I think this is a new paradigm shift only just getting underway within the past decade.
In the past we used to be able to look forward to the future to solve obvious limitations of technology back then. Example is how limited and expensive it was to capture photos on rolls of film. Within the past 20 years we can now take effectively unlimited photos digitally on a device that can do much more than just take photos, and that limit has been abolished forever.
It is this forever that is starting to loom on us. Most of us can't imagine a life without Facebook, smartphones, addictive feeds and the like even if we don't directly use them. It is not possible to go back to a state of life untainted by this technology. So now a fancy new technology that promises to paint your end-products for you comes out and in the span of just a few years threatens to change the whole landscape of art that has been repeated in cycles for thousands of years, forever. It is only natural that some would loudly object.
But the same wheels driving human progress that removed the limitations of the disposable camera will not slow down at the stage of generative AI either. I don't see how this would happen given our intelligence has already gotten us far in many other domains. Progress is like a wildfire that eats up dry bushes. If enough of the medium is there it will spontaneously occur and not much can be done to prevent it. Except with technology, it is not dry timber but "what ifs." "What if art doesn't have to be defined by the journey to get there, but by a satisfying end product?" "What if a computer program could replicate the motions of a paintbrush, and create art indistinguishable from a human's?" Any one of us can come up with the next "what if."
criddell|9 months ago
t0bia_s|9 months ago
doright|9 months ago
In the past we used to be able to look forward to the future to solve obvious limitations of technology back then. Example is how limited and expensive it was to capture photos on rolls of film. Within the past 20 years we can now take effectively unlimited photos digitally on a device that can do much more than just take photos, and that limit has been abolished forever.
It is this forever that is starting to loom on us. Most of us can't imagine a life without Facebook, smartphones, addictive feeds and the like even if we don't directly use them. It is not possible to go back to a state of life untainted by this technology. So now a fancy new technology that promises to paint your end-products for you comes out and in the span of just a few years threatens to change the whole landscape of art that has been repeated in cycles for thousands of years, forever. It is only natural that some would loudly object.
But the same wheels driving human progress that removed the limitations of the disposable camera will not slow down at the stage of generative AI either. I don't see how this would happen given our intelligence has already gotten us far in many other domains. Progress is like a wildfire that eats up dry bushes. If enough of the medium is there it will spontaneously occur and not much can be done to prevent it. Except with technology, it is not dry timber but "what ifs." "What if art doesn't have to be defined by the journey to get there, but by a satisfying end product?" "What if a computer program could replicate the motions of a paintbrush, and create art indistinguishable from a human's?" Any one of us can come up with the next "what if."