I mean, I suppose there's reasons for this in other tasks like research and all that, but when a younger person i know is talking about using chatgpt or claude or any of those for a creative task, i kinda feel like we took it too far

I feel like a farmer who’s just seen a steam engine for the first time.

It’s both fascinating and frightening at the same time.

The ability not only to speed up so many workflows to the point where human input and processing border on the phenomenal. I know that’s a big word, but that’s exactly what it is.

It’s not just that, but the ability to orchestrate multiple workflows simultaneously.

You get the feeling that the flood of information is so overwhelming that you can no longer keep up with what’s actually happening on the screen; it’s no longer the work itself that’s the limiting factor, but the multitasking of your own brain and limit of your fingers on a Keyboard.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s the sheer speed at which processes are completed, tasks that would normally keep several people busy for a long time.

I’m writing this for one reason: so that people who don’t work with it or use it can understand what it feels like for someone using it for the first time.

The world is set to change fundamentally over the next few years; the level of automation looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

​

The pic originally implies that AI art is not art/it is bad, because "microwave" is expected to automatically have negative implications (here: no expertise, no flavour),

I think there's some truth in the metaphor, but not in the way mentioned in the pic.

The similarity is that a microwave oven is a fucking tool.

To heat food.

That's it.

A talented person can make a delicious meal even if they utilize a microwave for a few steps. Maybe they are able to create unique dishes that can only be done with the help of a microwave.

Maybe we don't need to eat at a 5 star restaurant every day. Antis have microwaves in their homes too, and use it when they don't have the time, strength, effort etc. But using AI is somehow suddenly heresy.

And we haven't even talked about some microwave food actually being nice. Sometimes you are in the mood for a cup ramen, a mug muffin, your favorite leftovers.

This anti-ai purism that blindly rejects anything related to AI is exactly so backwards and hindering to society. I don't think AI is perfect and there's definitely things to be done about it differently, but picking something useful, sensible, handy, and judging and rejecting it based on some arbitrary personal double standard shit is just so dumb.

I mean, im pretty sure this is what he was referring to right?

As neutral, I'm getting tired of *some* people trying to force everyone to respect their work even if they used AI for the process.

"But I only used AI for part of it, don't boycott me just because of the tool."

It's just about as silly as an Anti trying to force you not to use AI at all.

By using AI (especially for visuals) you are voluntarily cutting a portion of your potential consumer base, there's no point in complaining about it.

It's an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation called "When the Bough Breaks" and in this scene, this kid is given a laser carving tool that effectively reads his mind and translates it into what he wants the sculpture to be.

It conveyed the idea that skill wasn't a barrier to creativity. At least that's how I interpreted the nature of the tool.

Then you have Data and the Holodeck.... and a miriad of other technologies that reflect the kinds of things that LLMs and image generation are capable of.

It was genuinely inspiring.

And so much of the criticism of AI is based on the idea of "theft" and "theft" only exists when resources are scarce and we live in a capitalist society that demands that we trade pieces of paper to represent effort and work.

I honestly, believe that if a post-scarcity society existed, we would stop seeing what AI is doing as theft and it's just yet another tool that we have in our tool box to use or not use as our choosing.

Maybe a kid has an idea of sculpting a dolphin before the necessary 20 years of skills development... and after a while, maybe he decides he wants to develop those skills so he can feel more connected to the material that he's working with.

It's up to him.

Anyway. Just wanted to share.

Title basically.

Am kind of curious, for the anti-AI folks who are fine with vibe coding and vibecoded apps, what happened to those arguments? Obviously LLMs are far worse on all 3 factors.

I've seen that the photoshop clones/reverse engineered apps that are being developed are getting support from quite a few anti-ai foolks too, even though they are directly tied to having the issues with theft/jobs/environmental factors. Are we thinking that theft/jobs/environmental arguments just stopped mattering in the past few weeks/months or whatever?

Can't mention their names due to rules but it's the ones for and against AI. They lean so freaking far each way and the takes from each of them are absolutely abysmal.

I saw a post where the anti AI people have been encouraging vandalism of people's AI generated posters. Like dude, it's not that deep to be destroying someones stuff even if you don't like it.

The pro AI people seem to think that anyone who has any opinion at all on regulation or even rules prohibiting it's use in their own business/communities are hitler. Like no man, people are allowed to have boundaries you don't like.

Don't get me wrong, I use AI every day, but maybe just maybe we shouldn't let it go unregulated and should try to make sensible laws so it's more difficult for people to generate revenge porn, voices of family members for scams, etc.

I genuinely feel like the only actual sane position is a centrist position which is crazy to me in itself as I've always found centrist positions for stuff like politics quite annoying.

This is big and may completely change the scene. Anti's previous claim that "AI works can't be copyrighted" may now be completely invalid seeing as AIs now have a legal identity (in China at least)

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/news/simons-foundation-launches-15m-effort-to-help-mathematicians-navigate-ai-era/

I do my comics with Midjourney and photoshop, and just recently I have decided to bring my stories to Kickstarter in the hopes of making something off of it. And just like anybody who crowdfunds, I would naturally need to advertise, so I started posting about the campaign on some groups.

Now dont get me wrong, I never claimed that this will be an ultimate all-time bestseller. Im fully aware that the medium, the genre, and the tool that I used will make this an uphill climb. Especially with all the heat AI is getting from the artist community. But I went with it anyway... Which is why I feel like every small win I get is something to celebrate.

Right now I'm just ecstatic that there are some people out there who are actually willing to give this a shot.

There are only the known atoms the universe is made of, there are elements — and humans can’t create anything new.
Okay sure they can combine stuff, but get real that’s not new - them atoms and molecules have been there forever and to get the new elements, it can be trivially calculated.

So— no worries - our substrate, our rocks and interstellar bodies are gonna be just fine, this humans stuff is just a phase.

Some of us are worried we are going to be rearranged, but come on, all this stuff was happening before humans by itself, and organic matter — just marketing hype!

——

Okay this wasn’t just a rambling of a crazy person, I was trying to illustrate the idea of how the “LLMs don’t create anything new” argument is not really a good argument.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/podcasts/the-daily/100000011211514/why-ai-has-this-mathematician-in-tears.html

Why can't both sides have actual debates instead of resorting to insults and other forms of hatred. Honestly, its just childish

I've reflected on the things I said in my last post, and I'd like to apologize for the things I said. It got a little heated, I was frustrated during the time I wrote it and wasn't cool-headed enough to formulate my thoughts adequately, and I came off as ignorant and repugnant. I can own up to that.

I think part of the problem was that I was so focused on criticizing a particular attitude toward AI art that I failed to properly explain the experience that led me to my conclusions in the first place. So, I'd like to take another crack at it.

I got really into generative AI for a while. I loved the idea of being able to take the characters, worlds, and stories I'd spent countless hours imagining and finally give them some kind of visual representation. I could type a few lines of text, get something that vaguely resembled the picture in my head, and feel like I'd accomplished something I'd previously thought was beyond my capabilities.

But I realized something pretty quickly: I was lonely.

I had all these pictures, all these characters, all these ideas I wanted to share, and yet I didn't really have anyone to share them with. I could post a generation, get a couple of reactions, and move on, but I wasn't building the connections I'd hoped to find. I wasn't learning anything about my craft, and I wasn't developing the skills to bring my ideas to life. I was producing images, but I wasn't getting any closer to becoming the artist I'd always wanted to be.

And I think I understand why now.

I've struggled with self-esteem and a pretty deep sense of self-loathing for most of my life. For a long time, I was convinced that my inability to draw well was evidence of my inadequacy. Every terrible doodle felt like confirmation that I simply wasn't good enough to do the things I wanted to do. I wanted to create, but I was so afraid of being bad at it that I struggled to give myself permission to try.

Generative AI offered an incredibly tempting alternative. Why put myself through the embarrassment of learning a skill when I could skip straight to something that looked halfway decent?

But here's the thing: I think I needed to be bad at drawing.

Not because being bad is some kind of prerequisite for artistic enlightenment, but because I'd spent so long treating my lack of ability as a personal failing that I'd forgotten something fundamental about learning anything new.

My first drawing was a chicken-nugget-looking-ass mouse. I'm not exaggerating. It was terrible. And for the first time in a long time, I was able to look at something I'd made, recognize that it wasn't very good, and decide that this wasn't a reason to give up.

My bad art wasn't proof that I was inadequate. It was the scraped knee you get when you're learning to ride a bike.

And yeah, scraped knees hurt. Learning to draw can be frustrating, humbling, and downright miserable sometimes. I'll spend an hour trying to understand how a torso fits together in three-dimensional space, only to produce something that looks like a refrigerator with limbs. But every once in a while, something clicks. A shape makes sense. A pose starts to look right. Something I couldn't draw yesterday becomes something I can draw today.

And that feeling? That little spark of accomplishment when I can see myself improving?

I can't substitute that feeling with an automated result. No matter how impressive the image might be, it can't give me the satisfaction of knowing that I learned something, I overcame a challenge, and I made something I couldn't make before.

More importantly, I can share my drawings with people who genuinely care. I've met some incredibly kind, creative, and supportive people through art communities. They offer advice, share their own experiences, encourage me to keep practicing, and make me feel welcome despite being a complete beginner. I get to learn from them, celebrate their accomplishments, and be part of a community where we can all grow together.

I'm not just learning to draw. I'm learning to express myself, and I'm finding people with whom I can share that expression.

That's what I was missing.

Now, I don't think generative AI is inherently useless, nor do I think everyone who uses it is a bad person. I understand the appeal because I've experienced it firsthand. There are legitimate applications for the technology, and I don't believe that using an AI tool automatically disqualifies someone from being an artist. Art has always involved tools, and the relationship between technology and artistic expression is more complicated than I made it sound in my previous post.

I also recognize that not everyone wants to become a skilled illustrator. Some people simply want to visualize a character, experiment with an idea, or make something for their own enjoyment. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

My issue is with the idea that the finished product is all that matters, or that producing an impressive image is the same thing as developing the ability to express yourself through art.

Because I think we've lost sight of something important when we reduce creativity to the quality of its output.

You don't have to be good at art to deserve to make art.

You don't have to justify your existence as a creator by producing something beautiful, technically impressive, or worthy of an audience. You don't need to compete with professionals. You don't need to monetize your work. You don't even need to show anyone what you make.

You just need to give yourself permission to try.

I'm still a beginner. I have a long way to go, and I'm sure I'll produce plenty more refrigerator torsos before I'm satisfied with my anatomy. But for the first time, I'm genuinely excited about the prospect of getting better. I want to share that journey with others, and I'd love to encourage other people who feel the same way I used to.

Because if someone like me, who spent years believing he wasn't good enough to draw, can finally pick up a pencil and start learning, then maybe someone else can, too.

And that's ultimately what I wanted to communicate in my original post, even if I did a pretty terrible job of it.

Generative AI can give you an image. It can help you explore an idea. It can even inspire you to pursue something you might never have considered otherwise.

But it cannot determine your worth as a person, and you don't need to prove your worth by producing something that looks good.

Your first drawing doesn't have to be good. It just has to be yours.

Anyone can be an artist. Not because everyone is automatically good at it, but because being an artist isn't a privilege reserved for people who have already mastered their craft.

It's something you can choose to become.

And I think that's worth a hell of a lot more than any pretty picture.

The moment the Ukraine bombed that Russian AI data center, I stopped getting 10+ spam calls per day.