Re: AI Thread
Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2023 11:39 pm
site23 wrote:Right now, an AI isn't a virtual person, even in a limited capacity. It's a mechanism which can automate tasks requiring conceptual reasoning. Broadly, AI is doing for ideas what the power loom did for weaving.
In the short term, I don't think the disruption to creative fields will be projects wholly authored by AI -- it will be that the creative process will be heavily assisted by AI. Perhaps one artist will be able to do the work of a whole animation studio. (In a socialist society this would be wonderful news -- in our society, well, better join a union...)
In the long term, I think we absolutely will build something that exhibits "will" or "consciousness." Current projects are establishing a lot of the underpinnings. For example, GPT-4 has the ability to fluently interpret an image in terms of language, translating the depicted objects to descriptive concepts -- which is not "thinking about what it sees" but is a meaningful step towards a system that does that.
I think that's very interesting to think about, but it will be another paradigm shift which is separate to the one happening right now, with its own effects and implications.
You're right of course because I was aware of the angle (one I am positive about) that artists and their gatekeepers, publishers and/or employers will use AI to complete at last part of what were or come to be considered menial work. And thus was uncomfortable going to a theoretical place that seems unlikely; the main threat to artist and other creative's livelihoods is AIs completing tasks for, or with them; but that is a pessimistic viewpoint that comes from a position of lack (there aren't enough jobs for artists as it is! We don't get paid enough) rather than abundance (there's a gooseberry fool load of money in the world, and art has demonstrable value, so maybe if less of these things need to be paid for (menial work) / justified (bullshit) work, we will have more money for artists).
Even if artists have to become the selection panel for AI created or co-authored works, that doesn't mean their value is going to disappear, it will just shift.
Fortunately, good artists are already "T-shaped" people who can adapt.
The creative skillset is a soft not a hard skill. The means and methods through which you create art (or designs) aren't really that important, you get value from a combination of the outcome and the driving force behind it (because without that there would be no outcome).
For this and many other reasons I think artist is one of the most time hardened roles in society because it is inherently a deep thinking job and often a very political one at that.
I'm leaning somewhat heavily into the fine arts / high arts here (whatever that is), but the crafts and design are robust fields too, because again, you can adopt AI as a toolset or you can have it replace you by not doing that.
It may seem insensitive but I think a lot of the people in our society (Britain and Ireland etc at least) worry about AI because they (a) weren't really invested in what they were doing in some way anyway and don't know what else they could/should be doing (b) their job was on the cusp of redundancy and they were never given an opportunity to prove their value outside the limited scope of that very redundant kind of task (with AI in play); they fear change (which is, well, everyone).
A problem is an opportunity waiting for an answer.