I once again point everyone to Wyatt Koch and his “discotecha” shirts.
Agreed. I do not agree with all of his ideas, but I do not think he is necessarily wrong either on a lot of the points.
Does he come off as blunt? Maybe. But not bad faith.
I would actually be pretty happy if AI could replace CEOs
about 70% of their job could already be done better by an AI
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They hate us all.
I disagree. There’s a difference between being blunt and participating in a discussion with the intent to primarily belittle & slander other people. If you participate in a discussion about AI generators and people discussing its impacts on arts and visual artists with:
- Insinuating that visual arts isn’t an actual/proper profession
- Belittling people’s interest in discussing the issues of the current AI image generators
- Assuming that because people don’t make a fuss about something not at all related to WoW and roleplaying, it’s ironic that people are interested in discussing the issues of something that that ties to WoW and roleplaying
- Without providing any examples claiming that these threads are rife with elitism, and that the elitism of the Bohemian-escue mentality of modern “artists” is an insult to actual working class people, even though most people here are vocal about raising awareness about ill business practices that exploit primarily working class people
- Having the POV that modern artists are entitled, slandering the “art community” as filthy, toxic, cutthroat sabotaging and backstabbing. This may be their personal experience, but it’s a very hostile sweeping statement against a large group of people.
It paints a rather hostile picture of one’s intentions about involving themselves in the discussion.
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While I again don’t want to presume anything about people, this is “whataboutism” and extremely common as a sort of weaponized tool among certain political crowds. Counter every discussion with “But this thing?!” and get aggressive to derail discussions.
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It does feel as though he’s come into the thread in order to attack a caricature of artists that he’s either created or adopted from elsewhere, rather than meaningfully engage with what people have actually said here. That feels like the very definition of acting in bad faith.
Like you said, the intention is to belittle and villify.
He’s already made it clear that he’s not right-wing and we’ve no reason to disbelieve that. However, there is a subsect of the left that thinks that by making social issues (queer topics and, in this case, the arts I guess) a core tenet of our political beliefs, we’re ignoring the ‘real’ issues (the plight of the working class).
Naturally, this completely forgets about or ignores intersectionality. Class is inherently tied to other forms of discrimination - racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia. You name it and there’s massive overlap with these and class.
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It does rather come across the same way as someone in a previous thread going along the lines of lmao Twitter “artists” crying , as if they had a narrow target group that they’re actually referring to. Whether it’s the same poster or not, I can’t remember.
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Maybe AI Jeffery Bezos will give it’s workers more than just a ten minute break in the mental well being cubicle.
Or it’ll commit fully to a matrix-esque idea of human batteries. Either way it’s probably an improvement.
They did say that they’ve made similar posts in previous threads on the topic, so it’s very plausible.
I don’t think we are talking about the same post.
This was his initial post on the topic:
I don’t find how this post comes off as inflammatory.
“Profession” very accurately points out that art to most is not a profession or a way of making a living, it is a hobby or a mix of both. I know plenty of musicians myself and yet none of them practise it as a trade. There are plenty of people that do however.
He is also right that technology is challenging it, just as it did many other professions or hobbies before.
What I don’t really agree with in that post and the ones since is the notion that art is a monopoly (by monopoly I assume the people with the ability to do arts at a passable+ and beyond level???) is not accurate. You could use the same argument to say that craftsmen or athletes are a monopoly, culturally or otherwise.
Also because these cultures and peoplle aren’t a single unified entity. Oligopolistic would be a fsr more fitting term if you could somehow prove that all artists are in league with one another to fix prices for their benefit above where supply and demand meet.
Which concludes his post very well too. People will always choose the path of least resistance, love it or hate it, convenience is king.
Where would you say the inflammatory part comes up? Because I can’t see it.
As for anything else I have not had a chance to read them yet.
Specifically by this, I’d say personally. While there are musicians, artists or writers etc who might not make money of it or only see it as a hobby, there are also quite alot of people who do. It is their livelihood, it is their career, and their profession.
Putting it in quotation marks without any explanation or further deep-dive makes it read as rather dismissive, that it’s not a real job and therefore not important.
The other thing I’d say is inflammatory is the whole bit about Cultural Monopoly, because that is…it’s not a thing? It’s a deliberately inflammatory hype-comment made to make it seem like there is a greater, insidious agenda. And his own explanation of what it means is not something I buy at all or agree with.
Third bit is the “More news at 9.” comment as it is also fairly inflammatory as it very casually dismisses people’s actual annoyances or concern on this topic with a sort of “Duh, it’s obvious.”
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In my post, the points refer largely to the following statements.
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Just read some more.
I don’t think it has anything to do with arts- But I do keep feeling that there is some familiariaty in what you are describing.
Your post seems more like a comparison of Labour party pre-and-post Tony Blaire. Where the people that currently run and have ran it have no resemblance or roots or connections to the working class, if anything they are utterly opposed.
But again I don’t know what does that have anything to do with artists- Most artists I speak to (aside from Acrona and Shuang) have proudly wanted to distance them from the monetary aspect of their work, treating it more like their passion than a profession. That’s the picture I have of most Artistic types anyway.
I will answer in a separate post to Acrona.
Yeah and it’s fine even if we disagree with our interpretation, as I know you and I aren’t attacking each other over it. I think that’s the thing for me - rather than arguing about the points made in the thread using examples and elaborating their POV, it comes across as if they’re attacking a certain group of people.
I look at these remarks from the POV of having interacted with hundreds of creatives for whom visual arts is a career or plays otherwise a big part of their income, and feeling that there’s a mismatch between the person’s remarks and what’s actually been discussed in the thread and what people are rooting for or against.
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Since the topic has touched/theorized upon the indirect implications of my stances and beliefs, claims of dog-whistles and nefarious intents (I’ve said my piece regarding the art topic) I’ll describe briefly/plainly, as I’ve done partially before (Whatever people take away from it is in the end their choice and action);
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Socially/Culturally hard-right, traditional Catholic
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Economically far-left, working-class populist
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State absolutist (the polar opposite of any libertarian tech bro out there as was implied prior)
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Nordic/Scandinavian
There’s no secret agenda or attempt to dog-whistle with my previous posts and stances. I am quite honest/open about my intentions and beliefs. I don’t alt post (My pets are structured to easily link my alts, I listed my previous personas I’ve posted under earlier)
Whether people agree or disagree with my stances on the AI art is all good. I however don’t feel the need for vague-posting and backhanded theorizing about intent, beliefs etc. It’s not that deep.
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Wew I was almost spot on but it’s worse. Since the artistic community is typically (very) socially progressive, it’s all tying together.
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As said I didn’t read it like that. I read it more like the way I described it. Whether there is contempt or not toward artists(*), I don’t know.
*whoever they are.
Well, it is obvious. Everyone, regardless of which side you stand on the argument, understands why people do it.
It comes off as blunt but not inflammatory to me.
Already answered to these points above in my previous message, though I do not really understand what does being bohemian have to do with whether your labour is valuable or not. Apple for example produces objectively inferior products these days, but they are valued higher than all their competitors.
Consumers decide the value, not the provider. Art and manual labour alike.
It depends:
If the AI is self-learning and doesn’t steal data from others, then yeah, as Emberblast pointed out, it is entitlement.
If on the other hand it steals from others and thw redistributes it that is sus to me. Legal or not.
And as for pseudo workerists etc, true, they are among us. Usual dreamland nonsense.
I get some of your resentment. I find this kind of attitude relatable when it comes down to a lot of (90%) modern/postmodern art and performance.
Most of it is utter garbage and I will refuse to put someone throwing a bucket of paint over a canvas and then smearing banana peel over it as being the new da vinci, when compared to, you know, actual pieces of art like tye paintings in louvre, statues of michelangelo etc.
But I don’t think a lot of those people are present on this thread. Most of them are digital artists, which are a different type.
I hate this insistence of categorizing people into lockers and then picking apart their person like they are defined by their opinioms and traits, rather than being a sum of all of them.
Case and point above my post and a quote is spent on analyzing the person rather than any of their arguments.
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Yeah there’s a reason why I ate a week’s ban for insulting them recently. This isn’t the thread for me to further air my grievances, but I think it’s absolutely tragic to see this person go from somebody I would happily call a friend to someone who both treats every topic with sheer indifference while maintaining a “holier-than-thou” mentality.
Political allignments rarely indicate if a person is kind or cruel, dumb or smart, and certainly don’t indicate right or wrong. It’s the reasons the person leans towards those alignments that can indicate that IMO.
But of course that can’t be the case, nuance can’t be had. There’s only the Good Party (mine) and the Bad Party (yours).
Lame. Boring. Your political allignments aren’t a sports team to cheer on.
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