What AI Developers Want Artists to Know about AI

In reality, light isn’t free. My utility bills keep going up because the utility company has a monopoly and they legally bribe politicians to allow them to keep raising the prices. If you’re wealthy, the cost of electricity might seem virtually free, but for the rest of us, it is not.

This guy is on crack

The fast talking doesn’t make him sound smarter, just more pretentious.

God, this guy is so naive. Not only would we have to move beyond capitalism for this to ultimately be “good”, moving beyond capitalism is unbelievably difficult. In the US, “democracy” is almost completely controlled by capitalist billionaires that will do anything to prevent this change from happening. If these companies can’t just do the very minimum and exclude human artists from their Ai, and they can’t be regulated by law to do so, then why does anyone think we can make this utopian system? I think this is a case of someone falsely thinking that because they are smart in one area of expertise, that they are generally smart on all subjects. To make this kind of technology be good in this utopian sense will actually take political revolution. Normally, that takes massive upheaval in which a lot people die. Violence, mass starvation, etc.

The idea that everything is going to be free or even cheap under capitalism is extremely naive, uninformed, ignorant, whatever you want to call it. We could have replicators like in Star Trek, and things will still be as expensive as possible. The difference between now and then would be that those with permanent (massive) wealth will pay to have conveniences while the poor people who would have previously worked for money will go without basic needs and without aspirational mobility in extreme poverty. Unless we dramatically change the system so that it would no longer be capitalism, we will only be worse off with automation.

This video asured me that this small amount of people creating this technology doesnt really care about ethics and copyrights. Thanks for making it.

Thank you for doing this, Stan. The national security/bad actors piece that I hadn't even considered is chilling. Meeting in person sounds like a great idea. Looking forward to hearing about how that goes, and perhaps one day you'll be offering courses on how to use AI for artists as the tools develop? or not? I'm also wondering if listening to audio books at high speeds all the time causes people to speak so rapidly - or creates a sub-culture of rapid speakers.

Thank you for having a respectable conversation.

so I watch the video and I can’t help but wonder if he naïve or just doesn’t care. The idea of replacing artists with a computer program and calling it a utopia is nuts. I feel this will make it even harder to make it as an artist since we have to complete with a machine. I’m not sure if I want break my mind doing that?

So if we try and stop the boulder and don't cooperate with them we will be run over by the boulder. He sounds like a utopian chaser and history has taught us over and over, there is no utopia and it always turns out bad. How many times are we going to run the utopian experiment before we realise this?

Really appreciate him doing this interview but I can’t lie, the amount of apathy he had for art, artists, and the many that will be displaced and abused by this system is disturbing. It’s not a requirement either. They could just *stop* doing it this way. They don’t *need* to use the art of non consenting artists, much less actual [extremely illegal content related to children] and illegal content in their data sets. If what he says is true, by his logic he could literally train AI to draw on its own without feeding it other peoples labor. Stealing grain from the farmer to sell them back their bread. and when he does admit fault and any level of concern for what’s happening, there’s a complete reluctance to do anything about it. It’s like the sheer act of talking to what he describes as a small amount of developers is a Herculean task. Assault rifles were invented, but you don’t see every Joe walking down the street with them. There’s nuance about it. You can’t just let this ‘boulder’ roll down a hill and crush a village blaming the residents that they should push it in another direction when you’re the person who pushed it in that direction in the first place. gross irresponsibility, delusional futurist 1930s rhetoric of an impossible utopia, and magical thinking about how the free market will magically solve any injustice. Trust me, if it were the case my mothers insulin wouldn’t be marked up 300% because of the arbitrary decisions of business people. The logic of ‘competition inspiring better prices and product’ is bull in most applicable situations and I’m not going to gargle the backwash of Silicon Valley transhumanists that can’t process that art may be enjoyable for more reason than pushing button and getting a dopamine rush at a pretty picture. I don’t hate the person, his genuine enthusiasm and clear love for what he’s doing is charming. But Marshall help us all if this is emblematic of what the majority of developers in that field feel. We are in for a *very* rough ride.

This guy talks like they're creating Ultron, wtf.

When is the meetup happening? Can everybody attend

If I'm honest, I really hope you team up with other high profile artists and teachers to do something to stop this. This video showed me that the developers of this technology are either lying or incredibly naïve, and given that they are charging money for these tools its probably the former. The fact that they are selling a program that was built off the copyrighted work of innumerable independent artists and corporations is absurd. This guy basically responds to the issue of the copyrighted work in their dataset by saying it doesn't matter. That somehow, they are not responsible for the data they trawled off the web being full of stuff they had no legal permission to use. He then claims that even if they did remove it, it wouldn't change anything. But that is a lie: if they didn't need it, they wouldn't be using it. Its inexcusable, and the fact that they already did it is no reason we can't hold them accountable. Please team up with other creators to file legal action against them. AI is going to be a big part of the future, but as Steven Zapata pointed out, we do not have to roll over an accept it being done in a way that has zero respect for the people that came before it. AI still has a long way to go before it overtakes the industry completely, so there's still time to at least try to soften the blow and make sure these people who blatantly stole from others are held accountable for it. You've helped me so much with art, and for a few years I genuinely believed art could be my future. I believed it could be the future of so many others as well, and eagerly pointed them to your content so that we could learn and grow together. Now I am pleading with you to do what you can to stop people from stealing the work of others. You have the power to really represent a lot of artists, both big and small. Please do something.

I hope you found this talk interesting or atleast informative. I plan on taking up Evan’s invitation to San Francisco, but would like to get your thoughts before I take the trip. Let me know in the comments what you would like me to ask developers and others in the AI space.

To people with no interest in ai, or no basic understanding of pro gaming this dude is speaking Latin XD

Hello Stan! I have a question what can a I do if i like to play with the AI, I mean actually I studied programming, but also I have passion to drawing so when I hear of this tech, I thinked yey! I can merge my two passion but,,,,,,,,,, that energy and joy become in sad and mixed feeling because I really want to share my experiments (I called experiments because I think its most a respetfull term than called "art" for the subjetivity of theme), I have fear to be rejetec from some users, only because I like to play with this AI, also I feel a little bit angry some sites ban this type the content, I comprend the artists feelings and I really dont like the troll techbros,,,, really I have mixing feeling, I want to post o shar, bring some fun and joy,,, but I dont know.... I desire this breach being closed now in good terms...

I am glade that promo brought this guy over here. He has an unusual way to talk, and balanced approach. There is a lot of hostility toward AI as if after opening a pandora box. Ai art needs regulation so it doesn’t go the way of NFT. But the tech is solid, and honestly more intriguing, this is coming from a person who is trying to make his way in the art world. the way ai art is, and should be is as a facilitator tool. Almost like using a mirror tool, or generating a 3D scene from a picture, or even create in between animation frames on it’s own. Right now we got a lot of fear, and irrational hostility to a project that should be adopted by us. We need to guide in the right direction, and not Shawn it. Or the programmers will program something that left artist on the way side. I would rather move forward with the world rather than the alternative.

Sounds like it's an out-of-control virus that has very little to do with art.

If this was discussed in the video already, my apologies for it going over my head, but I'd like to hear details about whether there are people working to propose laws to regulate these technologies ethically, and if they are, whether they are working with these developer groups to be well informed. I heard the word Utopia too many times for my liking, and that way of thinking without a solid legal structure is very worrying.