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pwillia7 | 2 months ago

Just normal Luddite things, which attracts those most threatened in their personal identity by the new technology.

You see it obviously with the artists and image/video generators too.

We did this with Dadaism and Impressionism and photography before this too with art.

Ultimately, it's just more abstraction that we have to get used to -- art is stuff people create with their human expression.

It is funny to see everyone argue so vehemently without any interest in the same arguments that happened in the past.

Exit through the giftshop is a good movie that explores that topic too, though with near-plagiarized mass production, not LLMs, but I guess that's pretty similar too!

https://daily.jstor.org/when-photography-was-not-art/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVXThss1z4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

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TimorousBestie|2 months ago

> Just normal Luddite things, which attracts those most threatened in their personal identity by the new technology.

I feel like “Luddite” is a misunderstood term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

> Malcolm L. Thomas argued in his 1970 history The Luddites that machine-breaking was one of the very few tactics that workers could use to increase pressure on employers, undermine lower-paid competing workers, and create solidarity among workers. "These attacks on machines did not imply any necessary hostility to machinery as such; machinery was just a conveniently exposed target against which an attack could be made." [emph. added] Historian Eric Hobsbawm has called their machine wrecking "collective bargaining by riot", which had been a tactic used in Britain since the Restoration because manufactories were scattered throughout the country, and that made it impractical to hold large-scale strikes. An agricultural variant of Luddism occurred during the widespread Swing Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England, centring on breaking threshing machines.

Luddites were closer to “class struggle by other means” than “identity politics.”

harimau777|2 months ago

I mean, luddites have consistently been correct. Technological advancements have consistently been used to benefit the rich at the expense of regular people.

The early Industrial Revolution that the original Luddites objected to resulted in horrible working conditions and a power shift from artisans to factory workers.

Dadism was a reaction to WWI where the aristocracy's greed and petty squabbling led to 17 million deaths.

pwillia7|2 months ago

I don't disagree with that, just that there's anything that can be done about it. Which technology did we successfully roll back? Nukes are the closest I think you can get and those are very hard to make and still exist in abundance, we just somewhat controlled who can have them

jennyholzer2|2 months ago

This guy's knowledge of art history is the Dada wikipedia page and the Banksy movie from 20 years ago.

Allow me to repeat myself: AI is for idiots.

pwillia7|2 months ago

Since you're a real established artist, I want to make my point more clear: I am not an artist and while AI image tools let me make fun pictures and not be reliant on artists for projects, it doesn't imbue me with the creativity to create artistic works that _move_ people or comment on our society. AI doesn't give or take that from you, and I argue that is what truly separates art and artists from doodles and doodlers.