The AI gift economy
February 23, 2024 7:40 PM Subscribe
Help, My Friend Got Me a Dumb AI-Generated Present - WIRED. A thoughtful reply to what art means when it’s ‘personally’ generated for you with a dive into Lewis Hyde on gift economies.
I wouldn't care if some art given as a gift was AI-generated, so long as there's real handwriting in the card that comes with it.
I was gifted a fulfilment by Amazon print on demand version of a book from the Internet Archive. It was crazy and fun, and the process has a complete meltdown and most of the pages are blank. I'll never want to get rid of it.
posted by krisjohn at 11:07 PM on February 23 [8 favorites]
I was gifted a fulfilment by Amazon print on demand version of a book from the Internet Archive. It was crazy and fun, and the process has a complete meltdown and most of the pages are blank. I'll never want to get rid of it.
posted by krisjohn at 11:07 PM on February 23 [8 favorites]
I remember when "The Kramer" started to pop up for purchase in shopping mall novelty stores.
At the time I never would have guessed that 1. this would be the ultimate direction of the art world, and 2. that would be about its height.
posted by dong_resin at 11:19 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]
At the time I never would have guessed that 1. this would be the ultimate direction of the art world, and 2. that would be about its height.
posted by dong_resin at 11:19 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]
Given the ease with which AI images are generated it seems likely that the friend not only created the prompt but also sifted through multiple images to find the one they thought would be most appropriate.
All and all slightly more thoughtful than randomly picking something off the shelf, so that's good. Add a note saying why they thought this particular image was the right one and that would be a bonafide thoughtful present.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:29 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]
All and all slightly more thoughtful than randomly picking something off the shelf, so that's good. Add a note saying why they thought this particular image was the right one and that would be a bonafide thoughtful present.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:29 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]
Getting an AI-generated picture would feel a little like getting some fruit from a friend who stole it off the neighbors' trees.
posted by pracowity at 11:56 PM on February 23 [18 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 11:56 PM on February 23 [18 favorites]
The "effort" dimension is a strange one. What if the person spent 50 hours learning how to install Stable Diffusion on their PC and customizing it with ControlNet and various LORAs, and getting proficient at using the different settings and using different models? And they had upgraded their PC with $4,000 of hardware in order to run it, then spent a few hours thinking about some unique style that captured the nature of your friendship and personality and curated the best one that did?
Versus someone picking up some random knick-knack at the store while doing their weekly grocery run?
Anyway, the whole gift economy is so diverse across different cultures. I would be pretty happy if someone made me some AI art that had some meaning or thought behind it. One of the favourite pieces of art in my house is a painting an accountant friend at work made about 10 years ago that combined the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night with the style of Hokusai's Great Wave done on a textured wooden block. I think making a mashup like this is right up the alley of an AI image generator. If this piece of art was created by her in Stable Diffusion I wouldn't think any less of it, it would still be hanging on my wall. For certain things I mostly value the concept / idea / meaning, how it was executed matters less to me.
posted by xdvesper at 12:24 AM on February 24 [6 favorites]
Versus someone picking up some random knick-knack at the store while doing their weekly grocery run?
Anyway, the whole gift economy is so diverse across different cultures. I would be pretty happy if someone made me some AI art that had some meaning or thought behind it. One of the favourite pieces of art in my house is a painting an accountant friend at work made about 10 years ago that combined the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night with the style of Hokusai's Great Wave done on a textured wooden block. I think making a mashup like this is right up the alley of an AI image generator. If this piece of art was created by her in Stable Diffusion I wouldn't think any less of it, it would still be hanging on my wall. For certain things I mostly value the concept / idea / meaning, how it was executed matters less to me.
posted by xdvesper at 12:24 AM on February 24 [6 favorites]
It’s weird how the writer reached for “Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, a 1983 book about the role of art in market economies”. Weird, because the full title of the book is The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property , and that it’s described as metaphysics, and secondly because the gold standard of economic research on art and artists is the economist Hans Abbing. Abbing’s classic, ‘why are artists poor’, is available for download free from his website where you can also read excerpts from his more recent books on cultures surrounding the arts.
It is, of course, typical for Wired to frame this as a techno optimistic option - “maybe you’ll be inspired to make your own!”, which is bullshit. Nobody ever got a fake Caravaggio and then said, hell, I’m going to spend the next fifteen years of my life learning to paint, and it’s insulting to you (the reader) to suggest so. Wired functioned as an advertisement for the future world of tech for most of its life, and now that world is upon us Wired is struggling to function. It’s one thing to say there’s a bright streaming future in 1996, and another defending gifts of AI generated junk in 2024 when tech has ripped the heart of the economy out.
posted by The River Ivel at 12:40 AM on February 24 [11 favorites]
It is, of course, typical for Wired to frame this as a techno optimistic option - “maybe you’ll be inspired to make your own!”, which is bullshit. Nobody ever got a fake Caravaggio and then said, hell, I’m going to spend the next fifteen years of my life learning to paint, and it’s insulting to you (the reader) to suggest so. Wired functioned as an advertisement for the future world of tech for most of its life, and now that world is upon us Wired is struggling to function. It’s one thing to say there’s a bright streaming future in 1996, and another defending gifts of AI generated junk in 2024 when tech has ripped the heart of the economy out.
posted by The River Ivel at 12:40 AM on February 24 [11 favorites]
I think maybe some of the disappointment was because the gift giving friend was THEMSELF sn artist, but gave them an AI artwork.
And I can kinda see the point there - that might feel a little like if your friend who is a baker presented you with an Entemann's pound cake from Costco.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:44 AM on February 24 [23 favorites]
And I can kinda see the point there - that might feel a little like if your friend who is a baker presented you with an Entemann's pound cake from Costco.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:44 AM on February 24 [23 favorites]
It's weird that the columnist states "First, the gift cost your friend nothing," when the letter-writer said the painting was "nicely framed." Sure, the generation of the AI image may have been free or cheap – but making a presumably decent print of the image and then framing it isn't free, or quick.
That's separate from the issues about AI ethics, the art economy, and whether the letter-writer likes the piece or finds it cheesy. But it does sound like something the friend put at least some time and money into.
posted by lisa g at 12:58 AM on February 24 [6 favorites]
That's separate from the issues about AI ethics, the art economy, and whether the letter-writer likes the piece or finds it cheesy. But it does sound like something the friend put at least some time and money into.
posted by lisa g at 12:58 AM on February 24 [6 favorites]
The last paragraph of that Wired article is the same sort of happy-feely stuff that ChatGPT would spit out.
It's hard to see this as much worse than buying a print of an existing artwork online and getting it framed, apart from the chance of a tiny percentage of the price of those getting back to an actual artist. The disappointment EmpressCallipygos mentions that an artist would give you something that wasn't their own art, though... there's definitely something in that, although if the genre of art isn't one they would normally produce we shouldn't feel too bad. It's just a different scale of gift. If you were friends with Picasso and he gave you a nice vase, should you feel aggrieved that he didn't give you a painting?
posted by rory at 2:59 AM on February 24
It's hard to see this as much worse than buying a print of an existing artwork online and getting it framed, apart from the chance of a tiny percentage of the price of those getting back to an actual artist. The disappointment EmpressCallipygos mentions that an artist would give you something that wasn't their own art, though... there's definitely something in that, although if the genre of art isn't one they would normally produce we shouldn't feel too bad. It's just a different scale of gift. If you were friends with Picasso and he gave you a nice vase, should you feel aggrieved that he didn't give you a painting?
posted by rory at 2:59 AM on February 24
It’s interesting to compare how the recipient felt about receiving AI generated art, with how they would have felt by an artwork commissioned for them by the giver. Because that is what I feel is really happening. Commissioning art which is intended as a gift is not without its difficulties: we have to choose an artist whose works the recipient might like, we have to come up with an idea for the commission and we have to articulate it properly. Then we may have to discuss the merits of preliminary sketches and maybe choose between several different works to pick out the best one. Finally we need to specify how to present what we have as a gift: a frame or a story perhaps. Even with an AI model which cranks out the art for “free” - this still requires thought about the receiver.
posted by rongorongo at 3:02 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]
posted by rongorongo at 3:02 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]
Wired functioned as an advertisement for the future world of tech for most of its life, and now that world is upon us Wired is struggling to function.
Tired: Wired.
posted by flabdablet at 3:19 AM on February 24 [14 favorites]
Tired: Wired.
posted by flabdablet at 3:19 AM on February 24 [14 favorites]
Even with an AI model which cranks out the art for “free” - this still requires thought about the receiver.
And, it’s the thought that counts.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:32 AM on February 24
And, it’s the thought that counts.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:32 AM on February 24
And, it’s the thought that counts.
When we finally get true artificial intelligence (sentience, singularity &c) then we will be able tooutsource offload the countable thought as well!
posted by chavenet at 4:40 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]
When we finally get true artificial intelligence (sentience, singularity &c) then we will be able to
posted by chavenet at 4:40 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]
Given that a lot of people really dislike LLM generated art, giving it as a gift is a pretty risky move, and no amount of "customizing" the "prompt" makes that look like a thoughtful gift to someone who thinks the whole enterprise sucks. It's like going to Stuckeys and picking out some supertacky jewelry with someone's name on it. The fact that their name is correctly spelled on the tacky thing doesn't make the gift less tacky or actually customized. A customized gift should surely be something the receiver wouldn't hate?
posted by hydropsyche at 5:04 AM on February 24 [8 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 5:04 AM on February 24 [8 favorites]
I have stopped giving art as gifts, since there’s an implied obligation that the recipient will display it, care for it, and generally deal with it. Books and physical media are safer, since they can plausibly not read/watch it. I mostly give people food or gift cards unless I know them really well, to avoid having a “gift debt” situation.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:07 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:07 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]
The value of a gift comes from the thought put in and the effort made - what did the other person sacrifice from their limited time on this planet, their resources?
All image generators do is remove the fine arts skill requirement - you go deep on Stable Diffusion and inpainting you can wind up dozens of hours in, easily. It’s true you’re no longer producing artwork your friends don’t actually want on their walls because you completely lack all fine arts skills! Now you’re producing art they don’t want on their walls because you also completely lack art direction skills or know what constitutes a cliche. Things most art students pick up over the course of developing fine arts skills.
AI can’t fix your taste or misunderstanding aesthetics, only your inability to execute poor taste well. [/morning grump]
posted by Ryvar at 5:23 AM on February 24
All image generators do is remove the fine arts skill requirement - you go deep on Stable Diffusion and inpainting you can wind up dozens of hours in, easily. It’s true you’re no longer producing artwork your friends don’t actually want on their walls because you completely lack all fine arts skills! Now you’re producing art they don’t want on their walls because you also completely lack art direction skills or know what constitutes a cliche. Things most art students pick up over the course of developing fine arts skills.
AI can’t fix your taste or misunderstanding aesthetics, only your inability to execute poor taste well. [/morning grump]
posted by Ryvar at 5:23 AM on February 24
A more thoughtful and hilarious gift (within some friend circles, I suppose) would be for my artist friend to have their AI generate a copy of some famous painting but with me in it. This would take some fine-tuning of course, to get everything just right (as per Ryvar's comment above), and so there would definitely be some creative input from the artist friend. And I can imagine the delight I'd feel when I hung it in my office, and people would come in and say, "Hey, isn't that the Kramer painting... hey wait, is that *you* as Kramer?"
posted by fuzzy.little.sock at 5:27 AM on February 24 [5 favorites]
posted by fuzzy.little.sock at 5:27 AM on February 24 [5 favorites]
Archive link for those that hit the paywall.
posted by signsofrain at 5:53 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]
posted by signsofrain at 5:53 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]
I would be mildly entertained by such a gift, in the way that my adult kid and I exchange hideous memes via text (that is, the meta-act of "this is a gift"), but AI art in general seems to have a lurid, garish, super-vivid aesthetic that reminds me of old f/sf magazine covers, and the more lurid it is, the more people say it looks real to them. The conventions of what looks real, drawn statistically from millions of images online, appear to be shifting at a rapid pace through the multiplicative efforts of AI. Since so much AI art right now contains little tells like extra fingers and longer limbs, we can see the effect more easily, but we are heading for peak Egyptian art or Attic Greek statuary, where the conventions overwhelm the ability to make the product.
posted by Peach at 5:54 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]
posted by Peach at 5:54 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]
I would be really creeped out by the invasion of privacy involved in giving the LLM enough reference images of me for it to create the artwork.
posted by eviemath at 6:10 AM on February 24 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 6:10 AM on February 24 [2 favorites]
Entenmann's cakes are really good.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:12 AM on February 24 [5 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:12 AM on February 24 [5 favorites]
It’s weird how the writer reached for Lewis Hyde’s The Gift
Not that weird? It's a seminal book, and as the writer pointed out, it's been hugely influential on a number of people.
defending gifts of AI generated junk in 2024
... I really don't think that's what the writer was doing. They wrote "As it stands, your friend gave you the digital equivalent of a Starry Night jigsaw puzzle." and "I think your feeling of being 'cheated' is entirely rational."
About the gift economy, I think that I have become too cynical to believe that such a thing is possible
Gift economies exist all over the place! You probably don't think of the exact cost of the birthday present you were given in order to decide exactly how much to spend on a friend for their birthday. If you have guests over for dinner, you probably don't send them a bill for the cost.
One of the things I love most about Lewis Hyde's book, which I highly recommend, (the edition I read was titled The Gift: How The Creative Spirit Transforms The World) is how it draws out and presents alternatives to market economies -- not as something that we can aspire to, but as places that already exist. Which is to say that no matter how much capitalism would like to take over our entire mental, physical, and emotional spaces, there are numerous ways to resist, and some of them simply involve participating in other, much more healthy forms of economic interaction.
posted by heyitsgogi at 6:34 AM on February 24 [4 favorites]
Not that weird? It's a seminal book, and as the writer pointed out, it's been hugely influential on a number of people.
defending gifts of AI generated junk in 2024
... I really don't think that's what the writer was doing. They wrote "As it stands, your friend gave you the digital equivalent of a Starry Night jigsaw puzzle." and "I think your feeling of being 'cheated' is entirely rational."
About the gift economy, I think that I have become too cynical to believe that such a thing is possible
Gift economies exist all over the place! You probably don't think of the exact cost of the birthday present you were given in order to decide exactly how much to spend on a friend for their birthday. If you have guests over for dinner, you probably don't send them a bill for the cost.
One of the things I love most about Lewis Hyde's book, which I highly recommend, (the edition I read was titled The Gift: How The Creative Spirit Transforms The World) is how it draws out and presents alternatives to market economies -- not as something that we can aspire to, but as places that already exist. Which is to say that no matter how much capitalism would like to take over our entire mental, physical, and emotional spaces, there are numerous ways to resist, and some of them simply involve participating in other, much more healthy forms of economic interaction.
posted by heyitsgogi at 6:34 AM on February 24 [4 favorites]
Given that a lot of people really dislike LLM generated art, giving it as a gift is a pretty risky move,
Not really. Righteously hating AI art has reached the level of veganism and crossfit in terms of people letting you know they're Into It.
Now that I think of it a special term would be useful. "Luddite" is a bit of a bludgeon and not really accurate anyway.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:47 AM on February 24 [2 favorites]
Not really. Righteously hating AI art has reached the level of veganism and crossfit in terms of people letting you know they're Into It.
Now that I think of it a special term would be useful. "Luddite" is a bit of a bludgeon and not really accurate anyway.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:47 AM on February 24 [2 favorites]
I do jigsaw puzzles. I started during the pandemic and quickly moved from pop culture stuff to fine art because if I’m going to be spending several hours with an image it might as well be interesting. It’s funny that the example chosen is ‘a jigsaw puzzle of starry night’, because it’s actually fascinating to do puzzles of impressionist paintings. How much time have you spent staring at a small piece of a famous painting? With Impressionism, after you’ve put a few pieces together you see that this stretch of sand is actually green, and the brushstrokes in this section are visible but not in this section. It’s a totally unique way of interacting with the image.
I’m getting a bit tired of The Poppy Field, I admit. The sky is done but the lower left has been a real challenge.
As for bakers and Entemann’s - I would compare this to a skilled baker bringing someone a box of Krispy Kreme donuts at the height of the craze. Fun and trendy and still pretty tasty! It just so happens that this recipient happened to be one of those who realized earlier than the rest of us that Krispy Kreme donuts are ok, but not that great.
posted by bq at 7:29 AM on February 24 [8 favorites]
I’m getting a bit tired of The Poppy Field, I admit. The sky is done but the lower left has been a real challenge.
As for bakers and Entemann’s - I would compare this to a skilled baker bringing someone a box of Krispy Kreme donuts at the height of the craze. Fun and trendy and still pretty tasty! It just so happens that this recipient happened to be one of those who realized earlier than the rest of us that Krispy Kreme donuts are ok, but not that great.
posted by bq at 7:29 AM on February 24 [8 favorites]
I would die laughing if I got a present that was me inserted into A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, The Luncheon of the Boating Party, or The Procession of the Magi.
posted by bq at 7:37 AM on February 24 [5 favorites]
posted by bq at 7:37 AM on February 24 [5 favorites]
Give someone an AI portrait illustration with their face substituted for the Prophet Muhammad's, and then maybe we're getting somewhere.
posted by rhizome at 10:10 AM on February 24
posted by rhizome at 10:10 AM on February 24
The "effort" dimension is a strange one. What if the person spent 50 hours learning how to install Stable Diffusion on their PC and customizing it with ControlNet and various LORAs, and getting proficient at using the different settings and using different models? And they had upgraded their PC with $4,000 of hardware in order to run it, then spent a few hours thinking about some unique style that captured the nature of your friendship and personality and curated the best one that did?
Just because something is difficult to do does not mean it is worth doing.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:16 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]
Just because something is difficult to do does not mean it is worth doing.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:16 AM on February 24 [3 favorites]
I don't like AI art, but if I were to get a gift like this, it would be the same level of annoyance as being given "Live Laugh Love" wall art - it's not very good art, and I don't want to put it up on my wall, and I'm a little annoyed that my friend doesn't have better taste, and I'm a little annoyed that my friend doesn't think I have better taste, but people are bad at knowing what will be to other people's taste, so I have to come down on the side of "Obviously kind and well-intentioned, it's just that I'm a snob."
I like Lewis Hyde, but I'm not sure Hyde has the right lens for this particular incident of gift-giving - most of the gifts that we give and receive throughout our lives don't really exist outside the realm of commodities except for the meaning that is given to them by the relationship between giver and receiver. A gift that's really beautiful and intentional and hand-crafted is something special, but how often do you get one of those? Were you really expecting to get one of those?
If not, then the real question is "Is this a worse gift than socks, or a scented candle, or a gadget that I don't need and won't use?" and the answer is yes, because if the gift-giver ever comes over then I have to hang it on my wall or explain to the gift-giver that I don't want to hang it on my wall. But it's not a worse gift because it's not real art, or because it didn't take enough effort or money.
posted by Jeanne at 11:33 AM on February 24 [5 favorites]
I like Lewis Hyde, but I'm not sure Hyde has the right lens for this particular incident of gift-giving - most of the gifts that we give and receive throughout our lives don't really exist outside the realm of commodities except for the meaning that is given to them by the relationship between giver and receiver. A gift that's really beautiful and intentional and hand-crafted is something special, but how often do you get one of those? Were you really expecting to get one of those?
If not, then the real question is "Is this a worse gift than socks, or a scented candle, or a gadget that I don't need and won't use?" and the answer is yes, because if the gift-giver ever comes over then I have to hang it on my wall or explain to the gift-giver that I don't want to hang it on my wall. But it's not a worse gift because it's not real art, or because it didn't take enough effort or money.
posted by Jeanne at 11:33 AM on February 24 [5 favorites]
What if the person spent 50 hours learning how to install ... And they had upgraded their PC with $4,000 of hardware ... then spent a few hours thinking about some unique style that captured the nature of your friendship and personality and curated the best one that did?
Do you think that's what happened for this one picture? They spent four grand and all that time just to give their friend this one AI-generated picture? Or are they now cranking out instant, cost-free pictures for anyone and everyone with less effort than it takes me to write this sentence? "Bob loves poker and dogs. Let's give him a picture of dogs playing poker! But wait! He also loves Star Wars. Let's give him a picture of dogs dressed as imperial storm troopers playing poker!"
posted by pracowity at 11:48 AM on February 24 [2 favorites]
Do you think that's what happened for this one picture? They spent four grand and all that time just to give their friend this one AI-generated picture? Or are they now cranking out instant, cost-free pictures for anyone and everyone with less effort than it takes me to write this sentence? "Bob loves poker and dogs. Let's give him a picture of dogs playing poker! But wait! He also loves Star Wars. Let's give him a picture of dogs dressed as imperial storm troopers playing poker!"
posted by pracowity at 11:48 AM on February 24 [2 favorites]
I spent $15000 on my car and spent years of my life learning how to drive so I could drive to the supermarket and buy a tabloid magazine, using money that I worked hard for at my day job. Then I used my state of the art computer to open up Microsoft Word (which I also took time to learn 30 years ago) and type "Happy Birthday" in a very fancy font that I downloaded and installed myself. Very impressive of me, I must say. Way more valuable than making a private zine stapled together with some scratch paper and crappy ball point pen scribbles full of personal memories of our friendship and gifting that. 😎
posted by picklenickle at 12:54 PM on February 24 [2 favorites]
posted by picklenickle at 12:54 PM on February 24 [2 favorites]
I would be really creeped out by the invasion of privacy involved in giving the LLM enough reference images of me for it to create the artwork.
posted by eviemath
FWIW, if you're doing the kind of work where, say, an image generator is blending your face into the Statue of Liberty, your friend is probably using a custom Stable Diffusion setup (img2img + inpainting) purely local to their PC. That setup typically doesn't connect to anything except optionally downloading updates on startup. They'd only be using the one reference image of you unless they're training a LoRA with the intent to generate an infinite number of Statue of Evie-berty photos ("upshot" of which is they could turn around and start blending you into absolutely anything else, photo or illustration - the LoRA acting as a high level filter so that when Stable Diffusion sees people, it figuratively only has eyes for you... *shudder*).
So yeah I'd be a lot weirded out if a friend trained a RyvarFace LoRA ("...why?"), but under normal circumstances the workflow is as privacy-violating as Photoshopping a single photo with their network cable unplugged. Speaking of: you might be able to do the same thing with generative fill in the latest Photoshop versions, but I don't really know how that works / whether Adobe gets a copy of any materials in the process.
Or are they now cranking out instant, cost-free pictures for anyone and everyone with less effort than it takes me to write this sentence?
Realistically that's probably what happens 95% of the time. I'd like to think my friends and most Mefites are in the other 5%. The costs are not $4k though - my current GPU's $300 and runs SD just great. You could put together a minimal setup that runs SD equally well for ~$700-800 total (or pre-built). Also the time required would typically be more like an hour to do it passably well, maybe two if you want to get real fussy. There's no real time / money ceiling here, though.
posted by Ryvar at 1:06 PM on February 24 [3 favorites]
posted by eviemath
FWIW, if you're doing the kind of work where, say, an image generator is blending your face into the Statue of Liberty, your friend is probably using a custom Stable Diffusion setup (img2img + inpainting) purely local to their PC. That setup typically doesn't connect to anything except optionally downloading updates on startup. They'd only be using the one reference image of you unless they're training a LoRA with the intent to generate an infinite number of Statue of Evie-berty photos ("upshot" of which is they could turn around and start blending you into absolutely anything else, photo or illustration - the LoRA acting as a high level filter so that when Stable Diffusion sees people, it figuratively only has eyes for you... *shudder*).
So yeah I'd be a lot weirded out if a friend trained a RyvarFace LoRA ("...why?"), but under normal circumstances the workflow is as privacy-violating as Photoshopping a single photo with their network cable unplugged. Speaking of: you might be able to do the same thing with generative fill in the latest Photoshop versions, but I don't really know how that works / whether Adobe gets a copy of any materials in the process.
Or are they now cranking out instant, cost-free pictures for anyone and everyone with less effort than it takes me to write this sentence?
Realistically that's probably what happens 95% of the time. I'd like to think my friends and most Mefites are in the other 5%. The costs are not $4k though - my current GPU's $300 and runs SD just great. You could put together a minimal setup that runs SD equally well for ~$700-800 total (or pre-built). Also the time required would typically be more like an hour to do it passably well, maybe two if you want to get real fussy. There's no real time / money ceiling here, though.
posted by Ryvar at 1:06 PM on February 24 [3 favorites]
Not really. Righteously hating AI art has reached the level of veganism and crossfit in terms of people letting you know they're Into It.
Now that I think of it a special term would be useful. "Luddite" is a bit of a bludgeon and not really accurate anyway.
Must depend on your social circle. An awful lot of my friends are writers and artists, including some who know that their work was stolen for one or more LLMs and some who have been told point blank that their services won't be needed again by past clients who now will just use some stuff an LLM crapped out instead. What's the right insult to use against someone who doesn't like the current internet trend because it ripped off their intellectual property and destroyed their livelihood?
posted by hydropsyche at 1:33 PM on February 24 [6 favorites]
Now that I think of it a special term would be useful. "Luddite" is a bit of a bludgeon and not really accurate anyway.
Must depend on your social circle. An awful lot of my friends are writers and artists, including some who know that their work was stolen for one or more LLMs and some who have been told point blank that their services won't be needed again by past clients who now will just use some stuff an LLM crapped out instead. What's the right insult to use against someone who doesn't like the current internet trend because it ripped off their intellectual property and destroyed their livelihood?
posted by hydropsyche at 1:33 PM on February 24 [6 favorites]
It's funny, these AI prints feel like a latter-day version of those Chinese "art factory" replica paintings, just without having to pay anyone to actually paint them.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:31 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]
posted by BungaDunga at 8:31 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]
For some reason I read this story, imagine the friend complaining the artist that he wanted something original, and getting a big urinal.
Absent other information I'd assume if you have a friend who is an artist, and they give you a framed piece of art, they think there's something interesting about it. Whether it's an original sketch, an off-the-rack print, an Etsy find, something they generated with AI, or an old fashioned collage. Maybe not. Maybe they're a bad artist with bad taste, or perhaps an utterly indifferent gift giver who'd spend $200 on a frame and print but not care about the content. But typically I'd assume they think it's something you'd enjoy for some reason.
posted by mark k at 9:40 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]
Absent other information I'd assume if you have a friend who is an artist, and they give you a framed piece of art, they think there's something interesting about it. Whether it's an original sketch, an off-the-rack print, an Etsy find, something they generated with AI, or an old fashioned collage. Maybe not. Maybe they're a bad artist with bad taste, or perhaps an utterly indifferent gift giver who'd spend $200 on a frame and print but not care about the content. But typically I'd assume they think it's something you'd enjoy for some reason.
posted by mark k at 9:40 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]
some who know that their work was stolen for one or more LLMs
Excellent. The entire world has been waiting for someone who can provide proof. The evidence they provide in court will become legendary in the history of AI.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:02 AM on February 25
Excellent. The entire world has been waiting for someone who can provide proof. The evidence they provide in court will become legendary in the history of AI.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:02 AM on February 25
What's the right insult to use against someone who doesn't like the current internet trend because it ripped off their intellectual property and destroyed their livelihood?
Fair argument. Historically people who have lost their jobs to machinery and are viscerally angry about it have been called "luddites". We'll stick with that then.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:12 AM on February 25
Fair argument. Historically people who have lost their jobs to machinery and are viscerally angry about it have been called "luddites". We'll stick with that then.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:12 AM on February 25
I consider myself a Luddite. For me, means that technology should be used to make the lives of common people better, not to enrich a select few.
posted by chaiminda at 2:35 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]
posted by chaiminda at 2:35 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]
I'm just glad that I have a lot of friends who are artists and writers who make the world a beautiful place. I feel awful for people who don't know any creative people who make amazing art. That must suck (way worse than it sucks to be called a luddite).
posted by hydropsyche at 3:41 PM on February 25
posted by hydropsyche at 3:41 PM on February 25
I'm just glad that I have a lot of friends who are artists and writers who make the world a beautiful place. I feel awful for people who don't know any creative people who make amazing art. That must suck (way worse than it sucks to be called a luddite).
As you say, it depends on who you know. There a few artist friends of mine who are hanging onto to the status quo for dear life, but most of the people I know have have accepted that the technology is here and they’re running with it. Particularly for visual art they are the ones who can take the best advantage. They love the technology itself.
But that’s just a matter of creating art and beauty, which in itself doesn’t pay the bills. I understand the anger that their skills are no longer valued the way they were. Creatives are now directly encountering what has been happening to blue collar workers continually for two hundred years.
Responses are mixed. Some people are resigned, some people have a renewed interest in unions and worker’s rights, and some people have adopted the attitude of a small, short lived early 1800s English movement that thought that preventing employers from using the technology was the right way to go.
Many great things came out of the worker’s rights movements of that time but that particular item — stopping jobs from becoming obsolete — never happened. And it hasn’t happened in the 200 years since.
So yes, people who want to spend their time being angry at a tool and attempting to stuff a genie back into a bottle are welcome to the name “Luddite”. We’ll find another word for people who are not so focused on maintaining the status quo.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:44 AM on February 26
As you say, it depends on who you know. There a few artist friends of mine who are hanging onto to the status quo for dear life, but most of the people I know have have accepted that the technology is here and they’re running with it. Particularly for visual art they are the ones who can take the best advantage. They love the technology itself.
But that’s just a matter of creating art and beauty, which in itself doesn’t pay the bills. I understand the anger that their skills are no longer valued the way they were. Creatives are now directly encountering what has been happening to blue collar workers continually for two hundred years.
Responses are mixed. Some people are resigned, some people have a renewed interest in unions and worker’s rights, and some people have adopted the attitude of a small, short lived early 1800s English movement that thought that preventing employers from using the technology was the right way to go.
Many great things came out of the worker’s rights movements of that time but that particular item — stopping jobs from becoming obsolete — never happened. And it hasn’t happened in the 200 years since.
So yes, people who want to spend their time being angry at a tool and attempting to stuff a genie back into a bottle are welcome to the name “Luddite”. We’ll find another word for people who are not so focused on maintaining the status quo.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:44 AM on February 26
I pretty much presume that the supporters of AI art are either people who profit from it directly, or, in a fashion not exclusive to but very typical of Americans, presume that they will profit from it in the future but don't now, even if there is slim to no evidence that they will ever profit from it, and plenty of evidence that AI will in fact hose their employment future, in part or in whole.
I wouldn't be offended, exactly, if a friend gave me AI art as a gift. It's the thought that counts, right? AI art is a gift that says, "I felt obligated socially to get you a gift but I didn't want to think too hard about it, exert any effort, or spend any money." Maybe your friend is cheap, maybe your friend is shallow, maybe your friend has poor taste? I mean, at least they aren't waiting for you to pass out and drawing dicks on your face, I guess. I wouldn't especially want to find myself in a position where I needed their help for something.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:22 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]
I wouldn't be offended, exactly, if a friend gave me AI art as a gift. It's the thought that counts, right? AI art is a gift that says, "I felt obligated socially to get you a gift but I didn't want to think too hard about it, exert any effort, or spend any money." Maybe your friend is cheap, maybe your friend is shallow, maybe your friend has poor taste? I mean, at least they aren't waiting for you to pass out and drawing dicks on your face, I guess. I wouldn't especially want to find myself in a position where I needed their help for something.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:22 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]
I pretty much presume that the supporters of AI art are either people who profit from it directly, or, in a fashion not exclusive to but very typical of Americans, presume that they will profit from it in the future but don't now, even if there is slim to no evidence that they will ever profit from it, and plenty of evidence that AI will in fact hose their employment future, in part or in whole.
I know a lot of people who are fascinated by AI "art" who don't fit that category at all.
My experience with it is mostly via my RPG hobby. It is often reasonably creative types who do things that are not visual arts who are fascinated by the way the tool opens up that field a bit more. They can try to create a visual representation of a character or scene; or, often, just fiddle around with it and then create a story around what it does display.
I'm thinking mostly of the dilettantes I actually play with, but back when I was on a twitter one writer I followed (whose "real" writing is published with human-created art by paid artists) spent a a while sharing stuff she was experimenting with on Midjourney to create scenes that captured her fantasy city.
IMHO it might be less offensive if it's called "AI illustration" or "AI drawing." No one thinks they are doing stuff to rival Picasso or Monet. They are engaging because it opens up something they don't have the raw talent to do themselves (at least not quickly), or the money to pay someone else to do for them.
It doesn't change the "trained on art by people who didn't want to be copied" problem but there's a reason there's a market for this, and it's not just editors looking to manage their budget.
posted by mark k at 11:14 PM on February 29 [1 favorite]
I know a lot of people who are fascinated by AI "art" who don't fit that category at all.
My experience with it is mostly via my RPG hobby. It is often reasonably creative types who do things that are not visual arts who are fascinated by the way the tool opens up that field a bit more. They can try to create a visual representation of a character or scene; or, often, just fiddle around with it and then create a story around what it does display.
I'm thinking mostly of the dilettantes I actually play with, but back when I was on a twitter one writer I followed (whose "real" writing is published with human-created art by paid artists) spent a a while sharing stuff she was experimenting with on Midjourney to create scenes that captured her fantasy city.
IMHO it might be less offensive if it's called "AI illustration" or "AI drawing." No one thinks they are doing stuff to rival Picasso or Monet. They are engaging because it opens up something they don't have the raw talent to do themselves (at least not quickly), or the money to pay someone else to do for them.
It doesn't change the "trained on art by people who didn't want to be copied" problem but there's a reason there's a market for this, and it's not just editors looking to manage their budget.
posted by mark k at 11:14 PM on February 29 [1 favorite]
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About the gift economy, I think that I have become too cynical to believe that such a thing is possible, outside maybe a small, tightly constrained group. I try to believe people are good, but it seems like the small percentage of extremely selfish people will just ruin it for everyone.
About the AI painting, mine was good for a second, and I was glad that the friend had thought about me and made me something. Sure it wasn't exactly made by him, but I don't believe that our friendship warrants that type of commitment, and I would have been made uncomfortable if I was given a handmade article of clothing or something because I don't think I would ever be able to return the favor.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:45 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]