this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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Pika Labs new generative AI video tool unveiled — and it looks like a big deal::The new Pika 1.0 tool comes after a $55 million funding round for the generative AI company and is a big step up in AI video production.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (6 children)

No one is stopping people from making art, lazy people will use this to do things they want, but artists will make art because that's what they do.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm more concerned about the fact that shitty companies will use this sort of thing to put graphic designers out of a job.

This isn't good progress. Even soulless corporate bullshit puts food on the table for someone, soon it'll just make another company a bit richer.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Look I'm not supporting mega rich assholes extracting even more from working people, but would you use the same argument for textile weavers and the Jacquard loom? Sure a lot of people lost their jobs at the time, but most, if not all, respecialized and we got computers in the end so would you say it wasn't good progress? 🤷

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Except that this is entirely unecessary, and doesn't create a product we need, and it's certainly not one I want.

I want to support people, I want people to do beautiful incredible things. I don't want a higher production rate of souless art statistically generated by taking the work of thousands of people without their consent, for no good reason.

Replace CEOs with AI, that would be good progress.

I also mentioned in another comment that this technology has some very very good uses, I am convinced creating art is an evil use. I'm a big fan of projects like Talon Voice, you can donate voice samples to help improve their language model to help people who struggle to use a computer with their hands. It's amazing stuff and I love it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

See, that's the crux of the argument I feel. You can't have one without the other, you can't have voice generation for the mute without that technology also displacing voice actors in the process.

That's why I think the Luddite approach doesn't work, we can't forcefully break the machines that are capable of so much good because they're also capable of so much bad.

Instead we should focus on helping those that are most negatively impacted by their existence, while supporting everyone that is already being positively affected by them. (like the UBI mentioned in my other comment)

PS. Totes down for replacing CEOs with AI and distributing their salary among the workers

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I can kinda get behind that, but only if it's done right (which I'm absolutely convinced it won't be, thanks to history).

Even just paying the people who lose their jobs, and helping them transition to other work is bad because voice acting is probably a dream job for a lot of people. We also have to ethically source training data, and I don't really see that happening. After all, who would want to contribute to losing their own job?

If we could do all that, I think we can agree as a society to protect those jobs instead. I legimately think we can have only the good, but I understand that doing so requires a fight. I'd much rather fight for that than lay down and accept the worst possible option.

Edit: I'll add further, that this is probably already happening, just for the CEOs. They have the power to create tools capable of replacing them, and to prevent them from replacing them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's a good attitude to have and I'm not advocating for putting down our arms and waiting for big tech to steamroll us all.

But as I've mentioned elsewhere, the people making the AI models are fully aware they are contributing to a technology that will take away their own jobs, because they think that it will create other, even more interesting jobs in the process. (see trad artists swearing off photography in it's early days because it was "mechanical and soulless", only to realize it's creative potential years later)

My advice would be to continue being aware of the negative history of things, but don't let it blind you to the positive aspects either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't understand your argument.

I'm in no way convinced that this will lead to new cool jobs, and I have never heard anyone suggest how that could happen. In all honesty, I'd hate to lose my job as a dev and suddenly the only option in my industry is now "debugging AI mistakes."

If you want to create cool new jobs, how about doing it without disregard for the people you're hurting? That's entirely possible, but the current system doesn't care about people, it cares about money.

If we saw the potential in these tools, and decided as a society to just let the machines do all the stuff we don't want to do, and we all got to do whatever meaningful beautiful things our hearts wanted, then sure. But that isn't happening. The system isn't broken so it won't fix itself.

"Maybe something good will come of all this pain" is a bad philosophy, imo.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But like, it will happen anyways. You can't stop Musk from shoving Grok down everyone's throats and firing 80% of his work force to replace them with AI drones.

If we saw the potential in these tools, and decided as a society to just let the machines do all the stuff we don't want to do, and we all got to do whatever meaningful beautiful things our hearts wanted, then sure.

Yes, literally this, my argument is literally we use all our efforts to fight for this, as making something beautiful out of a shit situation is literally all life has and I feel always will be.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yep, then we have nothing to argue about. I'm an idealist, I'm just angry about the way these things are going instead of accepting them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Like... That was bad too. What we need to do is ditch capitalism before we automate everything.

It doesn't function if nobody has jobs.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Textile weavers still exist, they just get paid even less and live in third world countries. “AI” is the same - a lot of the training is done by underpaid folks living in Kenya and Tanzania. They have to label the gore and CP so that the “AI” won’t use it. Post traumatic stress disorder is pretty common…

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Advancements like the loom usually just affect one industry (yes, there are ripples in the whole economy) and it's not like we got that, the printing press, the internal combustion engine, the computer, and the telephone all at once. AI, if properly trained, can do nearly any task so it's not just artists that are in danger of becoming obsolete.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

They've already been doing that

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Capitalism optimizes for lazy over good. Who's going to be able to pay rent as an artist in your dystopia

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What artists do you know that make money off their art? The starving artist not being able to make money to survive has been a thing since before Van Gogh's time.

We've automated the food making process, but people still make money off of preparation of food, there's always going to be a market for artists, but that market will be different.

These AI things are great tools to assist artists, but the fear mongering gets in the way.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

What artists do you know that make money off their art?

this is such a bad take, I present to you, society. and the hundreds of thousands if not millions, tens or hundreds of millions of employed (either self or through businesses) artists.

and using the "starving artist" as a goal we should transition to just really sucks in concept. I'm not sure you would say the same if it was your profession.

I know ~~reddit~~ lemmy is full of techbros but geez have some compassion for other people. Oh wooweey i can type words and not have to have someone else do an art, I'm an artist now, everyone else can starve

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I'm not sure you would say the same if it was your profession.

I am an artist, who uses AI to assist me...

I know reddit lemmy is full of techbros but geez have some compassion for other people.

So because I don't see AI as a big scary monster coming to devour our souls I'm a Tech Bro and don't have compassion?

But yeah, fear AI all you want, but artists will always be needed even if the bleep Boop machine can do it faster.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Writing prompts for an image generator doesn't make you an artist, lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well not in the sense of the word you're using, but there is an art to getting them to do what you want if your doing more than just dumb shit like I post on this account.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There is some technical skill involved in making it output something in the direction you want, but nothing exists until you hit enter, only a vague concept. The process is so detached from the artistic decision making that it is a complete outstrech to call it art. You can never have a personal style doing AI stuff. No vision, no nuances.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There is some technical skill involved in pointing the camera in the direction you want, but nothing exists until you hit the shutter, only a vague concept. The process is so detached from the artistic decision making that it is a complete outstrech to call it art. You can never have a personal style doing photography. No vision, no nuances.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes. Photography captures an instant of the real world. The photographer still has to choose the moment, perspective, composition, filters and so on, but they are very constrained (not as much as AI prompters).

The debate about the artistic involvement of photography has existed sonce the invention of the camera, it's not something new.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

The debate about the artistic involvement of photography has existed sonce the invention of the camera, it’s not something new.

That's exactly my point, when the camera was first invented people decried it for killing art, now most people consider photography to be an art. You're doing exactly the same with generative AI.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Do you mean that you were an artist who made art before AI image generation existed and you’ve incorporated it into your art, or do you mean you’re an artist because you type out what you want for the AI? Because people just paying artists to make something for them are also artists if that’s what you mean.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

I am also an artist, and I frankly think you are a shite artist if you need to steal other peoples work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

No, this is a tool that does all of the work of an artist. It is absolutely not an assistant.

That's a bad faith argument, and it's actively harmful. Artists are struggling yes, and this just makes that worse, it won't be a separate market that somehow doesn't impact them.

If you think we should actually work to make it harder for artists to do things, that it's actually good that they struggle, then you have some messed up priorities, friend.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

It doesn't really do all the work of an artist though. It generates pictures, but consider that a camera also generates pictures of things, and yet photography is considered an art form these days, and one's results from doing that can vary quite a bit between someone who understands both artistic principles and how their tools function, versus someone who does not. Having an image generator does not also entail knowing what to ask the generator for, or how to make any adjustments to it's output if it gives you something that is close to what you envision but not quite there. If anything, I personally suspect a more mature version of the technology will get integrated into art tools in some way rather than looking like it currently does, because a text prompt is a somewhat vague and inexact way to describe an image. If you ask it for a spaceship, for example, it'll give you some sort of spaceship, and if you ask it for a specific spaceship from pop culture it may likely give you that, but if you're imagining a specific design for a spaceship, with specific details, that does not already exist in existing art, it would be very hard to completely describe that just through text, versus if you could start sketching out and have it sort of act as a kind of graphical autocomplete that you can steer in given directions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Ok so it's absolutely not an assistant right? So say I'm working on a business logo and I'm having a hard time coming up with an idea to branch off of, I use an ai image gen to create a bunch of logos in a bunch of styles, I then use a couple as starting points for a design. How is that not a tool to assist an artist?

Just because you don't see it as a tool to assist an artist's doesn't mean it isn't, people will use any tool for good or evil.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

It’s not assisting you in anything. It’s doing all the work for you

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

All it means is that at art as a career is dead.

Guess we want everyone working in retail or something

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's already the system outside of creating what rich people want. An entire team of artists creating boardroom directed art is much less art to me than a single creative using AI to bring their personal vision to life.

Hopefully individual artists can do more with these tools, and we can all hope for a world where artists can be supported to have the ability and freedom to create apart from the whims of the wealthy.

Starving artist is a term for a reason. Technology has never been the real problem.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

An entire team of artists creating boardroom directed art is much less art to me than a single creative using AI to bring their personal vision to life

This is honestly repulsive to me. Needing to pay rent doesn’t mean artists stop putting effort and creativity into what they’re doing. If you’ve ever enjoyed a movie, game, or music that isn’t indie produced then you’ve seen the value in what you’re shitting on here, because regardless of how it’s marketed none of that is the vision of a single creative, either. If anything larger projects are often able to catch lightning in a bottle, as many people contribute ideas and spin things in directions that a single person wouldn’t have seen.

And at least they all started from a basic level of artistic vision and competency, and had the integrity to do their own work. If the only reason someone can call themselves an artist is because of AI, they’re not an artist, they’re a plagiarist.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't everyone want to be a creative? Turns out you gotta be able to afford it. I work for a living. If everyone worked for a living, I could afford some time and space to myself to do what I like with it. Unfortunately work supports art and people are trying to pass off their fun time as a contribution so I'm supporting them regardless. I'd rather everyone supported themselves so I can art without anyone else's input.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

I don't like this, because one of the most used arguments in favor of capitalism is supposedly the free market and how you are allowed to make money doing what you like. If now it turns out that only a few things are classified as jobs then... where are the benefits of capitalism?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Art is just fine. Credit for it is in jeopardy.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

DEEY DOOK DUR DOORBS