Introducing The Art Machine

How might you explain AI image generators to someone 200 years ago? You might say something like this:

Imagine you have a machine that could look up at the clouds like a telescope.

Inside the machine are thousands of tiny switches turned off. On the sides of the machine are a listening device that you can speak into, and a mechanical eye (like a lens) that can see to the outside world.

An important feature of the machine is that it has a "pay attention and learn" button and when you press the button, you can hold up an encyclopedia, book, magazine or even photos you've taken yourself and the eye will look at each one. As it looks at each one, you explain what each thing is. "This is a bird. This is a waterfall. This is a rainbow."

As it looks at these images you're showing it, and hears the words you're associating with each thing it sees, it flips the switches inside to certain configurations associated with those things you've shown it and the words you've told it.

You teach it night and day, night and day. Soon all of its switches have been flipped in this way or that.

Next, you look through the eye hole in the machine to see up to the clouds. Initially, they are just clouds without any clear form or shape.

You speak to the machine and tell it you'd like to see a cloud that looks like a rainbow bird. Based on the positions of its switches, it whirrs and hums and slides a newly created lens over the end of the telescope. You look through the lens and- lo and behold- you see the cloud has now changed into the shape of a rainbow bird!

You speak into the listening device and ask the machine to show you what the rainbow bird would look like flying over a waterfall. It whirs and hums and based on the configuration of switches, it creates a new lens to replace the previous one and now you can see a rainbow bird flying over a waterfall!

You ask the machine to print out what you see through the lens and it does. This is The Art Machine that is coming in 200 years.

Uh Oh...

Welcome back to 2024. We have The Art Machine. It's every bit as good and better than even the most imaginative futurists could have conceived of in the days of Isaac Asimov, Orson Welles or H.G. Wells.

From a hobbyist/artist standpoint, this machine is amazing. It opens up all kinds of new possibilities. But unfortunately, this machine also exists in the world of capitalism and is being used to replace all of the things humans used to do by hand.

This is par for the course as we saw in the industrial revolution. The main problem this time around is that we've gotten too good at making machines. We can make machines better and faster than ever before, and humans can't keep up. We can't slow down the pace at which we're making machines because of the momentum we're on—trillions of dollars of investments paying people to work in labs to build better and faster machines of all kinds.

And now the machines are making the machines so it gets even faster.

I'm currently unemployed and feeling the pain myself as I run out of unemployment in 2 months. Each job I look at has 200-600 applicants and one I saw had 50 director level applicants. I may not be keeping up (and I'm a 20 year experience design veteran and artist for 37 of my 42 years).

K.C. Green

I don't think the problem is that we have ever more powerful and capable machines. I think the problem is that people don't care enough about each other to vote for changes that would help everyone (like safety nets).

Unfortunately, many people have been propagandized against safety nets, or have grown up in a world where it's normal to be cruel to people who are lesser. Where only the strong survive and the weak can go off and die for all they care. I'm not sure where that leaves humanity...or me.

Humanity may be doomed and we may see a mass extinction like we've not seen, where only the bionically-augmented rich emerge from the ashes. It isn't the machines that are the problem to me at all- it's the desire to ever amass more and more wealth at the expense of everyone else.

The question I think now is: Will we get lucky? Will machines commoditize things so fast that food becomes free to make? Will we discover room temperature superconductors making electricity so trivial to transport that it becomes free? Will we reach post-scarcity before collapse? Or are we at the beginning of extinction?

I hate to be doom and gloom, because so many amazing things are happening right now and I'm among those who think that AI art is an exciting new branch on the art tree (as you can see by my participation here). But just because it's exciting doesn't also make it less terrifying. The singularity is near—I think many of us can feel it. Some wish it would arrive faster. Some want to forestall it. As Walter White put it, "Nothing stops this train."

Things We Can Count On

In uncertain times, it's helpful for me to think about the things I can count on happening:

• The wealthy will continue to be greedy

• The pace of innovation and technological advancement will increase (this because we are experiencing a convergence of many technologies to create before-unheard of superpowers)

• Artists will continue making art

• The human spirit will continue to fight

I hope my voice can be heard in the sea of chaos and noise. I hope people will realize that they have to push those in power to rethink safety nets because we're in unprecedented times, or push them out. The ones who are beholden to corrupt influence are looking mighty tasty right about now.

If there was ever a time to rage against the machine- it's now.

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Thanks for reading. If you're enjoyed my work so far and you want to help me continue living on this earth, consider buying me a coffee. I won't be using it for coffee- I'll be using it for food, rent and electricity.

If you have need of my creative ability, I wouldn't turn down a job either. Please reach out.

Your love is greatly appreciated,

setz