Brin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brin_bellway) wrote2022-08-18 01:35 pm
brin_bellway) wrote2022-08-18 01:35 pm
(no subject)
[cw: discourse, (arguably) apocalypse]
[part 1; part 2; Wayback part 1; Wayback part 2] (by Alexander Wales)
I don't have the guts to say this to his face, but I think he's full of shit.
It's like...he never actually seems to consider the readers' perspective. Here, most notably:
>>I think that in modern times, this is already a huge problem, and AI art is going to make it so much worse. I walk into a library or a bookstore sometimes and see how many of these things are on display, and I feel that same feeling, that there’s so much content you could drown in it all. It makes that howling feeling more intense, as my own contributions to the culture are rendered insignificant.
There's a flipside to that drowning: he *claims* AI art is going to make it so much worse, but from the readers' perspective *the book market is already at full saturation, and so it cannot become meaningfully more so*. We've all heard the jokes about Infinite TBR Lists, right? Why bother having an AI write you something--once the novelty's worn off, anyway--when it's just going to make your TBR list infinity+1?
To deal with the overwhelming possibility-space of books they *could* read, readers in my experience resort to *recommendations*: the social aspect of reading has become more important than ever. Reading a book knowing that nobody else is ever going to read it is *less* lonely than writing something knowing that nobody else is ever going to read it, but it's still lonely: the relationship isn't just between writers and readers, it's between readers and other readers. Please, dude, think for five seconds about the number of times you've read or watched or occasionally listened to something *primarily* because its associated community looked fun, because you wanted to participate in conversations about it with your friends. Or are you telling me your answer is zero?
I was willing to believe him that the visual-art market will look insane after this, because the visual-art market *already* looks completely insane to me: I know I don't understand how [people who think it's possible for visual art to be worth $100] think, so I'll defer to others on predicting how such people will react to AI art being available for pennies.
(although I have to say, a post about technology disrupting the market for paintings that *never talks about the invention of photography* feels...off)
But, as a reader, this doesn't feel true to me at all. I could see myself using this for pornography, but even then only because I have very narrow tastes. For everything else, I have plenty enough to read already, and people to share it with. Why pay more for less?
[part 1; part 2; Wayback part 1; Wayback part 2] (by Alexander Wales)
I don't have the guts to say this to his face, but I think he's full of shit.
It's like...he never actually seems to consider the readers' perspective. Here, most notably:
>>I think that in modern times, this is already a huge problem, and AI art is going to make it so much worse. I walk into a library or a bookstore sometimes and see how many of these things are on display, and I feel that same feeling, that there’s so much content you could drown in it all. It makes that howling feeling more intense, as my own contributions to the culture are rendered insignificant.
There's a flipside to that drowning: he *claims* AI art is going to make it so much worse, but from the readers' perspective *the book market is already at full saturation, and so it cannot become meaningfully more so*. We've all heard the jokes about Infinite TBR Lists, right? Why bother having an AI write you something--once the novelty's worn off, anyway--when it's just going to make your TBR list infinity+1?
To deal with the overwhelming possibility-space of books they *could* read, readers in my experience resort to *recommendations*: the social aspect of reading has become more important than ever. Reading a book knowing that nobody else is ever going to read it is *less* lonely than writing something knowing that nobody else is ever going to read it, but it's still lonely: the relationship isn't just between writers and readers, it's between readers and other readers. Please, dude, think for five seconds about the number of times you've read or watched or occasionally listened to something *primarily* because its associated community looked fun, because you wanted to participate in conversations about it with your friends. Or are you telling me your answer is zero?
I was willing to believe him that the visual-art market will look insane after this, because the visual-art market *already* looks completely insane to me: I know I don't understand how [people who think it's possible for visual art to be worth $100] think, so I'll defer to others on predicting how such people will react to AI art being available for pennies.
(although I have to say, a post about technology disrupting the market for paintings that *never talks about the invention of photography* feels...off)
But, as a reader, this doesn't feel true to me at all. I could see myself using this for pornography, but even then only because I have very narrow tastes. For everything else, I have plenty enough to read already, and people to share it with. Why pay more for less?
no subject
I think it matters just how big a leap the bowls are over what was available before, though. All of a sudden, society goes from crappy implied-to-be-around-2010s-tech-level AI artists to having AI artists that know individual authors better than those authors know themselves. A big part of the problem of bowl art is that you can ask a bowl for a particular author's *future* output *and get the correct answer*. I don't get the impression that that's a near-term problem we're facing: it seems like the software currently coming down the pipeline won't even give *consistent* answers to that question, let alone correct ones. (Where would it even get the data for that accurate of a simulation?)
(I do find it odd that the characters seem to take for granted that bowl simulations aren't sapient, instead of being uncertain and being deeply concerned by that uncertainty.)
((*looks through that page I pulled off a search engine as an example of the concept (because I'm not sure exactly which page about it I read)*
"Literally nobody outside of MIRI or FHI ever talks about this problem."
Yeah, okay, maybe that's why the characters didn't think of it.))
no subject
Also, uh, personally: How do people manage to have tastes which the bowls can't satisfy better (esp since they apparently considered and rejected being deliberately contrarian just to prove their human worth)? I'm sure the bowls can do shitty soup (as someone who has occasionally eaten string and bits of orange plastic in real life, you can do better) better than that dude and if you want socialisation they can do the phone number of your soulmate and three books you'll want to spend the next week reading and then the next week discussing with them (drools at own fantasy :P). If your desires no longer align with the output of the desire-fulfilling machine, it will start outputting something else.