[emblaegh]

I think it’s more like people want to enjoy the view without having to learn how to climb, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, even if it cheapens the experience somewhat.

[bspammer]

The cheapening of the experience is the whole point though. People are robbing themselves of the joy that can only come from putting yourself through hardship in pursuit of a goal.

It’s not a moral judgement, that’s just how humans are wired. The lows make the highs higher.

[mgfist]

What's better, seeing a beautiful view from the mountain after being driven up, or never seeing the view at all?

[eric_cc]

> People are robbing themselves of the joy that can only come from putting yourself through hardship in pursuit of a goal.

This is such an old man “I used to walk uphill both ways” take.

Not everybody has the TIME COST to pursue being an expert in art or code or whatever. But if they have an amazing idea and can now use AI to produce the idea then that is a beautiful thing!

For example: Having an idea for a cartoon used to be a dead end. It would die in your head because most people cannot stop their life and dedicate a substantial amount of time, effort, and sacrifice to produce the single cartoon idea.

[Gothmog69]

I cannot draw for the life of me. I would however like a ghibli version of my D&D character. Am I a bad person?

[scotty79]

I agree. You should hunt every bit of meat that you consume. Otherwise the experience is cheapened.

[overfeed]

What cheapens the experience is the insistence of being called a "mountaineer" when a helicopter dropped you at the peak. This goes for "AI artists" and "astronauts" on commercial launches who glom on to unearned titles whose prestige was forged by countless professionals working very hard.

[dnissley]

I think people who are using these models and trying to claim they are artists for clout are not a very large group. Have you really seen a significant number of people doing this? Otherwise it just feels like you're nutpicking

[mc3301]

Tale as old as time... today's "bakers" are nothing like the bakers of 100 years ago. With their digital temperature gauges, global recipe and ingredient sourcing, cold storage, and more advanced food science.

Today's musicians have far greater access to lessons, recording equipment, inspirational material than 100 years ago.

Mountain biking (80s single speed with no gears, suspension, etc.) versus modern e-bikes with radial tires and hydraulic brakes.

Who cares? Value your own experience as you do. The less we all think about prestige, the more it will go away.

[thih9]

Such is technological progress.

AI generated images are only an extension of what e.g. photography has experienced in the last decades. We’ve had film cameras, then digital cameras, then smartphones, each of these commoditized image creation by a then-unthinkable factor.

It’s an ongoing process, even if this leap seems especially big.

[lotyrin]

Not everyone who engages in AI-assisted creative work is patting themselves on the back and being tone deaf and denigrating people that actually have creative skill... but some certainly are. While I don't support a moral absolutism when it comes to the use of GenAI, I do support putting these idiots in their place.

[dxuh]

I'm afraid that in time people will forget that it's all about learning to climb.

[roenxi]

That thinking is time honoured and never found much traction. For example, pretty much nobody knows how to grow their own food, make their own clothes, carve their own furniture or even drive a manual car. Hordes of tourists circle the globe bringing disrepute to all sorts of time honoured monuments of history's greatest. Skills and challenges which aren't needed get forgotten and are generally not missed.

[s_dev]

"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves." - Edmund Hillary.

It's not about climbing.

[fy20]

I wonder if explorers from a few hundred years ago would say the same thing.

[creata]

It cheapens the experience a lot, but oh well, at least the experience is still there for the people who want it.

[eric_cc]

Does it though? We are all constrained by the time cost of everything we do. Not everybody with a quick creative spark cares enough to sacrifice opportunities, dedicate time, skip sleep or whatever it may take to gain the skills needed to act on the creative spark. AI empowering the output is a beautiful thing.

[alickz]

is art being cheap really such a problem?

is it a net negative to society if the average person could produce so much art that it becomes post-scarce?

[aredox]

People want to take a selfie at the top. No one is "enjoying the view" anymore - certainly not the shallow masses.

It is enshittification.

[glimshe]

Let them do it.

We have no right to tell people they have to learn to climb to get to top of the Everest.

I can't draw but I want to create my Art using AI. What I now see is a bunch of people who associate their self worth with a rare talent and don't want others to join the party. I want to resolve the issues around copyright for training, but once this is out of the way I want to draw exclusively through AI because it's the only way I can do it. And I LIKE IT.

I'm a skilled pianist. The funny thing is that I heard similar criticisms about computer music a couple decades ago. "No playing skill needed". Despite knowing how to play, I'd rather do computer music nowadays anyway. Please stop telling me what I can and can't do!

[jeffhuys]

In someone's mind, you are part of the shallow mass.

You're just not shallow in the parts of reality that you care about.

Don't feel superior for you are not.

[creata]

> enshittification

Tangentially, what does enshittification mean now? Quoting Wiktionary, at one point it meant "The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits" (coined by Doctorow), but now people seem to use it to mean... things becoming shit?