't look too closely. Suddenly it wasn'ttech-savvyinternetcomedianspostingcomputer-generatedabsurdisthumor,insteaditwasdeepfakepornandgigabytesofcomputer-generatedmisinfocloggingsearchresultsandwholeorganizationsofpeoplepulledfromthinairusingthispersondoesnotexist.com(which,bytheway,isnowevenmorelifelikethanthelasttimeyoucheckedinonit).</p>
<p>Look,Iknowthisisn't guaranteed to stay true forever, but in my subjective opinion, everything AI-generated kind of looks like shit. AI images, especially those meant to look like human-made art, all have this incredibly pristine, generic vibe to them, when they'renotcompletelyfailingatsomeproportionordimensionorpropertyofeuclideanspaceorother.It'spalpablysoulless.</p>
<p>Evenworseiswebsitesthatdothis.You've probably heard of that one time Redditors <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/07/redditors-prank-ai-powered-news-mill-with-glorbo-in-world-of-warcraft/">tricked a bot-run news site</a> into publishing an article about the introduction of Glorbo into World of Warcraft and its impending impact on the game. That site is one of thousands, possibly more. It'savile,disgustingenterprise,massivesystemsdedicatedtopumpingoutendlessfiller,generatedbymachinesformachineswiththehopeoftrickingsomeinnocenthumansintoclickingonasearchresultandgeneratingsomeadrevenue.It'sthelatestandquitepossiblytheto-dategreateststepintheenshittificationofmajorsearchenginesandthedeathoftheinternetasausefulplatformforseekingoutinformation.</p>
<p>ThisisthevibeIgetwhenIsee<em>anything</em>madewithAInow.It's all low-to-no-effort slop, utter garbage that I'mfranklyoffendedthatIhavetosee,givenitclearlywasn'timportantenoughforanyonetobebotheredactuallymakingit.</p>
<p>It's like if you commissioned a piece from an artist. When you commission art from a human, you didn'tmaketheart.Theydid,atyourbehest,basedonyourinstructions,presumablyinexchangeformoney.WhenyouuseanAI,youdidn't make the art, the computer made the art based on your instructions. The thing is though, the computer didn'tmakearteither.Itcategoricallycan't. It'samindlessalgorithm,itdoesn't have thoughts or feelings or any kind of interior experience. Hence, no art was produced. AI art isn'tart.</p>
<p>Thenthere's the problems surrounding training data. All current major generative AI systems are trained using material that the companies building them did not get permission to use. You'veprobablyseenartistsandwriterscomplainingaboutthisonline.What's more, the overwhelming majority of the labeling that needs to get done to make the training data actually useful is done by people in impoverished areas making slave wages <em>at best</em>. Generative AI is an ethical nightmare if you're<em>lucky</em>.</p>
<p>Second,toughshit.NodisabilityentitlesyoutothelevelofabjecttheftandhumansufferingthatmakesAIimagegeneratorspossible.I'm generally all for anything that benefits accessibility, but in this case in particular I think you can just suck it up and deal. If you can do it ethically, using only images that you have the proper permissions for and data labeling done by either you or people who were adequately compensated for their labor to train the thing, fine. But a model or dataset like that does not, to my knowledge, currently exist, and I don'tbuyforasecondthatyou'recapableofdoingallthatworkyourselfbutnotofinterfacingwithMSPaint.</p>
<p>HopefullyyoucanatleastunderstandwhereI'm coming from now when I refuse to even entertain the idea that AI technology is a good thing for society. If not I don'tknowwhattosaytoyou.</p>