Those seams we are seduced into not seeing
February 25, 2024 1:41 PM Subscribe
Let me offer a couple examples of how the arts challenge AI. First, many have pointed out that storytelling is always needed to make meaning out of data, and that is why humanistic inquiry and AI are necessarily wed. Yet, as N. Katherine Hayles (2021: 1605) writes, interdependent though they may be, database and narrative are “different species, like bird and water buffalo.” One of the reasons, she notes, is the distinguishing example of indeterminacy. Narratives “gesture toward the inexplicable, the unspeakable, the ineffable” and embrace the ambiguity, while “databases find it difficult to tolerate”. from Poetry Will Not Optimize; or, What Is Literature to AI?
I'm not scared of AI replacing artists, I'm scared of AI devaluing art out of existence.
posted by chasing at 8:06 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]
posted by chasing at 8:06 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]
chasing, I don't think that's going to happen (imo). Quite the reverse, I think. Once the novelty wears off, AI is an averaging function, producing mediocre word soup that is only loosely adjacent to reality. It's boring. I think being exposed to it incessantly, as we will, in the same way we are exposed to corporate phone trees, will rapidly breed contempt, and a need for more true human expression. I think the arts, as practiced by humans are safe.
Conversely (paradoxically?) I also think many artists will incorporate AI tools into their workflow, and certainly into their conversations about what being human is.
Reading the article, i think there are some valid concerns, mostly around the tsunami of noise AI generation unleashes, which makes signal harder to find. And, I would argue, therefore more precious.
I found this interesting, emphasis mine:
Thus, the initial dismissal by many that GPT-3 does not remotely approximate literature, let alone intelligence, only belies the sense of a threat deferred (until inevitably some even more advanced technology emerges).
This is the crux: fear. Not so much of the present, but of an imagined, inevitable future.
The thing is, for all the hype, LLMs seem to be a one trick pony. It's a very good trick, but the trick limits a lot of the fear for me. There are things the algorithm of LLM simply cannot do that severely limit the scary future of AI development to a much more manageably scary future of Stochastic Parrot development.
Of note to me, in the article is the bit about someone selling a AI generated portrait for, I forget, a lot of money. This is interesting to me, because there is The Arts on one hand, and Art as Commerce on the other. AIs may indeed have a negative impact on the Art as Investment crowd, as anyone who bought a Bored Ape can attest. Those folks should probably hire an artist to advise them on their investments.
posted by chromecow at 10:32 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]
Conversely (paradoxically?) I also think many artists will incorporate AI tools into their workflow, and certainly into their conversations about what being human is.
Reading the article, i think there are some valid concerns, mostly around the tsunami of noise AI generation unleashes, which makes signal harder to find. And, I would argue, therefore more precious.
I found this interesting, emphasis mine:
Thus, the initial dismissal by many that GPT-3 does not remotely approximate literature, let alone intelligence, only belies the sense of a threat deferred (until inevitably some even more advanced technology emerges).
This is the crux: fear. Not so much of the present, but of an imagined, inevitable future.
The thing is, for all the hype, LLMs seem to be a one trick pony. It's a very good trick, but the trick limits a lot of the fear for me. There are things the algorithm of LLM simply cannot do that severely limit the scary future of AI development to a much more manageably scary future of Stochastic Parrot development.
Of note to me, in the article is the bit about someone selling a AI generated portrait for, I forget, a lot of money. This is interesting to me, because there is The Arts on one hand, and Art as Commerce on the other. AIs may indeed have a negative impact on the Art as Investment crowd, as anyone who bought a Bored Ape can attest. Those folks should probably hire an artist to advise them on their investments.
posted by chromecow at 10:32 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]
Vara's story revealed that GPT-3 functioned much like a brutally frank editor, showing her the weaknesses in the narrative she wished to tell. The last line of the AI's text, "She taught me to exist," sent a chill down my spine.
The GPT dynasty is little more than an evolving Grammarly program that enables the writer to do less heavy lifting regarding plotting and more when editing. Bandwidth aside, this shepherds writers into a collaboration with AI programs. So what? Would we value Da Vinci's works less if he'd bought his paints from an art supply store? Do we value the writers' tactics or the body of work they produce?
Okay, that argument is silly because your view is where you already stand. Not everyone likes all works deemed literature. Not all works are universally accepted as literature. The most crucial point I saw concerned the database itself. Allow me to pose only one example: History is written by the winners. Any database purporting to seed an objective narrative of history will be compiled in the distant future. I suppose an AI addressing mathematics would suffer from the errors of the present. A mathematical database with errors hidden from the mathematician would cripple the program or lead it to propose preposterous solutions that our geniuses may not realize until they spend a few years tracking it down on a whiteboard.
My son, a bit of a nerd, showed me some computer-generated scenes he concocted using simple and complicated narratives--similar to a previous OP here on the blue. Some were photo-realistic; others were clearly CGI. When I mentioned a few glitches, he said, "It's just a matter of time." Indeed, the artists of today produce sophisticated, moving works. But who will claim they surpass the ancient pictures in the caves of France and Spain? Good art and literature invite us to look at ourselves from the outside, even as genre fiction and action movies invite us to go along on a car chase. The latter quickens the pulse; the former quickens the heart.
I prefer to think that writers will never lose control of their visions. It seems inevitable that we will eventually emerge from the far bank of the Uncanny Valley. At some point, I'll bet we'll be hearing SCOTUS take arguments on the personhood of a non-human being. By then, it will be too late to be careful what we wish for. Let's hope they'll think of us kindly.
posted by mule98J at 2:26 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]
The GPT dynasty is little more than an evolving Grammarly program that enables the writer to do less heavy lifting regarding plotting and more when editing. Bandwidth aside, this shepherds writers into a collaboration with AI programs. So what? Would we value Da Vinci's works less if he'd bought his paints from an art supply store? Do we value the writers' tactics or the body of work they produce?
Okay, that argument is silly because your view is where you already stand. Not everyone likes all works deemed literature. Not all works are universally accepted as literature. The most crucial point I saw concerned the database itself. Allow me to pose only one example: History is written by the winners. Any database purporting to seed an objective narrative of history will be compiled in the distant future. I suppose an AI addressing mathematics would suffer from the errors of the present. A mathematical database with errors hidden from the mathematician would cripple the program or lead it to propose preposterous solutions that our geniuses may not realize until they spend a few years tracking it down on a whiteboard.
My son, a bit of a nerd, showed me some computer-generated scenes he concocted using simple and complicated narratives--similar to a previous OP here on the blue. Some were photo-realistic; others were clearly CGI. When I mentioned a few glitches, he said, "It's just a matter of time." Indeed, the artists of today produce sophisticated, moving works. But who will claim they surpass the ancient pictures in the caves of France and Spain? Good art and literature invite us to look at ourselves from the outside, even as genre fiction and action movies invite us to go along on a car chase. The latter quickens the pulse; the former quickens the heart.
I prefer to think that writers will never lose control of their visions. It seems inevitable that we will eventually emerge from the far bank of the Uncanny Valley. At some point, I'll bet we'll be hearing SCOTUS take arguments on the personhood of a non-human being. By then, it will be too late to be careful what we wish for. Let's hope they'll think of us kindly.
posted by mule98J at 2:26 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]
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And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.’
—Yeats, Adam’s Curse
posted by heyitsgogi at 6:36 PM on February 25 [5 favorites]