Players Cancel System Shock Remake Pre-Orders Over AI-Generated Art Controversy - by theabyss
Nameless Voice on 14/5/2023 at 10:57
The question of AI-generated art is just the latest step in the larger question of how we as a society deal with automation in general.
In theory, automation is supposed to allow us to free ourselves of drudgery, to have to work less and have more free time.
But, in practice, it almost never works like that. Instead, it just ends up consolidating more money into fewer hands. The people who used to do the task no longer have jobs, and instead there's a smaller number of higher-paid people who maintain the automation.
Any saving of work is instead translated into growth and profit for corporations, and the people who no longer have jobs have worse quality of life as a result.
Unfortunately, most people don't get to do art for art's sake, they need to also do it to make money, because that's the nature of the society we live in.
heywood on 15/5/2023 at 17:11
I didn't expect a lot of people to agree with me, at least not now. It will get debated over the next few years and we'll see where we end up.
There's one point I don't get though. We teach art to people using artwork from actual artists. Why wouldn't we use the same material to train an art program? As with people, I think we should judge AI based on the quality and originality of its output, not its training pedigree. If all it can do is copy and composite, it's not going to be useful for producing publishable works.
Regarding the bigger picture, automation doesn't create long term unemployment. It creates short term structural unemployment. I don't think we've ever had a technology revolution that resulted in less jobs or lower standard of living overall.
Nameless Voice on 16/5/2023 at 18:52
It's not really the same, though. Human brains are fuzzy and (most of them) can't perfectly reproduce anything. They just take inspiration, they don't directly copy.
AI is more like if someone learns art by saving lots of other peoples' images and then makes new art by only copy-and-pasting pieces from their library.
The original artists likely won't be happy about their artwork being used that way without their permission.
heywood on 16/5/2023 at 21:57
Humans can cut and paste, and do it on occasion. And have you ever seen an AI art program spit out a perfect reproduction of another artwork? I haven't. I think that's a red herring. If somebody copied my work and published it as their own, I wouldn't be happy regardless of whether a person did it or a program did it or how exact the copy is. As artists start using AI programs to create paid works, they have to accept the risk that the AI might get them into copyright or trademark trouble if it spits out a wholesale copy of something and the artist doesn't catch it. There's probably going to be a few high profile accusations and cases, but I'm not worried about it because software that gets people in trouble isn't going to succeed in the market.
I'm excited about what AI can potentially bring to the table in gaming. So far, one excellent application we've seen is the generation of 3D models from satellite imagery for Flight Simulator. Another good application we've seen is upscaling. A few more obvious uses which are already in the pipe somewhere or imminent are text content generation such as dialogue and lore, voice acting, and art/texture generation. Given time they will be able to handle animation - the example videos being circulated now show there's still some work to do. I also expect AI will make its way into the tools for improving "automagic" things like lip syncing, merging intersecting geometries, aligning textures, and detecting problems. And once integrated into the level design tools, it won't take long before AI programs will be able to flesh out visual details in geometry and texture given some inputs about style or example to follow, because that's a straightforward extension of what they do now.
Thinking longer term, another part of the industry where AI could automate a lot of the work is play testing.
SD on 30/5/2023 at 15:29
Quote Posted by heywood
The vast majority of human artists are derivative and rely just as much on existing artwork for ideas and inspiration.
Correct. They're just sore that an algorithm is pumping out better stuff than they are.
theabyss on 1/6/2023 at 14:04
Quote Posted by SD
Correct. They're just sore that an algorithm is pumping out better stuff than they are.
It's one thing to be sore, yet another to lose your livelihood because companies and clients now choose to go the "get art and illustrations for free" route. There are many stories on reddit now about people having lost many of their customers because of this. Eventually, it will all sort itself out I guess, but to just embrace it without looking at the down side is a bit naïve I think.
SD on 1/6/2023 at 15:19
Quote Posted by theabyss
It's one thing to be sore, yet another to lose your livelihood because companies and clients now choose to go the "get art and illustrations for free" route. There are many stories on reddit now about people having lost many of their customers because of this. Eventually, it will all sort itself out I guess, but to just embrace it without looking at the down side is a bit naïve I think.
Not dissimilar to the weavers who were smashing up mechanical looms two centuries ago. It didn't work out too great for them back then either. That's innovation for you.
henke on 1/6/2023 at 17:14
You're a regular Edward Diego, SD.
catbarf on 1/6/2023 at 18:10
Quote Posted by theabyss
because companies and clients now choose to go the "get art and illustrations for free" route
Which, if the prior example of language translation is anything to go on, will result in artists being out of work long before AI is actually capable of producing comparable content.
SD on 1/6/2023 at 19:46
Quote Posted by henke
You're a regular Edward Diego, SD.
See, I remember all these very same arguments when synthesisers were going to put traditional musicians out of work. And yet, still no shortage of people who want to listen to mediocre journeymen plucking strings and bashing things with sticks.
