A: Have you ever used Linux?

B: I'd like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux is, in fact...

A: jfc

On Art and AI

I recently came across an image on this platform with a rather bold accusation that "hiding prompts is a despicable act," in Soviet agitprop style, no less. To be fair, I have no idea if they actually mean it, or if it's just some kind of joke, but that bothered me, as a claim of ownership or entitlement, propping up ideological failures, or whatnot, and I've been thinking on the topic for a while... if you'll humor me, I would like to share some of my thoughts on the subject.

Generation as Art

I'm not particularly interested in answering a question as wide and overarching as "what is art?", especially as I believe that there's no unique and universal correct answer. What I would like to do, however, is contrast a world which accepts things such as duct-taping a banana to a wall as "modern art," while denouncing AI image generation as "not art."

I can't claim that AI generation is the same as traditional art; that simply doesn't make sense. Perhaps the one aspect they have in common is requiring some measure of creativity for them not to be trivial. But similarly, I can't claim that photography is the same as traditional art, though I do recognize its value. Any relative ranking of the different kinds of art ultimately boils down to the more general "what is art?" question that I'm really not willing to meaningfully tackle.

Art and effort

There's an underlying notion in some people's claims that effort is the defining trait of art. That claim does not hold to scrutiny, however, because the value of art itself is highly subjective. One can find an overcooked meme to have value while still recognizing that very little effort was poured into it. Duct-taping a banana to a wall requires little effort. Beautiful natural landscapes, and in fact anything from nature, never required any human effort, aside from the effort of somehow capturing such sights. The effort itself doesn't inherently impart any value to art or anything else.

Moral claims

One more underlying claim attached to AI is that it is built on stolen property. Granted, that's really not a good thing, if that's the case. Even though there's some evidence that this is, in fact, the case, to make a logical argument that this means you must share everything that is made with AI is just a non sequitur; if there is such a connection I certainly haven't been shown a consistent argument that coherently pulls it off. What I find especially hard to reconcile is how folks of a marxist persuasion, who don't even uphold the values of private or intellectual property, could ever hope to persuade others that they have to share something immaterial, not scarce, and utterly unessential such as a prompt. It's just a parade of absurdities. If the moral claim that something made from stolen goods really was upheld in any meaningful way, one would probably need to swear off of AI altogether; I can't deny that there are potential issues, but quite often that appears to be more like "rules for thee, but not for me," rather than an earnest concern.

"Art belongs to the people!"

You see, "the people" is an abstract collective. It doesn't really exist. The assertion that anything "belongs to the people" is essentially meaningless, an example of reification, where one treats an abstract concept as if it were concrete. Consider what "belonging" means, as in ownership. Ownership is obviously also an abstract concept, and typically entails the physical possession of an object, or otherwise entails rights and duties associated with the possessed object, sometimes with a sense of stewardship being the responsibility of the owner. The notion that art belongs to the people quickly becomes the reality that it belongs to no one, or maybe that "too many cooks spoil the broth." Once again, the marxist persuasion probably believes in some level that all art should be curated by the state, a notion I vehemently denounce as being utterly preposterous.

Open Source

Probably one of humanity's greatest creations, open source has changed how we think and act in the world. Permissive as some licenses are, one must point this out: software projects have owners, stewards, and maintainers, and do not, in fact, "belong to the people." Software is voluntarily made to be open source. No one is entitled to open source software (other than what the license grants as a right, of course.) No one is entitled to anyone else's work. No one is entitled to anyone else's possessions.

Personal Preference

You're perfectly entitled not to like images that don't include prompts, or not to follow creators that don't include their prompts in their images. Just don't pretend that it's some kind of moral duty for people to share their prompts.

Plagiarism, Research, Inspiration

Steal from one person, and it's plagiarism. Steal from many, and it's research.

Maybe you've heard of a curious phenomenon in which a musician "invents" a tune only to find out that it is very similar to one that was already recorded. Lengthy judicial battles often ensue. The line between being inspired by something and outright copying is often not very sharp. When it comes to AI, some people claim that training AI to perform a task doesn't violate any rights because it could be seen as analogous to a human being inspired by something and making their own work. I think it's a weak claim, as it doesn't account for the fact that AI can easily and massively reproduce work.

If we denounce anything that remotely resembles something else, however, we'll quickly grind to a halt; it's impossible to create something that is utterly and completely, 100% new. Some might cynically say that "in this life nothing is ever created, only copied"; a sentiment I don't really wholeheartedly agree with, though I can kind of see the underlying idea.

"Vertical Integration"

"You didn't make the model!" some claim. They're right, of course. But what's the point? The value of art is subjective, as I would hope I already established. Do you care if the painter made their own easels, brushes, paints, or canvases? Sure, one might see that as more impressive, and I would largely agree. Would you expect a photographer to make their own cameras or film, for their work to have value? I know I wouldn't.

Sampling

One of the modern phenomena that relates to this discussion about AI is music sampling. Just recording someone else's music and taking credit for it is obviously not very good, but not seeing any value at all in the act of taking something and transforming it into something new kind of pushes it to the other extreme. One can argue sampling is of a lower value than other kinds of music creation techniques, sure, but once again, values are subjective, and it's not like other kinds of techniques, even "more original" ones, will somehow magically impart value to the music. A personal example of this is guitar shredding. I can appreciate the level of technical mastery required to play the electric guitar at an absurd speed, but for almost all shredding I really just find it to not sound good and to be obnoxious. The strongest claim I could make in this example is just a personal claim, which doesn't hold much value for anyone but me: I don't like it very much.

Conclusion?

There's no conclusion, really. This is mostly just a rant. Make of it what you will.

The meaning of life is to build your life's meaning. No one's coming to save you. No one owes you anything, other than perhaps the things that they willingly volunteered to owe.

Cheers.