I am not arguing that everyone should use gen AI over artists. I am just responding to the previous comment that is complaining about climate effects of AI.
I am just saying that I think the climate impact of generative AI is way less then the impact of artist creating the same thing.
Also, the datacenters are usually built in place where the water usage doesn’t matter (and they usually recycle their water in coolong loops), so the climate impacts are often overblown.
Art is self-expression. And I don’t think we (people in general) should be encouraged to be more productive; instead we should be encouraged to express ourselves more and to lead more fulfilling lives.
AI image generation could have a role on this, but in the current state of the things, it won’t — because it’s controlled by megacorpos obsessed with bigger models, stronger models, models that fry the planet faster. For that, they encourage you to replace self-expression with model output, instead of using the model output for self-expression.
(In another timeline things happened in a different way. Those models were trained to be tiny, fast, and consume only a tiny fraction of the energy they do. They’d be weaker, specialised tools you’d plug into GIMP or Krita or whatever: to replace backgrounds, to remove watermarks, stuff like this. But in that timeline people would rather look at what benefits other people the most, instead of trying to screw the others for their own benefit.)
I agree with you, but humans often create images / videos / texts / musics / … that are not artistic. For example logos, ads, sketches or schemas. Those are purely business things where being more productive is beneficial for everyone.
Thing is though, artists are people.
I am not arguing that everyone should use gen AI over artists. I am just responding to the previous comment that is complaining about climate effects of AI. I am just saying that I think the climate impact of generative AI is way less then the impact of artist creating the same thing. Also, the datacenters are usually built in place where the water usage doesn’t matter (and they usually recycle their water in coolong loops), so the climate impacts are often overblown.
They can do something more productive.
Art is self-expression. And I don’t think we (people in general) should be encouraged to be more productive; instead we should be encouraged to express ourselves more and to lead more fulfilling lives.
AI image generation could have a role on this, but in the current state of the things, it won’t — because it’s controlled by megacorpos obsessed with bigger models, stronger models, models that fry the planet faster. For that, they encourage you to replace self-expression with model output, instead of using the model output for self-expression.
(In another timeline things happened in a different way. Those models were trained to be tiny, fast, and consume only a tiny fraction of the energy they do. They’d be weaker, specialised tools you’d plug into GIMP or Krita or whatever: to replace backgrounds, to remove watermarks, stuff like this. But in that timeline people would rather look at what benefits other people the most, instead of trying to screw the others for their own benefit.)
I agree with you, but humans often create images / videos / texts / musics / … that are not artistic. For example logos, ads, sketches or schemas. Those are purely business things where being more productive is beneficial for everyone.
…I’d argue this sort of marketing is actually harmful to society. But I get what you mean.
Even then, AI generators are poorly suited for this. Here’s an example of that; McDonald’s made some slopvertisement, and people got mad.
Way to be a boring, naïve utilitarian.