That they didn’t talk about the resource consumption is part of the problem. Discussing whether the output of a genai system is ‘art’ or not is a fine philosophical debate, but ignores both the costs of creating the output, and the way the data to do so was sourced and processed.
If human ‘artists’ burned through the same amount of power, water, and other resources just to produce their art there would also be an outcry. If the raw materials that ‘art’ was created from were so blatently copied from others there would also be an outcry. Indeed, when a human is found to be copying another’s work and passing it off as their own, there is an outcry.
That they didn’t talk about the resource consumption is part of the problem.
The reply is not claiming they didn’t talk about it; it claims they’re trying to justify it. This sort of “let me assume words into your mouth” behaviour is really bad in online platforms, it’s one of the reasons why Twitter/Reddit/Facebook are such cesspools — once you open your mouth in them, there’s always some bloody muppet pointing their finger to accuse you, while assuming/lying/bullshitting about your “intentions”, what you’re “trying” to do, your beliefs, even the colours of your pants.
It’s so bad that, even if I know this is off-topic, I think it’s worth ranting about it here. We (Fediverse users in general) should be calling this out, before it roots itself here. Unless we want to walk on eggs to say what we think (even if true, moral, and relevant), out of fear others will assume shit to accuse us. Like in Twitter/Reddit/Facebook. Or we get to repeat what’s “safe” to say here, in a big circlejerk.
And it’s completely unnecessary here; the other user could’ve said instead "There’s no gray area about the resource cost and contribution to climate change being driven by gen AI though,you aren’t mentioning energy costs even if they matter" or similar and it would be perfecto.
[On-topic, genAI]
As I said the resource consumption concern is perfectly valid. I also agree with the second concern you’re raising, authorship. I’ll even raise two other concerns here:
3. Those image generators are flooding the internet with low quality content, and making it harder for people to find the good stuff.
4. They’re lowering the bar for fictitious but believable scenes, that can and are used to promote disinformation.
Whilst I agree with your point about strawman arguments in general, that isn’t really the case here. The OP explicitly said “It’s funny, and it doesn’t hurt anyone” when, in fact, it does. This appears to be their primary justification for using it, whilst ignoring the well known costs of that use. I conceed that a, very charitable, reading of their comment might be that they are simply unaware of the environmental and authorship issues and are only focused on whether their image is “funny” and not directly causing harm. However, those issues are so well known that I, and aparently other commenters, do not feel they can reasonably overlooked in any discussion about whether the use of genai can be justified in general.
The other issues you brought up are very real too and, in many ways, more insidious that the obvious ones discussed before. How we overcome those, now that the genie is out of the bottle, I don’t know.
Whilst I agree with your point about strawman arguments in general, that isn’t really the case here. The OP explicitly said “It’s funny, and it doesn’t hurt anyone” when, in fact, it does.
That they didn’t talk about the resource consumption is part of the problem. Discussing whether the output of a genai system is ‘art’ or not is a fine philosophical debate, but ignores both the costs of creating the output, and the way the data to do so was sourced and processed.
If human ‘artists’ burned through the same amount of power, water, and other resources just to produce their art there would also be an outcry. If the raw materials that ‘art’ was created from were so blatently copied from others there would also be an outcry. Indeed, when a human is found to be copying another’s work and passing it off as their own, there is an outcry.
[Off-topic, metadiscussion]
The reply is not claiming they didn’t talk about it; it claims they’re trying to justify it. This sort of “let me assume words into your mouth” behaviour is really bad in online platforms, it’s one of the reasons why Twitter/Reddit/Facebook are such cesspools — once you open your mouth in them, there’s always some bloody muppet pointing their finger to accuse you, while assuming/lying/bullshitting about your “intentions”, what you’re “trying” to do, your beliefs, even the colours of your pants.
It’s so bad that, even if I know this is off-topic, I think it’s worth ranting about it here. We (Fediverse users in general) should be calling this out, before it roots itself here. Unless we want to walk on eggs to say what we think (even if true, moral, and relevant), out of fear others will assume shit to accuse us. Like in Twitter/Reddit/Facebook. Or we get to repeat what’s “safe” to say here, in a big circlejerk.
And it’s completely unnecessary here; the other user could’ve said instead "There’s no gray area about the resource cost and contribution to climate change being driven by gen AI though, you aren’t mentioning energy costs even if they matter" or similar and it would be perfecto.
[On-topic, genAI]
As I said the resource consumption concern is perfectly valid. I also agree with the second concern you’re raising, authorship. I’ll even raise two other concerns here:
3. Those image generators are flooding the internet with low quality content, and making it harder for people to find the good stuff.
4. They’re lowering the bar for fictitious but believable scenes, that can and are used to promote disinformation.
Whilst I agree with your point about strawman arguments in general, that isn’t really the case here. The OP explicitly said “It’s funny, and it doesn’t hurt anyone” when, in fact, it does. This appears to be their primary justification for using it, whilst ignoring the well known costs of that use. I conceed that a, very charitable, reading of their comment might be that they are simply unaware of the environmental and authorship issues and are only focused on whether their image is “funny” and not directly causing harm. However, those issues are so well known that I, and aparently other commenters, do not feel they can reasonably overlooked in any discussion about whether the use of genai can be justified in general.
The other issues you brought up are very real too and, in many ways, more insidious that the obvious ones discussed before. How we overcome those, now that the genie is out of the bottle, I don’t know.
I already addressed this here.
Emphasis mine. If someone is handling things by how they “appear to be”, instead of how they “are”, then the person is simply assuming.
I don’t think the rest of your comment is worth my time replying.