My thoughts on AI generated content.
Proponents of generative algorithms reason AI 'learns' like a human, and therefore it is not a problem to use human-created content in the training process, even without the consent of the original human creators. But ‘learning’ by AI algorithms can’t be compared to individual humans learning from the works of others. Humans can't reproduce millions of images in a day, and they also can't ‘learn’ from tens of millions of images in weeks like these algorithms. Neither is the way these algorithms ‘learn’ similar to a human brain. Humans learn by understanding the underlying structure, not mindlessly replicating variations of the end results.
I think AI is a form of plagiarism and basically just a very advanced recombination algorithm of pre-existing works created by human artists. It does not understand anything about the underlying structure, like for instance the anatomy or composition, of what it creates. It does not even understand what the image depicts. It degenerates all forms of creative arts from the highest means of expression to soulless automation of end results. Art should result from a lifetime of the human experience, a reflection of the joy and pain felt by the creator in which others can see an echo of their own experiences, something an AI will never be able to do, even if it would become sentient.
What is AI going to learn from when many artists give up before they reach their full potential? When everyone is forced to cheat by using AI content because they can't compete with people who do? Will training AI on that data not become recursive, like a snake eating it's own tail? Will it not crowd out potential future master artists because they can't compete with the quantity and (quality) of AI generated images before they can actually become good? It takes many years to decades for an artist to master his craft.
Artists are already losing respect because people think creating Art is easy now, while in truth it's one of the most difficult things to learn and takes extreme perseverance, blood sweat and tears. The internet is getting swamped with AI-generated content that no one seems to be actually interested in consuming. It's fun to generate stuff for a while, but like every new toy that requires little effort, it becomes boring quickly. I think almost no one is actually interested in watching AI-generated images or reading AI-generated prose, because we instinctively feel it has no real value, as it does not reflect any effort of the creator or the human experience nor did the algorithm understand what it created.
AI can be a nice tool for the automation of repetitive tasks like some parts of programming or writing a summary of a long text etc. But replacing human creativity is very dangerous as it discourages the most essential part of human existence; creative expression. There are people who say creativity will remain, but we will use AI as a tool to be faster and better at it. Part of that may be true if used correctly and for specific (mostly non-creative) tasks, but I also think the current AI-generated content pollutes everything it touches. The result may look pretty but it is all very superficial.
I do not think AI is comparable to the industrial revolution displacing artisans and craftsman, or the calculator, or photography ‘replacing’ painters. None of those almost completely replaced the creative process itself, it just changed the techniques and automated repetitive tasks.
If you are interested, please have a look at my blog posts on ArtStation about the matter:
https://www.artstation.com/occultart/blog (Blogpost about AI)
Replies
For example, imagine if you could texture a human skin by pointing out areas of a body and the AI understands the color zones, roughness, oiliness, pore types, age, wear and tear, and wrinkles of the skin accurately, and you could randomize, mix and change those things on the fly to your liking. And it wouldn't be a repetititive tiling or have seams at all, but a continuous atlas of skin. By also reading the anatomical forms of the mesh and mesh maps to further increase the accuracy, etc.
Could also be extended to any type of texturing, but for human skin texturing it would be awesome, if asking me.