Remember how we were told that genAI learns “just like humans”, and how the law can’t say about fair use, and I guess now all art is owned by big tech companies?

Well, of course it’s not true. Exploiting a few of the ways in which genAI --is not-- like human learners, artists can filter their digital art in such a way that if a genAI tool consumes it, it actively reduces the quality of the model, undoing generalization and bleading into neighboring concepts.

Can an AI tool be used to undo this obfuscation? Yes. At scale, however, doing so requires increasing compute costs more and more. This also looks like an improvable method, not a dead end – adversarial input design is a growing field of machine learning with more and more techniques becoming highly available. Imagine this as sort of “cryptography for semantics” in the sense that it presents asymetrical work on AI consumers (while leaving the human eye much less effected).

Now we just need labor laws to catch up.

Wouldn’t it be funny if not only does generative AI not lead to a boring dystopia, but the proliferation and expansion of this and similar techniques to protect human meaning eventually put a lot of grifters out of business?

We must have faith in the dark times. Share this with your artist friends far and wide!

  • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    311·
    11 months ago

    AI is freeing art in the same way technology did music. It’s putting creative tools in the hands of more and more people that don’t need years/decades of skill to become proficient in.

    50 years ago, you’d need several talented musicians, an array of expensive instruments and recording equipment to make a song. Now it takes one person and a computer. “Real” musicians turned their nose up at digital music when it first came out, but that’s because they were afraid of the truth: while this new technology might not be as good as the top .01% of musicians, most musicians don’t fall into that category and the rest of the world sees the new way as faster, easier, and frankly better.

    AI art is the same way. While it may not be better than the absolute best artists in the world, it’s better than 99.9% of them. The common person can now create detailed depictions of art in seconds with a few prompts and keywords. There’s no going back from this, and public opinion is not going to reject it. It’s too convenient, too easy, too beneficial of a tool.

    Art is dead, long live Art.

    • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
      12·
      11 months ago

      I mean if you equate “art == content”, then sure, all those billions in VC money and poorly paid data entry workers have now enabled a machine that for a monthly fee will provide you with a hero image on your Medium blog. The market for dreck like that is limited, though.

    • Evinceo@awful.systemsEnglish
      11·
      11 months ago

      “Real” musicians turned their nose up at digital music when it first came out

      You got any evidence for that? What do you even mean by “digital music?” That’s not a category I think musicians recognize. You may he confusing digital with electric which was not exactly as you’re describing it.

    • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
      9·
      11 months ago

      Ah yes, “real” musicians turned their nose up at digital music.

      Now let me tell you about how making music on a computer doesn’t involve years of practice to become proficient. Using a digital audio workstation is basically the same as typing “club banger in the style of Avicii, billboard hot 100, high quality, big boobs, crisp production, lots of bass, danceable” in a prompt box.

      • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systemsEnglish
        13·
        11 months ago

        also sorry i need to get this out

        50 years ago, you’d need several talented musicians, an array of expensive instruments and recording equipment to make a song.

        no. you can make up a song and you can sing it and it doesn’t cost anything. i’ve done it since i was a child and humanity has done it since before history began. fuck you.

    • self@awful.systemsMEnglish
      9·
      11 months ago

      Art is dead, long live Art.

      @Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems already pointed this out, but it’s kind of fucking amazing how obvious it is that this trash sounded smart to you when you wrote it, but in the same post you’ve made a bunch of mistakes that give away you don’t even have the vaguest idea of what art is or how it’s made

      • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systemsEnglish
        10·
        11 months ago

        the year is 2034. i am robbing a bank to pay the openAI licencing fee so i can pursue my dream of being a writer.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        9·
        11 months ago

        “Democratizing art!!!” really had me chuckling for a second, but only a second. The bit was already used up by the coiners

      • self@awful.systemsMEnglish
        10·
        11 months ago

        fucking hell I looked at their post history. it’s only a 5 day old account but they’ve been busy posting bad AI takes almost exclusively, including comparing the dudesly George Carlin thing with a drag show