It’s so bizarre when people say stuff like this. There is absolutely nothing preventing the unpracticed or untalented people from any form of creative expression. What instead people who use AI seem to want is for unpracticed or untalented people to perform at the level of the practiced and talented, but this is no net gain to anyone. Why? Because only a rare subset of people who ARE practiced and talented create anything of interest or value in the first place. What this tells you is that skill or level of performance is not the barrier, but a means through which great things CAN be achieved (i.e. necessary, but not sufficient)
Flooding the world with unpolished, unpracticed works, AI-tuned to the level of being mediocre, is a creative and intellectual dead end.
> for unpracticed or untalented people to perform at the level of the practiced and talented
This is what tools are.
Cheap digital tablets have done away with the need for expensive consumables. You can just download a different brush style instead of learning a physical technique. No waiting for paint to dry or smudged pencils. The barrier to entry for painting has dropped to a one time investment of like a hundred bucks. Almost nobody mixes their own paint, nor stretches their own canvas. Those skills aren't needed anymore.
It's possible to build very precise machine parts by hand. It's very difficult and requires great skill, so nobody does that. Some do and are admired for it, but everybody else uses precise machines to make precise parts with nearly no effort.
It's just a tool. Only difference is that we had assumed art would never be automatable.
Objectively, I don't think this is a bad thing. It doesn't change the subjective value of art any more than the average cartoonist devalues the Mona Lisa. It's just a new form of art, there will always be people mixing their own paints and stretching their own canvas, just as there always has been.
It's only a problem because in our society you either have a job or you starve. No one can afford to be an artist. Those that do tend to grind out as many pieces as fast as they can so they can pay the goddamn rent. If not for that, these AI tools would be pretty cool.
I think the bizarrity arises from the following differences in beliefs:
* That "_any_ form of creative expression" is a viable creative substitute for people wanting to create in a _specific_ medium of creative expression -- especially those that had a high barrier of technical skills required to be seen as "good enough" to share.
* That a person who has an idea for art will put in the necessary time to become proficient enough to create that "good enough" art through traditional means (IMO demonstrably incorrect), and that is preferred over that person just not expressing a lower-quality version of that idea at all.
* That those who use AI primarily want or expect to "perform at the level of the practiced and talented" (i.e. top-tier art) rather than using it to produce art they otherwise couldn't have, even at low- and mid-level qualities.
* That there is no skill or talent in using AI tools to produce art (or that the skill or talent using AI tools is meant to be a full replacement for traditional artistic skills or talents).
FWIW, I'm a long-time sketch artist and acrylics painter (~20 years). There are many mediums, subjects, and styles that I'm not good at -- and I enjoy using AI to express myself in those areas (and have also liked using AI to create songs to show to my more musicially-adept wife...). But even in my own wheelhouse (landscapes and still life), I also often use AI to brainstorm composition, perspective, colors, textures, lighting, etc. It's a great tool for experts to lean on, but an even better tool for non-artists who couldn't or wouldn't otherwise share their art.
Indeed. As an amateur guitarist, but a professional virtual machinist, I have a ton of respect for people who have dedicated their whole lives to mastery in any one particular area. To have a machine gulp down untold eons of human exertion and then barf out soulless mimicry, no matter how jaw-dropping of a feat of engineering behind it, and then mint no-talent ass clowns by the million because viral videos make an awesome advertising platform--it's just some kind of dystopian peak tech, except the dystopia is mildly amusing rather than a disappointing and jarring marginalization, flippant dismissal of all of us.
Why is this the line? Where are the complaints about people using pianos to achieve rather precise notes instead of using their own voices? They are just untalented at singing and their use of any tool to create sound is of no net gain to anyone.
This person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbUE-LxhUR8 ? They're recording and playing back on a loop! They should record full repeated playings, any use of the recording is of no net gain because it could be achieved otherwise.
Songwriters? If they write lyrics and someone else sings them the result should be cast into the sea - it's of no net gain to anyone because they did not create the sounds themselves.
Composers? Frankly pointless.
> Flooding the world with unpolished, unpracticed works
I hate to break it to you but there are a vast number of terrible works of art out there already.
> What this tells you is that skill or level of performance is not the barrier, but a means through which great things CAN be achieved (i.e. necessary, but not sufficient)
If it's a necessary thing, of course it's a barrier. That there are two barriers doesn't change that.
Flooding the world with unpolished, unpracticed works, AI-tuned to the level of being mediocre, is a creative and intellectual dead end.