Workers and Resources posted cringe (CW: Plagiarism machine soup)
Workers and Resources posted cringe (CW: Plagiarism machine soup)
I just looked at the campaign to get back in the game nooooooooo
I only started playing like a month ago and I’m really enjoying it but the AI art makes me so sad. I’d love if someone would make a mod to remove the AI images
Fucking sweet thank you. Those pictures are entirely boring and it’s such an improvement
I've put a lot of thought into this. At the risk of dying on the stupidest hill imaginable, I hate calling LLMs "plagiarism machines" because from my own political perspective the entire notion of private property needs to be done away with. Including intellectual property and the royalties collected on it. I also hate the ethical arguments surrounding their tendency to put artists out of work, which I am seeing a lot of in this thread. I know not everyone here is explicitly Marxist. There's a lot of syndicalists, anarchists, etc. But in my understanding there is no ethical consumption OR production under capitalism. Working class people producing primary necessities like food have been put out of work by machines for nearly two centuries now. At the beginning of all this there was a luddite movement that destroyed machinery, but this destruction of machinery did not result in their re-employment, because a few scattered and frustrated actions against technology, not grounded in any political theory, cannot turn back the clock of the historical development of technology. If the luddites, who showed up at factories and actually burned and wrecked machines were not successful at stopping the tidal wave of technology, how much less successful will you be with scattered boycotts against indie steam games that use AI art here and there? The proliferation of means of production drives down the price of labor power, because it decreases the socially-necessary (average) labor time required to produce goods. Artists are just the latest victims of what machines have been doing for two centuries. Your disappointment and moral indignation will not stop the ruthlessness of capital in finding the cheapest sources of labor power possible in order to maximize profits and minimize turnaround time. Your aesthetic disgust with the face melt and extra fingers will not make most consumers care, because consumers of video games are by and large not a political block perfectly aligned with the interests of downwardly-mobile artists. Your meme desire to initiate some kind of "butlerian jihad" against the thinking machines will prove no more successful than the luddites in the textile mills 2 centuries ago. What AI really represents is the inherent instability of the capitalist system as a whole. It is a crisis of overproduction. They pump out commodities so quickly and so cheaply that their price falls to nothing, but they throw so many people into unemployment at the same time. I don't say this to be cruel to artists. I have been an artist. I've never made money from it. It's something I've only been able to cultivate in my free time. I understand the frustration. I just think the AI is not going back in the box and the political mobilization needs to be revolutionary mobilization against the mode of production as a whole and not desperate disorganized attacks at particular features of it, like particular technological advances.
I leave you with Marx (Capital: Volume 1)
About 1630, a wind-sawmill, erected near London by a Dutchman, succumbed to the excesses of the populace. Even as late as the beginning of the 18th century, sawmills driven by water overcame the opposition of the people, supported as it was by Parliament, only with great difficulty. No sooner had Everet in 1758 erected the first wool-shearing machine that was driven by water-power, than it was set on fire by 100,000 people who had been thrown out of work. Fifty thousand workpeople, who had previously lived by carding wool, petitioned Parliament against Arkwright's scribbling mills and carding engines. The enormous destruction of machinery that occurred in the English manufacturing districts during the first 15 years of this century, chiefly caused by the employment of the power-loom, and known as the Luddite movement, gave the anti-Jacobin governments of a Sidmouth, a Castlereagh, and the like, a pretext for the most reactionary and forcible measures. It took both time and experience before the workpeople learnt to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital, and to direct their attacks, not against the material instruments of production, but against the mode in which they are used.
(if it's any consolation I also disagree with the take that LLMs "bring means of production to the workers" or whatever because workers don't actually own the LLMs.)
(I do however think it allows disabled people to do art)
Hey comrade, I appreciate your thoughts and I am very sorry but I woke up with a fever and spent the day reading so I am not able to read your message right now.
ayy no worries
it's always for whoever's interested
get well soon!
If the luddites, who showed up at factories and actually burned and wrecked machines were not successful at stopping the tidal wave of technology, how much less successful will you be with scattered boycotts against indie steam games that use AI art here and there? The proliferation of means of production drives down the price of labor power, because it decreases the socially-necessary (average) labor time required to produce goods. Artists are just the latest victims of what machines have been doing for two centuries. Your disappointment and moral indignation will not stop the ruthlessness of capital in finding the cheapest sources of labor power possible in order to maximize profits and minimize turnaround time.
Not saying this, the game just is worse for that because it breaks with the unique style and vision that made it great as an indie game to have rather generic pictures whose vision is a collage or pastiche applied in a fundamentally less creative manner. I will probably still play it and replace everybody's face with Corn Man. I don't think it's idealist or impractical to recognize that or makes it my political mission to stop AI and AI only. I do think that argument is somewhat of a thought-killing cliche because it boils down to something you can blurt out whenever something of cultural value gets turned to shit. There is a point to driving home the alienation and agitating among the roadkills of capitalism instead of indulging its excesses by projecting forward in time the historical trajectory we can expect under full domination of the bourgeoisie.
Will my complaints bring communism? No. We all can do better in identifying the correct major contradictions to latch onto and organize people around them. That doesn't preclude having correct stances on other topics. Luckily complaining about AI is a minor part of my daily life.
The plagiarism machine was a flippant way of spicing up the title on an-offhand post, not a coherent analysis, meaning to poke fun at the "AI" idea. Of course I don't love property rights either and think they are a drag on society, the artist as a job thing is also meh - which correct criticism as part of a political platform would identify.
I have not developed a final assessment of art production, but LLM story telling is fundamentally not creative (something it shares with capitalist forms of art production in tendency, but by eliminating the subject of the artist, moves to another qualitative level). The same goes for other artistic production. The possibility for new styles to emerge and for breaks in cultural communication will be further restricted, culture will become more stream-lined and dominated by bourgeois needs. It's not "luddite" or "anti-progress" to point that out. I remind you that a part of Gramsci's theory of Hegemony is identifiying the ruling block's position with "progress".
Artists, and there are a lot of artists with left sympathies (do you think most people that do furry commissions make their main living out of that?), will not lead the revolution and we most likely will have your scenario happen to most extent unless AI collapses under a profitability crisis. Sure. But in the right now, the only way LLM will be able to "replace" the workers is when capitalists think they can browbeat writer studios with the threat of them to weaken labor struggles or by putting pretty off-putting pictures in there instead of shoving $500 at an art student. We don't live in the time where AI junk has finally killed the arts. We live in the now.
In total, I find the response of "it's gonna happen anyway" to be defeatist and missing the point.
(I do however think it allows disabled people to do art)
Friendly disagreement. What allows disabled people to do art is bullying the snobs and bullies in art circles that drive disabled people out.
revising this. There are creative ways to do LLMs, but not in the sense of production of porn, trying to write a batman movie script or other stuff - it's things like making characters sing slly songs etc
Friendly disagreement. What allows disabled people to do art is bullying the snobs and bullies in art circles that drive disabled people out.
I don't see how the two things (tools for people to use and prevention of discrimination) are mutually exclusive
The plagiarism machine was a flippant way of spicing up the title on an-offhand post, not a coherent analysis,
Apologies. I had no way of knowing which of these things it was supposed to be and shouldn't have begun by assuming it was supposed to be a coherent analysis.
Of course I don't love property rights either and think they are a drag on society, the artist as a job thing is also meh - which correct criticism as part of a political platform would identify.
Got ya. Makes sense.
I have not developed a final assessment of art production, but LLM story telling is fundamentally not creative
I think it's a matter of outlining/brainstorming vs. actual creative work. Instead of telling it to write for you, you ask it to give you options and then you either come up with a better option, or choose an option and write it yourself. It can maximize the amount of time you do art and minimize the amount of time you spend working on bullet pointed outlines and other "office work" that you do before you do art. Also a tool is only as creative as its user. You can use these things creatively. You ask it questions like "what are some common frameworks to tackle problem X" and then you still research and choose and use the framework you want. It just lists concepts you may not have previously been familiar with. As for it using a lot of fossil fuel, that is more of an infrastructural problem. We aren't exclusively using renewable energy as a society, so everything we do with electricity uses fossil fuel.
(something it shares with capitalist forms of art production in tendency, but by eliminating the subject of the artist, moves to another qualitative level). The same goes for other artistic production. The possibility for new styles to emerge and for breaks in cultural communication will be further restricted, culture will become more stream-lined and dominated by bourgeois needs. It's not "luddite" or "anti-progress" to point that out. I remind you that a part of Gramsci's theory of Hegemony is identifiying the ruling block's position with "progress".
I don't think it eliminates the subject of the artist though. It's a tool that will get used by artists. People said the same thing about photoshop, 3D editors. etc.
The possibility for new styles to emerge and for breaks in cultural communication will be further restricted, culture will become more stream-lined and dominated by bourgeois needs
this is built into the mode of production itself, not the tools people use
It's not "luddite" or "anti-progress" to point that out.
The following is intended to be read in a neutral tone: I don't understand why quotes are around "anti-progress" since I did not use those words in my original post which you are responding to. I am unsure what part of my post you're responding to. I hope you don't think I was calling you a luddite. I wasn't calling you a luddite: Which I don't view as a pejorative in any case. I was pointing out that the luddites had a very good reason to be mad and their methods proved ineffective. They weren't against "progress" they were against losing their jobs. They lost their jobs because of capitalism, not machinery. I don't view technology as some kind of moral or ethical progress. I just think it's impossible to make everyone stop using a tool once it has been invented. It's "pandora's box". The only way technology stops getting used is if the means of producing it dry up.
Artists, and there are a lot of artists with left sympathies (do you think most people that do furry commissions make their main living out of that?), will not lead the revolution and we most likely will have your scenario happen to most extent unless AI collapses under a profitability crisis. Sure. But in the right now, the only way LLM will be able to "replace" the workers is when capitalists think they can browbeat writer studios with the threat of them to weaken labor struggles or by putting pretty off-putting pictures in there instead of shoving $500 at an art student. We don't live in the time where AI junk has finally killed the arts. We live in the now.
I wasn't speculating that AI junk killed the arts nor was I speculating what would lead to revolution.
In total, I find the response of "it's gonna happen anyway" to be defeatist and missing the point.
I'm not defeatist, I just think we should organize against the mode of production and not the means of production. I thought that was clear in my original post.
I don't really have a problem with a small dev team taking advantage of ai. Use whatever is at your disposal to make development easier.
Damn, that's a shame. I've refunded a few games because of AI art, I would've quite liked to play this, but I could never enjoy it if it has this in it. It may seem petty, but I am a professional artist, so it is like seeing someone take a dump all over my career every time I see it.
Way too many hours in that game to refund it for me
Looks nice enough honestly. I like AI, especially how open source imagegen and LLMs bring the means of production to the proletariat. I think everyone being able to do art is nice! Sam Altrightman can get fucjed
i refuse to accept this framing of AI as some sort of democratization of art - it's cynical framing to attempt to create revolutionary ideas out of something that ultimately only benefits capital. the means of production? are the means of producing art currently not accessible? why are we so willing to alienate ourselves from the process of creating? why do you even want art at that point, beyond something pretty to look at for a moment?
It's a machine, a piece of productive capital, and like any capital its ethicality depends on who is controlling it and to what end. When it's held by huge corporations it's bad, because anything they control gets used to their ends to everyone else's detriment. When it's in the hands of an individual worker it's no better or worse than a hammer or paintbrush, just another tool that amplifies their labor.
why do you even want art at that point, beyond something pretty to look at for a moment?
There really needs to be clearer language to differentiate between "art as a concept and a broader thing" and "art as in the little fiddly bit of stuff someone made that fits into a given place." Like imagine a sculptor producing something out of a tangle of machined metal parts: the creation of any given part is technically "art" but so is the whole, and the whole is more important than whether each piece was milled out by a machine or forged and hammered by hand - the fact that the latter would require and consume orders of magnitude more labor doesn't make it a more valuable goal or more pure in some way.
Not every piece of "art, as in a thing created by labor related to art creation" is "art, as in the concept of art as a meaningful and purposeful thing." Sometimes a piece of art is just an aesthetic space filler or a component piece of something greater than itself, something that's only there because some other purpose demands it. Games are a great example there: a given texture, or mesh, or sound, etc is technically "art" because it is a thing created by labor related to art, but it's not itself a complete and coherent whole, it's not the piece itself nor does it have any more purpose than that the greater work it's a part of needed it.
why do you even want art
Art pretty. I've honestly never put any thought into who or what made the images I used as wallpapers through the years or what the author meant by them, If they were appealing and meant something to me it's all good.
revolutionary ideas out of something that ultimately only benefits capital.
How does open source ML benefit capital? It literally erodes IP laws that benefit only capital and also elevates what is possible for every worker equally while belonging to no one and making money for no one.
There's a reason western governments rushed to regulate it and it's to protect business interests. Now OpenAI will just license the data, and Joe Schmoe from bumfuck Kansas is sol. Then one day LLMs like gippity are actually useful and then one day an essential tool, and you'll have to either pay up the corpos or get fucked, but soothe yourself with the knowledge that the progressive morons got AI regulated totally owning all those techbro bogeymen.
It's not cynical, it's just counter-intuitive because you're not familiar with the specifics and particulars of the situation, so your gut tells you "technology bad" because all you know of technology is what the corporations package for you and serve you on a platter of "apps" and other junk.
Honestly ML researchers and FOSS devs probably did more communist praxis unknowingly than anyone on here myself included.
are the means of producing art currently not accessible?
No? When was the last time any old person could just go and make a hit song/movie/game? Example literally in OP. Those without economic means (dev) can now realize their ambitions better (add art). That's a good thing.
why are we so willing to alienate ourselves from the process of creating?
No one's alienating anything. Luddies are like conservatives with an imagined persecution complex. You can still draw. Others doing art isn't taking away from you. I make music as a hobby - I don't sample melodies, to me the entire joy is writing melodies and stuff like mixing is uninteresting, but plenty of decent, successful and skillful artists do sample melodies and it doesn't take away from what I do.
everyone already could do art, just pick a up a pen and draw. art is one of the cheapest and most accessible hobbies out there, literally all you need is paper and a pencil
This is unbelievably disingenuous.
Then why oh why is the dev using AI art here? Surely he should just pick up some pencils and paper, yeah?
Oh I know, maybe because to put out something this good it's most certainly not something anyone can do, because it takes years and years of mastery, which isn't economically viable to dedicate oneself to if you like affording rent and aren't already a rich boy with connections, like most artists anyone's heard of.
Absolute imbecile take.
This anti-worker "lol just don't buy avocado toast" ass rhetoric is genuinely worse and more dystopian than the scammiest silicon valley VC cryptobro speak, it's blood-boiling.
I think everyone being able to do art is nice!
Everyone is already able to do art, and LLMs are not able to do art. "AI art" is a misnomer since AI is not capable of the intentionality that I feel is necessary to the definition of art. It is a tool that disrespectfully mimics the work of artists to produce the most generic watered down mush that it possibly can.
when I first read Dune the Butlerian Jihad struck me as an outlandish idea, but now it seems almost inevitable
Permanently Deleted
AI is only ethical as a thing available to everyone, free as in libre and used for non-commercial purposes, and it's generations should have no copyright by default.
Actually nothing should have copyright, plagiarism is a capitalist lie, sharing knowledge is good and beneficial to society, earning money off of intellectual property is still earning money off property and it's still bourgeoisie.
YTers like Hbomberguy are just looking out for his millionaire ass' financial interests and nothing else, and they use charisma to swindle the proles.
No, it looks extremely generic, breaks with the previous style of the game and sometimes you can see shit like this:
I would rather have had no images than this - besides it just feeling lazy
dressing up anti-worker capitalist nonsense like LLMs in revolutionary language is so cynical and just wrong lol. they should be boycotted completely. robots cannot make art.
How is open source LLMs (btw image gen isn't LLMs lol) anti-worker?
It's literally a tool helping a small team of workers punch above their means they would otherwise be stuck with due to their lack of capital so they could polish up small assets in "left-wing propaganda: the video game".
When this tool is available to everyone to use, modify and redistribute (thus, open source) free of IP laws and other anti-worker anti-competition capitalist rigging structures that keep us down.
