we've spent decades telling young people that only STEM has value and now they can't think critically, make inferences from what they read and use chatgpt instead of their own brains. because they were told there was no value in their expression of self.
While I generally agree there isn't a rampant widespread insidious conspiracy, let's not overestimate how many the U.S. coronor system is -- this is an elected position that does not require an MD in many places youtu.be/hnoMsftQPY8?... There absolutely are coroners not attributing deaths to COVID
And I would never want to get between Ted and a trip to Cancun when there’s an emergency in Texas
When people say "We used to drink raw milk from our own cow and it was fine," That's... usually not the case! In families w their own cow, the mom usually boiled it before using. We just forgot bc that's a boring chore that mom did. And who pays attention to that? youtu.be/vKDPast9WFk
I fear Carl Quintanilla is really going to lose it on air someday (it will be wholly warranted -- how he's able to so magnanimously manage the things I've heard said to him is impressive).
I don't know guys, it seems like demonizing history and social sciences in academia from both sides (conservatives for unpleasant truths, capitalist progressives for their not being as "practical" as STEM) seems to be a pretty significant contributor to where we are today.
#JOLTS
The Schmitt speech today is beyond reprehensible, but it’s also just such a weird moment in American politics where people like Schmitt have to reconstruct an alternate history where *they* are “Heritage Americans”. Bro you are German and Catholic the founding fathers did not want you on the team
All I notice is you didn’t answer the question of why some waste is ok, and other waste isn’t, and where that line is. The idea that movie production isn’t as wasteful as AI usage isn’t defensible.
Subtweet: any discussion of rebuilding trust in academia (and various other institutions) has to start with an actual thesis about why trust has been declining & how to mitigate those forces. Without such a hypothesis, any analysis is doomed to irrelevance or to attack only symptoms, not the cause.
People are melting down at a Tribune article about CHSD 230 considering adding Arabic to its language learning electives. I wasted time in the comments, which I normally avoid doing since it's useless and awful, but it led to possibly the funniest thing anybody's ever said to me about France.
Washington's speculation about Trump's health is at a fever pitch. We've seen multiple reasons this summer to ask questions — and the media doesn't seem to care. What's really going on? www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/it-s-time-...
I had definitely forgotten about the “pneumonia”-craze, I appreciate being reminded.
Great, thought filled addition to the conversation.
Miller would be too happy to have a head of, even fake, hair to have that hat on.
The most popular response to why generative AI can't be used to create art in the same way, say, paint can was "Thats ineffable". My apologies if its confusing why that isn't persuasive and smacks of prior cases of "This guy bought the purple paint, they didn't mix it themselves, thats not art!"
PSA: LLMs are entirely deterministic, fundamentally. They are made to behave pseudo-randomly, which I encourage people to consider nefarious reasons for this. For a given input, seed & temperature, always the same output. They are not magic or fundamentally chaotic. At best, they are Plinko.
One of the things I'm interested in understanding because I don't currently get it, is the view that "novel" work generated with AI is somehow inferior artistically to other kinds of work.
I'm onboard with the "Theft is bad" argument, and more over the "free" as in freedom, not free as in beer idea. My original reply was to a post that I interpreted as claiming hand drawn or digitally drawn images were artistically better than AI generated (it seems like I misinterpreted this). 1/
, medium.com/technical-ex... is a blog post about the same question I’m raising. I’ve always found Plato’s argument against writing ridiculous, but I find most complaints about generative AI output as always bad are implicitly making the same kind of argument.
This generative AI argument about the output and its merits is different from say the arguments around comic books as art or erotica as art or as art. Im not making a new argument, I hadn’t seen this until I went looking for a good Platonic on writing link 2/
Sure, but why is someone writing out text that describes the framing, appearance, colors, style, characters, etc. in a prompt or generate an image not art, but constructing the characters out of paint daubs or shadows and waiting for a human to take a particular pose is? I just don’t see how 1/
This is not true of most of Pollock’s work. A great deal of it was done under minimally controlled splatter scenarios. If we don’t agree on this well documented fact, I think we should agree we won’t see eye to eye.
Do you apply the same renewable electrical argument to computer generated movies, cartoons & videos? What about the enormous amounts of fuel, electricity, food waste etc. that go into live action movie productions? Or the air travel that goes into photography? How do you know where the line is?
I promise, I definitely know how LLMs work, but it looks like this discussion is no longer going to be productive given the change in tenor. Happy to continue if we’re both willing to engage civilly and without making unsubstantiated claims about the other person.
This strikes me as an appeal to authority. Literally anyone’s entire Bluesky feed and posts is art (though admittedly mine and many others aren’t art).
I’d attribute particular paint splashes to Pollock.
In all cases I’m assuming there’s a human prompting the AI, as that’s what current generative AI is (either via actual human’s provided text or audio prompt, or via programmers constructing a kind of input following some particular algorithm). I’d attribute any art to the person, in the same way 1/
The human that wrote the prompt picked those words with some emotional or intellectual intent (so long as you assume other humans are not “philosophical zombies” a la plato.stanford.edu/entries/zomb...)
I guarantee to you that there are many famous photos where the photographer did not have a ton of intention for the details most noteworthy in the art. www.life.com/history/v-j-... shows photos that were taken to document, with no art intention, but many of which I would definitely call art.
I’d suggest rather than telling me to do the thing I’ve already done and accusing me of imagining things, you try to clarify yourself. If I’ve misunderstood something, please feel free to correct me.
Art is something that is intended to elicit a particular emotional, intellectual or visceral response from people by another person. I don’t think medium is a part of the definition of art.
Their fair share for their work.
They were protesting not getting their fair share in the new mechanized world. I think arguing against the machine as somehow uniquely different from other technology, when it isn’t different at all, muddies the fact that we all owe it to take care of each other and make sure folks get 3/
And techniques with crimes, and that its _very_ similar to the common misread of the luddites vs what the luddites were actually protesting. The people losing their physically demanding, poor working condition jobs with the advent of machinization weren’t protesting losing their bad jobs — 2/
Did not expect asking an earnest question about why someone advocating for not sharing AI output would lead to a famous author blocking me, but makes me wonder that maybe I don’t appreciate how much damage the contract creators are seeing. However, I do think people are conflating tools 1/
There are a lot of film appreciators who will never agree with you that creating an image with film is the same as with digital. I am one of them, so I think we’ll have to agree to not see eye to eye on this.
I totally agree, internet is overrun w/AI content that literally only exists for "engagement" and has no human purpose. As someone who creates original t-shirt designs, I'd point out they already had algorithms for stealing my stuff and selling it years ago and ppl didn't make much noise about it.
Yeah, someone can definitely use generative AI in exactly the same way as you describe Pollock working, which is why I find the “AI art is just always worse and will categorically not be art” confusing and why I asked the question I did.
We’ll have to agree to not see eye to eye then, as paint and photography being technology is a pretty fundamental belief set for me.
This I 100% agree with.
Part of my question is I’m trying to understand why artists think that it can’t be a useful tool in a similar way in art.
Either in call centers or in very unique situations (decades long open source software maintainers working on particularly difficult refactors). The legal, software & medical professions all have instances where time saving is currently realized (even given the review and correction steps) 2/
This is not true. As someone who works in a profession that makes use of generative AI, I am definitely able to get it to output what I think of before prompting for it in a shorter amount of time, and many in my profession do this. Most of the research on AI costing more time than it saves are 1/
A picture in nature to, accidentally, create a beautiful photo suitable for being considered art?
Yes, I read your last sentence and asked my question with it in mind. Isn’t your argument that there is some discrete amount of effort required for something to be art? When has effort ever been a major criteria for considering something art? Is it not possible for someone off handedly 1/
Create novel art”.
This is a single instance — and I can find human created examples of derivative (as I am sure you can think of derivative work). “AI can create rip offs” isn’t compelling to me as “AI is only derivative”, in the same way “Humans can create rip offs” doesn’t lead me to conclude “Human’s can’t 1/
I took the original response to be that AI output was inherently not art — in the context I didn’t consider the “trained on unlicensed material” — there are models trained only on free use materials — do your objections not apply to those?
Only on free use content, it’s not clear to me why that doesn’t fit your definition of art. Similar arguments were made 30 years ago about why computer generated visuals weren’t art — I suspect you wouldn’t hold that position though?
I think we’d both agree in both cases they are technology. I think people have an unfounded belief that there’s some categorical difference, and that there are lots of thought experiments that draw this out. If someone soldered the chips and built the power plant that ran an AI model they trained 1/
but I’m skeptical that generative AI can’t be a tool like scrivener or the Pixar method of refining movie stories and visuals, where its an element used to refine a human intent and ultimately novel story. I think I could be wrong, and I think you could articulate a compelling argument for why I am
I think this is a pretty good response, but its not clear to me that AI is really more wasteful than, say, an artist who is well off from an inheritance and uses their time for art rather than doing “productive” work. I generally agree with you that human involvement is key, 1/
Best essay on the subject that I've seen. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
I’d ask if you apply the same argument to Pollock’s splash paint sings, or experimental art installations that involve the observers reaction as part of the (so-called) art. Do you see these and AI generated content as the same, or different?
The AI, usually, isn’t out there generating things un-solicited. The word “prompting” is often used, which semantically entails a human intent to elicit a certain kind of response. Why isn’t this intent not he same way e.g. the photoshop filters for clouds, etc. mentioned in other replies are?
Others will make that “All art is wasteful, and people should only do STEM”. I think both this claim and yours are on similar questionable ground.
I’d love to hear your arguments for the latter ‘The work is always derivative and inferior’. I see this asserted a bunch, but rarely defended. The former are persuasive points to me, but the second one, that AI generated art is wasteful, doesn’t seem compelling to me if I consider the argument 1/
Plan to add anything useful yourself to the discussion? Or just trying to be argumentative and confrontational?
This is pure “appeal to authority”, where the authority is some nebulous, ill-defined group. I’m interested ins eyeing real arguments about why it’s not art — other replies call out the ownership and theft issues, which were not ones I interpreted from the original skeet I replied to. 1/
Human’s, fundamentally, cannot produce anything new, because everything they think is based on their lived experience. How are these two arguments different?
I don’t really understand the “it’s not art” claim. It seems to unfoundedly exclusionary.
Categorically different from say using a thesaurus, or a web search for novel research — these are all computer aids. Was Pollock not painting because he wasn’t controlling where every droplet fell? The ownership and copyright issue brought up in other replies is one I agree with, but 2/
This “I don’t want art that consists of a melange of existing content” strikes me as the same sort of criticism “genre” writing gets for being derivative. There’s a wide spectrum of tooling that makes doing things like drawing, or writing, and its not clear why you think AI generated content is 1/
That was where you were coming from. Appreciate the clarification. I wish there were more, and faster moving, parts of our justice system and legislature that were fixing the stolen work issue.
I can be totally onboard with unlicensed use of work, and the negative impact to creators who haven’t been appropriately compensated meaning the AI tools shouldn’t exist, and should be boycotted. I see a lot of people talk about how the AI is slop or bad (e.g. faulting the output), and thought
Discernment in e.g. asking for a cartoon/picture, but I am skeptical that this is such a step change compared to what’s been evolving over the past 25 years with digital photography, photoshop, etc. I can definitely recognize stuff as AI slop — but it seems to me there’s a diff btw intentional/slop
I would love to hear your argument against AI generated content, in so far as the argument isn’t just a Plato-esque “Homer had to _remember_ the Odyssey verbatim, with people writing everything down, everyone is going to get super dumb!”. I totally appreciate there is a lack of effort and 1/
The Guardian has today printed the names, and where possible, images, of all the media workers killed in Gaza, as part of an international day of action involving more than 150 media organisations. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
This was definitely a movie that fell into both categories for me 1) I didn’t particularly like watching it, 2) I remembered many parts of it fondly and as at least evocative, if not always interesting. Hard to not think that makes it a pretty great movie (especially for the past 20 years).
"chatGPT 5 is like having a bunch of phds in your pocket" here's ten trillion dollars "bluesky is having an *actual* bunch of phds in your pocket" dying platform. it disgusts me
Entitled to your opinion. But then so too are people entitled to rag your public opinion on social media!
I think American’s with above average means should aim to have an EV for normal driving and an alternative for long drives. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to give your outlook grief, if it’s coming from an environment and progress oriented viewpoint. You’re of course, as you say, 1/
I can’t stress enough how important this point that Philip makes is. The Economist is a bit of a stopped clock on this one, but their recent focus on how mind bogglingly badly the U.S. has failed to push India and China together. There were war-level tensions in 2020 between the two.
What a gang of mindless amateurs in Washington accomplished in Beijing:
If this isn’t a marketing pump for a new horror movie, there should be 20 copycats from marketing agencies next week. Someone should also pay this woman off after the fact to turn this into a horror movie.
The Daniel Craig era is a failure at every level, from soup to nuts. Craig, a terrific actor, is appalling casting as Bond, each film is a failure in a different way, and no amount of pointing at the box office will convince me otherwise.
This one drives me a little crazy, because it was no sure thing that the U.K. opposed the Third Reich rather than cozying up to them. Popular opinion was very much up for grabs, had the aristocracy and wealthy decided to go along to get along, and make it happen.
I think this might be the recurring thing that gets me the most about how discourse has gotten so dumb. Touchstones have no history, people just say things and “reality distort” the world to fit the thing they care about at the very moment. We’ve let the word become so goddamn dumb.
My wife can never understand why I need more than one laptop.
Says something that the only one with enough gumption to actually give you any money was the CCP. America really did run out of juice I guess.
New study on #BlueSky for #SciComm. “Bluesky posts demonstrate substantially higher levels of interaction (likes, reposts, replies, and quotes) and greater textual originality than previously reported for X, suggesting both stronger interactive and more interpretive engagement.” 🦋🦫🌱🐋🧪 #philsci
Nah, if the unlikely scenario does happen, the White House will look like the end of “The Hateful Eight” by the time the first outsider sees it.
This is actually an excellent sci fi short story/novella opening.
I see we've reached the point where news organs are putting out deeply harrowing, and incredibly reported, stories like this every single day, without it making even the slightest dent in ChatGPT's constant fellation by all other sections of the press.
Main, this thread does not go a way I would have guessed. All those rich immigrants buying up the housing supply you’d totally be able to afford but for aforementioned rich immigrants. That’s definitely how supply and demand works. They’re probably buying all the fresh fruit too.
The American state epitaph will be “We must hang together or hang separately”.
KING
If for no other reason than to be able to take kids hunting in the future. The NRA seems to have killed normal, healthy gun culture?
“Build a home arsenal and DEFEND YOUR PROPERTY” coded. For the rural (90%+ of the state is rural by any definition of rural) hunting ethos, I’d have expected a combined hunting & firearm training courses all over the place. Not really sure how I’m going to get started 2/
This is unrelated, but one of the interesting things I’ve found after moving somewhere rural is that there aren’t a ton of “normal seeming” gun courses. I live in one of the most traditionally gun owning states, with “ carry” nomenclature, but the only real firearm classes are pretty 1/
You’ve shown no self-awareness at how dumb and potentially hurtful some of your takes have been, and that’s made people unreasonably angry. It has nothing to do with the site or anything except your own personal actions, and the reaction of people to them.
This is absolutely amazing. From the Air Force Times, too. Read w tongue in cheek. www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/mil...
Realizing RFK jr could appear without any additional makeup in the new season of fallout and fit perfectly in.
Dem electeds want influencers in media to say stuff like "I sure do approve of the job our wonderful Dem electeds are doing" when the thing Dems need influencers to actually say is like "the shitty economy is really shit right now huh"
I blocked this person a while ago. There are a bunch of these popular accounts that are 60-80% fine, and then the just most rancid toxicity or defeatist despondence that just aren't good media/takes to be consuming.
It's so obvious that being civil to someone like RFK jr is one of our society's and culture's main problem.
This PhD holder really just gives me these vibes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a3z...
I now need Space Invaders skinned as sub guy vs ICE agents.