I apologize for getting you with the paint brush
Hey its no problem, I understand that this is a delicate subject, thank you for trying to get back on course.
(now that you have remined me I do recall that) My attitude is the world currently sucks, I think we should have robust social safety nets for any one who loses their job due to any form of automation. But with that said no one is entitled to employment under our current system. Those artist still allowed to create art on their own time, allowed to sell it to whoever will buy it if folks want to buy it. Hell, if i put the time into learning all of the ins and outs of using what I have I could possibly take commissions or even just sell my own like others have done. Clearly there's a market for generative AI art and even books because people are buying it. You have a problem with that, then it's a problem with people.
"No one is entitled to employment" is not the same as "everything on the internet is freeware." The thing you may be missing is that these people are having their entire life's work stolen, and then repurposed in order to create a competing commercial product that is intended to disrupt the victims of their data scraping. That work took their entire life to create, and now you are saying that they should just make art on their own time, when they have already dedicated their entire life to their craft (only to see it stolen).
Also, there is "clearly" a market for gen-ai images (I will never be calling it art, never) at the lowest rungs of the stock art world (or places like fiverr), not at the top tier professional levels. We have covered this before in previous posts, that gen-ai
does help those with little to no skill, but actually does little to nothing for high skill artists, many of whom have stated that gen-ai actually adds more work, not less.
What you are talking about is the proliferation of more gen-ai slop, which is not a net positive for anyone.
Like it or not either generative AI is it currently exist will be sticking around OR only megacorporations will be able to afford it. To use an example from the Jurassic Park franchise, I believe we're beyond the point of "should we be doing this?" and are at the point of having to figure out how to live with the dinos.
This here is where I will just have to disagree. There are plenty of defunct technologies laid atop the ash-heap of history, why would this be different?
Not to mention, the tech has only been out for two years, and the law takes a lot of time to catch up. Some day soon (if you look at all the lawsuits piling up against OpenAI), the courts may rule against big tech companies, and they might be forced to delete everything that was sourced illegally (as they are still arguing whether their 'fair use' argument will hold up in a court of law). Saying that we are already past the rubicon is hasty, given that the fate of ai companies is currently undecided.
And to prove my point,
OpenAi made the news today as several key board memebers and technicians have resigned yesterday, leaving a massive void in technical expertise that the company will be struggling to fill as some of those leaving possess the top-tier coding skills required to run an ai company.
P.S. The idea that only megacorps will be able to afford gen-ai is also a flawed argument,
seeing as how Conner Leahy was the first person to reverse engineer Chat GPT, essentially with nothing (all he had was 600 euros, no outside funding, and he made his own stack). He is also the head of his own ai company Conjecture, which focuses on ai safety and super-alignment. He is not only deeply embedded into the tech world, he is also now one of the most outspoken advocates for ai safety, which should come as no surprise as he has the technical know-how to create ai from scratch and knows exactly how they are built.
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