There is something about an item that is made by someone who cares about the process of making it, who loves to create purely for the sake of creation, that is special.

2 things:

1. Most artists do what you are saying. 99% of human art is a recycling of other human art. But without that 1% that is new and creative, there would be nothing for the others to copy, and we would still be looking at stick drawings on cave walls.

2. Human art, even when purely derived from other works, is put together in a particular way to communicate a message. Sometimes that message is “This looks nice”, but there’s always a message. AI art is not CREATED with a message. It is chosen with a message, usually through iterations of prompts and repeated requests, but the act of creation is separated from the message. Which is not necessarily a bad thing; this allows people who can’t create the ability to communicate in this media. It is, however, a noticeable difference between unassisted art and AI art.

Did you enjoy your morning coffee? How about that glass of wine at Christmas dinner? The nice crochet blanket you got from your grandmum? The nice phone you probably used to make this comment?

These are all ‘luxuries’ by the definition of ‘something you don’t need by makes life better anyway’. By any definition , the wine and the nice coffee would be luxury items.

Thinking that luxuries are only for the “narcissists with superiority complexes’ is some seriously weird classist bullshit. Nobody needs luxuries to survive, but everyone deserves some luxuries in their lives, and honestly? Luxury is what makes life better. Not ‘worth it’, but better.

AI art as it currently exists is not what you are describing.

Will AI be able to create art on a level of communication? Eventually, yes. But that’s not what we have now: that is a post AGI goal.

It cannot surpass human art until it has the ability to do more than synthesize human art. I’m not saying that an AI doing so is impossible, just that the technique we currently use does nothing more than synthesize human work.

Luxury is sometimes artificial: diamonds, lobster, fashion… all are luxury because we decided to make them so.

Scarcity drives demand. When something is hard to get, (lobster is a good example, as it is not easy to transport and near impossible to farm away from the ocean) it becomes more desirable by the nature of its’ scarcity.

When a pretty image can be made by anyone at a computer with a few keystrokes, the value of ‘pretty’ goes down, while the value of ‘evocative’ or ‘communicative’ goes up… and these are things that, while a human can create in art almost instinctively, can only be made by AI art when a human spends significant time poring through the results and selecting high value images.

This may be the first example of “post scarcity” that we as humans have to deal with, and figuring out how to do that is going to be a good roadmap for the future… or we can watch just how badly we screw it up.

You need art to WANT to live. You can’t survive without water, but you can survive without beauty.

I agree though; art is more valuable than just “pretty pictures”, which is why AI art sometimes just… doesn’t really fit.

The one thing I _like_ about AI art is that it separates the "product" art from the "expression" art. Art should be communication, but sometimes we just want/need art to look pretty... and that's where AI art can fit.

The biggest issue with Ai art is this attitude that artists have no value other than 'drawing pretty pictures'.

This conceit that programmers/engineers/computer scientists have the ability to bring value to the world while artist/artisans/makers are silly hobbyists that should just stop trying to make money is shortsighted and weak.

Training a single AI for a particular process (which is required before you can even start producing images) releases 250,000 pounds of CO2. Then producing each image requires a significant amount of data processing. AI art has a similar carbon footprint to crypto, but it is more front-loaded (the costs are earlier in the process, rather than later like crypto).

I'm not saying fast fashion is fine. I'm saying there's a lot of environmental costs to AI art that are not even acknowledged by proponents of it.

Also, Art, when done by people, is usually done to express an emotional message. It is done because NOT doing it feels wrong.

I have written many stories, some even to the size of novels, not for the recognition, and certainly not for the money… but because NOT writing the story felt wrong. I had something to say, and the best way to do it was through writing.

Good art, REAL art, is communication: you feel something that the artist is drawing out of you. It’s one of the reasons AI art falls flat a lot of the time: the feeling is there, but it’s drawn from so many sources and synthesized from so many things that it is random. Like pulling words from the dictionary because they sound good together and putting them in a song, it’s nice and pretty and meaningless.

That doesn’t mean that AI art doesn’t have a place in our world. AI art is great for making things pretty, for adding illustrations to the words you can write, for creating images to match descriptions… But there will always be a need for art that communicates emotion, and that is a need that AI art cannot fulfil on its own.

Have you ever experienced the maker culture? People learning to forge steel in their backyards, making tools and trinkets and toys, by hand and with techniques requiring years of practice, for no reason other than to say they can. Because sometimes the act of making a thing is what is worth doing, no matter the value of the thing you make.

Bread, rice, houses, shoes… none of these are really “something you can live without”.

Croissants, wild risotto, mansions, air Jordan’s… these are all items you really never NEED.

Imho, that’s the difference.

The same really applies to AI art, but you don’t say that too loudly in this sub.

It’s like any other luxury item: some think it is everything you could ever want, while others think it’s fish eggs and fried snails.

Luxury items are valuable because someone wants them. That’s it.

Do you NEED art to live? No.

Is live better with art in it? Yes.

Ergo, art is a luxury item.

Is there a difference between a handmade leather jacket and a factory made coat? Or a difference between a bottle of 12 year scotch and a random bottle of Johnny Walker?

If you don’t notice a difference, then to you there IS no difference. And I would honestly say that to that person, they shouldn’t bother getting the ‘premium’ item. (I can’t tell the difference between Johnny Walker and good scotch, for instance…)

But if you DO notice a difference, then it might be worth the extra to you. Because it’s luxury. That’s what luxury is; a bit better, a bit nicer, for a bigger pricetag.

AI art will, for the foreseeable future, be derived from human art and be a synthesis of artwork that is already in existence. That’s not a bad thing! It puts random art in the hands of the people, much like mass production has done for other luxury goods. But it also means that art for arts sake (art that is done by artists to make a statement, to communicate emotion, to FEEL) will become a luxury item even more so than it is now.

Why should they not say they’re autistic? I’m just curious about the logic there. Personally I don’t share it unless it comes up, but I don’t hide it either.

I am an autistic person with autistic kids. Unfortunately? I HAVE to teach them to mask. Survival skills, my friend.

I love the people they are and the people they will become, but I know they will have to live in a world that views the way they are as disabled, and they will have to function within that world.

It’s the “risk vs reward” analysis. Do you want a treatment that MIGHT cure SOME autistic people, or do you want treatments that have proven results helping (but not curing) most autistic people?

The idea that autism needs a cure is kinda shit, too. The deficiencies that are part and parcel of autism for most of us could easily be treated without making it about curing the underlying autism.

It is like someone saying they have a cure for transgenderism; there’s a lot of issues that make being trans a terrible experience, and a lot of them are internal to the person experiencing it. But it’s a valid way to human, and treatment for transgender individuals is dealing with the issues, not trying to cure the transgenderism.

Oh, sorry, I know. That was more a “coles notes” version than a “here’s what you need to see” version.

I completely agree with you and think you have a firm understanding of the topic.

Here’s the point: if a biological system can replace the individual biological parts (cells) with new biological replacements and it’s the same person, why would it be different if we replaced the biological parts with more durable non-biological ones?

Getting them to mimic the originals well enough AND be more durable would be the hard part.

Lol I italicized the “I” to emphasize it, and proved my point… lol

I mean, to be fair, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t pass the Turing test. I’m not sure about the rest of y’all, either.