I occasionally come across the argument that generative AI is fine on its own and that itās only the attachment to capital that makes it evil and I wholeheartedly reject that. I understand that we want to be good lefties and make everything under the sun a class issue, but no, generative AI is anti-human no matter how you cut it. Itās antisocial, and I would still hate this shit even if we lived in a utopia where everyoneās needs are being met because AI sucks.
Generative AI is vile; it turns all of human creation into a golem, something that is shaped like a human but has no soul. It presents aesthetics without any of the humanity, history, or culture attached to those aesthetics. Itās not a painting, itās content. Itās not a poem, itās content. Itās not an essay wherein someone expresses their thoughts and feelings, itās content. Itās just another thing to briefly occupy your time while scrolling. Itās nauseating and itās infected every corner of the internet. Want to do something in real life instead? Thereās a good chance youāll still be seeing rancid AI slop whether you like it or not.
Yes, the internet is being shaped by capital, but AI would still suck ass even if monetizing everyone's eyeballs 24/7 wasnāt a consideration. I have no desire to watch an AI-generated video about the Titanic, I have no desire to look at an AI version of an Edward Hopper painting where everyone has TikTok face. I have no desire to listen to an AI generated song made by a dullard who doesnāt want to learn any music theory and who thinks that typing disco + 80ās + high quality is the ultimate act of creation.
As I said, the people who like this shit are dullards and I will never apologize for judging them. Go look at any AI art space and itās basically nothing but wall-to-wall dipshits with zero vision making the same thing over and over because the end result is what the model gave them. You literally cannot tell one person's āartā apart from another and these spaces are also highly driven by bots, so itās people making robot slop interacting with robots making robot slop.
Theyāre also incapable of accepting criticism and even if they did, what would they do with it? If you offer criticism of an illustrator's work (I noticed you have a tendency to draw small hands, the head seems disproportionate, the wall and the floor are on different planes), they can take that criticism and learn from it. If you criticize an AI sloppers work thereās nothing for them to learn because they didn't draw it in the first place. It looks bad because the robot shat out something that makes no sense, theyāre not going to fix it and even if they wanted to the moment they press the generate button the pedophile computer program makes all the decisions for them.
I know this technology isnāt going anywhere but neither is cancer and we all hate cancer. We all agree cancer is bad and the world would be better without it. Generative AI is garbage for the worst people on earth and donāt let anyone convince you itās somehow redeemable. A little bit of gatekeeping is good, actually. You should have an interest in drawing if you want people to look at your drawings. You should write your novel if you want to be a writer. You should learn math if you want to be a mathematician. Iām not gonna give anyone shit if their boss is making them use AI at work but I will judge the fuck out of people who use it for their āartā because no one is holding a gun to their head and forcing them to be a lazy coward.
Art is fun, even the most derivative art made by a person is more human and interesting to me than any number of AI generated pictures, songs, videos, etc. I actually love bad art, I love watching shlock movies, and I love seeing amateur art in the wild. It brings me so much joy when I run a tabletop RPG and one of my players draws a crude sketch of their character or makes an MS Paint pic of a funny moment from our game. Who cares if it doesn't look like a renaissance painting, it's real and alive!
Iām only complaining about art here, I havenāt even touched how antisocial a technology that allows someone to generate literal CSAM videos based on photos of real life children is. Itās a vulgar, evil, putrid, cancerous, antisocial and antihuman technology and I'm gonna hate it even if it's here to stay.