Some More News did a great video about this

There seems to be two ways of viewing generative AI. The first, which many anti-AI people take is that Generative AI will be captured by big business and will decimate the creatives financial streams. The outcome will be less art with less meaning and shallow profit seeking art will rule the world.

Then there is the flip side. Everyone in them has a story they want to tell. Everyone has a artistic vision they want to produce. Everyone has a song they want to write and sing. Everyone, if given enough time, talent, practice, resources, and yes, money, could produce something beautiful, deep, and unique to themselves. But they don't. Why? Because there are barriers. Barriers among barriers. It is the hope of the "AI bros" that AI will tear down those barriers and allow more people to create.

But because these people have never created before, their work will obviously not be up to pair with professionals. Just give it time. In the words of Randall Munroe: If we want to write Ulysses, our generation might not be sexting enough.

It’s because AI enthusiasts are genuinely proud and in awe of their work, and those that are still staunchly pro-AI are unaware of how much damage they have already done.

Two key facts:

• Generative AI is powerful and amazing
• Generative AI was immediately sold to the capital-owning class and is now being developed and guided by the motivations of profit

Freya Holmér does excellent analysis at around the 43:00 mark. She notes that AI represents a story of human triumph, and the innate quality or “coolness” that lies in that. But on the other hand, she explains how generative AI has quite quickly become entirely devorced from positively amplifying human expression. Exceptions to this exist, where people use AI creatively as an extension of themselves, but are exceptions only and not the rule.

I see other threads here discussing “is there even demand for authentic human art?” And those discussions ignore that yes, there is, and that authentic human art was scraped from copyright holders on the internet without their consent. “Is there even demand for human art?” is what is being asked, when the technology in question was immediately bought up and exploited by billion-dollar companies who are gaining immensely more value from generative AI than even the most lucrative AI-artist.

I encourage “AI bros” reading this to look around and engage with the art world. Genuinely. If you have always wanted to be a screenwriter or painter hobbyist, go engage with those stories. Go and see the human experiences, training and techniques that are visible in every line and brush stroke. Creativity is quite a wonderful and powerful thing and I always encourage it.

Then, after you have experienced these works to a new degree, look back. Don’t even ask “is AI good”—because we all agree, it’s an amazing feat. Instead ask “do I want this technology to be monopolized by corporate interests?”

What would be the point of AI replacing people to create art?

The essence of art is that it came from the mind and talent (or skill) from another human being. It's a thread connecting our humanity through time and space.

No one will be looking back at AI art the same way we look back hundreds or thousands of years at paintings, sculptures, musical compositions, or even real photographs.

We might enjoy some AI generated content for the novelty, but it's soulless.

These are people without talents who have to pay creatives for cool things. All they are thinking is that they’ll be able to get the creative assets themselves for free from now on, to run their businesses or whatever. That’s it. They don’t care about the cow when they believe they’re going to get the milk for free.

We don't mourn the loss of blacksmiths who put time and skill into creating a pan or pot. We don't care about the glass blowers who are no longer hired to blow drinking glasses. We don't miss the portrait artists who painted not just for art, but to create an historical record.

History is filled with jobs performed by skilled labor that were made redundant with technology. AI is just a point in a long line.

AI can only replace creative industries if the content it produces is better in which case it's a win for the people consuming that content. When it comes to creators themselves, it'll be harder to earn a living that way but on the other hand, none of the artists I know are making it for the money and they would continue making it even if AI was better. Myself included.

However, I don't think it's either-or situation. AI will just come alongside human made content. There's a ton of content creators I'd continue following no matter how good AI would get.

The invention of production lines didn't mean that nobody appreciated hand-built cars any longer - it just meant a cheaper option was now available to more people.

The invention of phonographs, records, cd etc, didn't mean that nobody appreciated live music anymore - it just meant that there was now a more accessible option available.

Every job in arts and engineering can, has and will be automated to some extent - it doesn't mean the death of those industries, or a lack of appreciation for the creativity involved.

I think the real benefit comes from when the creatives use the tools to do the heavy lifting. Every new innovation sees a glut of low-effort money-saving cash-ins. After a while, however, these fall to the wayside as the people who actually have the skills take over again.

More than ten years ago, I wrote a song for my daughter. I recorded it, animated a little video, and uploaded it to youTube. I'd written several more songs for her, but had never found the time necessary to actually record the songs and create videos for them. Because of AI tools, I've finally been able to make significant headway on a couple of songs/videos that I've had rattling around in my head for years.

We're just in a transition period. Like George Lucas's over-reliance on CG in the prequels - although it looked pretty great at the time but now looks thoroughly artificial.

I'm someone who talks about AI a lot on lemmy, people might call me pro AI although I consider myself to be neither pro nor anti, but admittedly, optimistic about AI in general. I work with people in the creative industry, artists, writers, designers, you name it.

As others have mentioned already, your question to my knowledge does not reflect most people's view on AI neither online and even less so in real life. And I talk and participate in communities that are overwhelmingly pro AI. The "AI bros" you mention sound like caricatures to me.

There are some who have become bitter by lies and misinformation spread about AI that are intentionally hateful as a kind of reverse gotcha, but thats about it. You have those on the anti AI side as well for different reasons.

I dont consider AI to be anywhere close to being a threat to the industry, other than indirectly through the forces of capitalism and mismanagement. Your question indeed seems very insane to me. Most people that use and talk about AI to me seem more interested in using it to make new creative works, or enhance existing works to greater depth in the same time. Creative people are human too and have limited time, and often their time is already cut short by deadlines and their work has been systematically undervalued even before AI.

AI as it currently stands on its own simply has no feeling of direction. Without much effort you can get very pretty, elegant, interesting, but ultimately meaningless things from it. This cannot replace anyone, because such content while intriguing doesnt capture attention for long. It also cannot do complex tasks such as discussing with stakeholders or remaining consistent across work and feedback.

With a creative person at the wheel of the AI though, something special can happen. It can give AI the direction it needs to bring back that meaning.

This is a perspective a lot of people miss, since they only see AI as ChatGPT or Midjourney, not realizing that these are proprietary (not open source) front ends to the technology that essentially hide all the controls and options the technology has, because these things are essentially a new craft on their own and to this day very little people are even in the progress of mastering them.

Everyone knows about prompts, but you can do much more than that depending on the model. Some image models allow you to provide your own input image, and even additional images that control aspects of the image like depth, layout, outlines. And text models allow you to pack a ton of pre existing data that completely guide what it will output next, as well as provide control over the internal math that decides how it comes to its guess for the next word.

Without a creative and inventive person behind the wheel, you get generic AI material we all know. And with such a person, you get material at times indistinguishable from normal material. These people are already plentiful in the creative industry, and they are not going anywhere, and new people that meet this criteria are always welcome. Art is for everyone, and especially those who are driven.

Really the only threat to the creative industry in regards to AI is that some wish to bully and coerce those who use the technology into submission and force them to reject it, and even avoid considering it altogether like dogma. This creates a submissive group that will never learn how to operate AI models. Should AI ever become neccesary to work in the creative industry (it currently doesnt look like it) these people will be absolutely decimated by the ones that kept an open mind, and more importantly, the youth of tomorrow that always is more open to new technologies. This is a story of the ages whenever new technology comes around, as it never treats those that reject it kindly, if it sticks around.

The loom and the Luddites, cars and horses, cameras and painters, mine workers and digging machines, human calculators and mechanical calculators, the list goes on.

So no, being pro AI doesnt neccesarily mean you are participating in the downfall of the creative industry. Neither does being anti AI. But spreading falsehoods and stifling healthy discussion, that can kill any industry except those built on dishonesty.

Everyone's frame of reference is their own IQ...

So for some people AI seems as smart as their frame of reference, or even better.

They assume their frame of reference is everyone's, so we're in that weird period where dumb people are super excited about AI, and smart people still think it's a gimmick.

Those people who find AI impressive, see it as a means to level the playing field, and it will eventually.

It just means the smarter you are, the longer it's going to take to be impressive. Because your frame of reference is just a higher standard.

They'd never be as creative as a creative person, so to them it's switching from relying on a person they have no control over or influence on, to a computer program that will do whatever is asked. To them it generates the same quality as a person, don't forget the most popular media caters to the lowest common denominator, this is the same thing.

Like, it makes sense from their perspective. You just need to realize everyone has a different perspective.

It's human variation

It's legitimate to question why we would want to replace human artistry with AI. Somebody might have asked the same question about replacing hand tools with power tools. But I wouldn't be a longtime amateur woodworker if all I had to work with was hand tools - the work would be far too time consuming and the learning curve much too high. Or ask content creators who are able to get their ideas in front of the public without learning HTML, CSS or Javascript, what they think of content creation tools. Was making MySpace etc. available 20 years ago a bad thing because it changed our view of programming?

Enabling millions of people to jump traditional entry barriers is a good thing, even if it means we no longer look at the creative process as being reserved for people with natural talent or years of training. TBH you might as well object to Bob Ross teaching people easier ways to paint, or to people who teach breadbaking on YouTube - it turns out bread is dead simple btw, you should try it.

But more to the point, the genie is out of the bottle, and no amount of objection is going to stuff it back in.

Why do people who post loaded questions approve of pedophilia and torturing kittens?

How can someone not value the ingenuity and creativity behind a work of art?

Their point of view is that if people do actually value this then there will always be a market for it.

If they don't, there won't.

I suppose a long time ago the radio and gramophone looked like they'd been the end of live performing musicians but they still exist, everything's just continually changing..

The general scene can do much more now. It's a tool and silly to stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist. Understandably, it brought up the bar for entry level work but it will bring up the quality and the sheer amount eventually.

All facets of gen ai are a real boon for things like indie video games and animations once you get past the constant pessimism. I'm insanely excited for llm driven npcs and things of that nature as well.

It also makes correcting documents a breeze work wise. I'd give a lot just for that tbh.

Becau$e rea$ons.