It's comforting to me that the younger generation refers to AI art as "Boomer Art." I would've thought they would be the biggest cheerleaders of this trend since they grew up in a totally digital world with AI assistants everywhere and might be more open to this kind of thing.
I think it's because they are seeing social platforms flooded with it. On Facebook, the platform is swamped with it, and it's boomers who engage with it. So they've taken those signals and said get me the fuck out.
Yeah there's so many videos on TikTok just mocking Boomer reactions to GenAI images on Facebook. I think it's just seen as cringe by younger generations because of this which is nice.
Personally I think people who are trying to stamp out AI are wasting their time. The genie is out of the bottle and we should pivot accordingly. Most of the damage isn't being done to pure artists but more to commercial creatives like copywriters. We now have platforms like Substack and social media outlets that make it easier than ever to earn a living from your art. I'm not saying it's easy or fair. I'm just saying this is the arena and that's the game you now have to fight.
That's part of it for sure. But you certainly can fight against it, or chose to support creators/media that uses it or doesn't. The bigger point is developing it in a way that's net-gain for humanity, and not just to fatten the pockets of Mr Altman.
An insightful perspective and I agree, especially with this:
“They don't care what it means to be creative …. They care about getting more and more people to use their products — and become dependent on using those products — ….they care that you use their technology more than anyone else's.”
Herein perhaps lies the “new” plan, considering how poorly GenAI creates anything very useful: turn it into an entertainment machine and let people stare at it like Reddit/TikTok/YouTube zombies already do.
The psychology is clear: people will give 15 seconds to anything and the algorithm will keep your dopamine flowing and suddenly you’ve been on the feed for hours. And the promise of something great becomes just another jukebox. Like the book of the same title, we’re using all this high tech to simply amuse and “entertain ourselves to death.”
Look at what happened to the iPhone. A massively sophisticated platform in small form factor used mostly to watch movies (on movie-worse screens) and scroll social media. Tim Cook and pals have destroyed the tech in exchange for subscriptions.
GenAI is such a dud that the only option open to it is entertainment. Maybe its infinite optionality will displace a current platform but doesn’t HAVE to be good - TikTok proves that with its massive volume of absolute trash yet incredible time-on-platform.
(PS: Replace AI with Substack in your piece and you can see a big danger parallel with this platform’s current trajectory too… but I digress.)
So, perhaps there is a play for Altman et al: just create another attention casino and cash in on the fact that GenAI isn’t trying to create a creator’s market. It’s responding to the cultural phenomenon that nobody wants to pay for one when they’re happy to have something mediocre, sponsored by potato chip ads.
Matthew, you should turn this comment into a post! "The psychology is clear: people will give 15 seconds to anything and the algorithm will keep your dopamine flowing and suddenly you’ve been on the feed for hours." - what a crushingly true statement.
I think your last point nails it. All the tools they're creating point it to being less "world changing" and more just "hey, you make some stuff with this." Perhaps by choice, or as you say, responding to what's happening. I think they're realizing also that the route to profitabilty looks almost impossible - so the aim is to become "too big to fail" and get your tentacles into everything and anything as fast as possible.
Well put argument. I'm with the human Created content and PauseAI goals. As a Computer Scientist, I don't like the new hope and prayer imprecise computing - and non creativity.
Instead of company blogs using stock photos, we'll now have...company blogs using badly generated images that MIMIC stock photos?
If it takes just as long to fix your first draft as to create a good final version from scratch (which all AI tools do right now compared to seasoned professionals), then why bother?
The only interesting scenario I've found is to generate images for which no stock photos exist. If you have a very specific picture you want to paint (haha), then that could be helpful. The problem? Of course it's not good enough to do that either.
Here's hoping something useful will come out of all this hype one day. Until then, I'll just keep reading Trend Mill. 😎
“The anti-LLM stance is gaining momentum, with more and more creators, media sites and brands adopting a zero-use approach or branding themselves as human-first.”
What saddens me the most is that we're seeing companies like Google go back on their carbon neutral ambitions because of AI and this is what we're using AI for?
So we are taking away money we would have paid an artist which would contribute positively to our economy and life to use a "free" AI solution that's consuming crazy resources to produce below average art. It's worrying 😢
Artificial intelligence is not a natural phenomenon; it doesn't spontaneously emerge and become dangerous. It is designed and built by its creators. As more questions arise, various regulations will gradually improve.
The last few bits of your article got me thinking: AI might become just another partisan divider of do you support AI or are you against AI? Sort of daunting and I had never considered that until now.
So far, I don’t believe AI has caught on to every day life, but I feel it still had a LONG way to go to make it feasible for every day life.
Just imagine the creative boom we might have if all those VC dollars that have been poured into AI were given to creatives as grants instead. It would overshadow the renaissance.
That’s an interesting thought. Even if those grants lead to nothing — at least it wouldn’t have produced the factory line of grifters we’ve got right now
I sometimes wonder what might have happened if artists had been brought in from the very start (and by 'very start' I mean: before they started scraping all the data). If society and creative humans had been a core part of the process - THE core part - what and where would we have ended up?
While they pretend the tools are democratising, and let anyone do art, none of that really makes sense in the context of mass copyright theft and deliberately antagonising the creative community and industries. As in, there's no reason to have done it that way unless your motivations from the start are all upside-down and deeply unhealthy.
It's interesting how they've rapidly developed such a foul taste in their products for so many people who are paying attention to it; while the vast majority of people simply are not interested and don't care.
That's a very interesting point. I think OpenAI will have had lots of people who had these values in mind - but the moment VC money and "global domination" find their way onto the agenda, these values get pushed out. Evident in Sam Altman basically removing the safety-first non-profit supporting board.
It's comforting to me that the younger generation refers to AI art as "Boomer Art." I would've thought they would be the biggest cheerleaders of this trend since they grew up in a totally digital world with AI assistants everywhere and might be more open to this kind of thing.
I think it's because they are seeing social platforms flooded with it. On Facebook, the platform is swamped with it, and it's boomers who engage with it. So they've taken those signals and said get me the fuck out.
Yeah there's so many videos on TikTok just mocking Boomer reactions to GenAI images on Facebook. I think it's just seen as cringe by younger generations because of this which is nice.
The problem isn't with the concept or technology of AI; the problem is the people behind it.
They are waging aggressive war against human art and culture, + must face war in return.
Negotiations with people who don't recognize rules are pointless; and it's useless to erect fences against pests already eating your crops.
Mine the roads; send up drones, get out the NLAWS and Stingers.
Join us in PauseAI, imo its the only way we have a chance
Personally I think people who are trying to stamp out AI are wasting their time. The genie is out of the bottle and we should pivot accordingly. Most of the damage isn't being done to pure artists but more to commercial creatives like copywriters. We now have platforms like Substack and social media outlets that make it easier than ever to earn a living from your art. I'm not saying it's easy or fair. I'm just saying this is the arena and that's the game you now have to fight.
That's part of it for sure. But you certainly can fight against it, or chose to support creators/media that uses it or doesn't. The bigger point is developing it in a way that's net-gain for humanity, and not just to fatten the pockets of Mr Altman.
An insightful perspective and I agree, especially with this:
“They don't care what it means to be creative …. They care about getting more and more people to use their products — and become dependent on using those products — ….they care that you use their technology more than anyone else's.”
Herein perhaps lies the “new” plan, considering how poorly GenAI creates anything very useful: turn it into an entertainment machine and let people stare at it like Reddit/TikTok/YouTube zombies already do.
The psychology is clear: people will give 15 seconds to anything and the algorithm will keep your dopamine flowing and suddenly you’ve been on the feed for hours. And the promise of something great becomes just another jukebox. Like the book of the same title, we’re using all this high tech to simply amuse and “entertain ourselves to death.”
Look at what happened to the iPhone. A massively sophisticated platform in small form factor used mostly to watch movies (on movie-worse screens) and scroll social media. Tim Cook and pals have destroyed the tech in exchange for subscriptions.
GenAI is such a dud that the only option open to it is entertainment. Maybe its infinite optionality will displace a current platform but doesn’t HAVE to be good - TikTok proves that with its massive volume of absolute trash yet incredible time-on-platform.
(PS: Replace AI with Substack in your piece and you can see a big danger parallel with this platform’s current trajectory too… but I digress.)
So, perhaps there is a play for Altman et al: just create another attention casino and cash in on the fact that GenAI isn’t trying to create a creator’s market. It’s responding to the cultural phenomenon that nobody wants to pay for one when they’re happy to have something mediocre, sponsored by potato chip ads.
🤷🏻♂️
Matthew, you should turn this comment into a post! "The psychology is clear: people will give 15 seconds to anything and the algorithm will keep your dopamine flowing and suddenly you’ve been on the feed for hours." - what a crushingly true statement.
I think your last point nails it. All the tools they're creating point it to being less "world changing" and more just "hey, you make some stuff with this." Perhaps by choice, or as you say, responding to what's happening. I think they're realizing also that the route to profitabilty looks almost impossible - so the aim is to become "too big to fail" and get your tentacles into everything and anything as fast as possible.
Well put argument. I'm with the human Created content and PauseAI goals. As a Computer Scientist, I don't like the new hope and prayer imprecise computing - and non creativity.
Thanks.
AI is to creativity what a microwave is to food.
Instead of company blogs using stock photos, we'll now have...company blogs using badly generated images that MIMIC stock photos?
If it takes just as long to fix your first draft as to create a good final version from scratch (which all AI tools do right now compared to seasoned professionals), then why bother?
The only interesting scenario I've found is to generate images for which no stock photos exist. If you have a very specific picture you want to paint (haha), then that could be helpful. The problem? Of course it's not good enough to do that either.
Here's hoping something useful will come out of all this hype one day. Until then, I'll just keep reading Trend Mill. 😎
Yup, basically it. What we had before, but even worse. But hey! It's cheaper. So that's... something.
“The anti-LLM stance is gaining momentum, with more and more creators, media sites and brands adopting a zero-use approach or branding themselves as human-first.”
Count me among them.
What saddens me the most is that we're seeing companies like Google go back on their carbon neutral ambitions because of AI and this is what we're using AI for?
So we are taking away money we would have paid an artist which would contribute positively to our economy and life to use a "free" AI solution that's consuming crazy resources to produce below average art. It's worrying 😢
Great point. Yet another corpo giant happy to plunder the planet's finite resources to bump that stock graph up a point higher. Depressing as hell.
Artificial intelligence is not a natural phenomenon; it doesn't spontaneously emerge and become dangerous. It is designed and built by its creators. As more questions arise, various regulations will gradually improve.
The last few bits of your article got me thinking: AI might become just another partisan divider of do you support AI or are you against AI? Sort of daunting and I had never considered that until now.
So far, I don’t believe AI has caught on to every day life, but I feel it still had a LONG way to go to make it feasible for every day life.
Agree with Sarah. You really are good.
All the feedback from an even better writer (I mean you)
Just imagine the creative boom we might have if all those VC dollars that have been poured into AI were given to creatives as grants instead. It would overshadow the renaissance.
That’s an interesting thought. Even if those grants lead to nothing — at least it wouldn’t have produced the factory line of grifters we’ve got right now
I sometimes wonder what might have happened if artists had been brought in from the very start (and by 'very start' I mean: before they started scraping all the data). If society and creative humans had been a core part of the process - THE core part - what and where would we have ended up?
While they pretend the tools are democratising, and let anyone do art, none of that really makes sense in the context of mass copyright theft and deliberately antagonising the creative community and industries. As in, there's no reason to have done it that way unless your motivations from the start are all upside-down and deeply unhealthy.
It's interesting how they've rapidly developed such a foul taste in their products for so many people who are paying attention to it; while the vast majority of people simply are not interested and don't care.
That's a very interesting point. I think OpenAI will have had lots of people who had these values in mind - but the moment VC money and "global domination" find their way onto the agenda, these values get pushed out. Evident in Sam Altman basically removing the safety-first non-profit supporting board.
Yeah, sigh. We’re in the Amway-period of AI right now. Can I draw you a diagram of how investing in my LLM can really benefit you?
Can anyone name ONE DAMNED THING Sam Altman has actually accomplished besides getting disgustingly wealthy without actually creating anything?
Well said. To be more creative is to be more human.
My latest post tests the ability of AI writing: https://open.substack.com/pub/geniusauthoring/p/i-tested-the-writing-ability-of-ai?r=2675rr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true