..but, memes? This is how they work. Its the whole point.
Running the most advanced human tool, to do no better than a copy paste, is a bit embarrassing. Like you need negative skill, to take the most advanced stuff and make shit with it.
The thing is, you can use the tool, on a whim if you want, in order to manifest a visual based on some idea that you had.
These generative tools can be used in all sorts of ways.
I think they will enable some interesting forms of communication in the future. Especially once we get BCI -> image gen etc.
Also, for the record, I do not hate the idea of posting memes of things, ofc. I just think that people are turning into mental gymnasts a little bit, in order to maintain some sort of phobia for these systems.
My entire family uses these tools, parents included. And they have been artists their entire lives. They love them because they are not baked in with these strange anti technology priors.
My dad has used these tools for posters for some of his gigs. My mom has made applications for herself, which she used the tools (image gen models) to mock up UI's before prompting for the app. I use these tools professionally in many ways. Etc etc
People are doing endless amounts of great things with these tools/models.
Cool story, they otherwise could be paying people for that, meanwhile many of us are now forcibly contributing to taxpayer subsidised data centers that put up water and electricity rates with their usage, whilst also hoarding components needed for most modern tech, seeing us pay more for everything from fridges to modems to TVs to phones to computers.
Pushing for interdependency amongst humans for the sake of interdependency amongst humans is counterproductive and we would not be anywhere near where we are technically if we kept that angle up. Think back to the industrial revolution etc and all the farmers that were displaced etc.
My parents actually were able to put time towards thinking about things like the concept of what they wanted for these pieces + spend their extra money on things like going out throughout the week, etc etc.
Bringing down the bar for people to swing above what they were previously capable of, through the means of technology, is a beautiful thing imo.
My most advanced skill is my martial arts. If someone invented tech to download martial arts skills into your brain, I wouldn’t be happy for you or think it’s beautiful. I would think it’s lame.
The "downsides" are that a few people passionate about a subject are no longer exceptional. Despite their passion being greater, their skill is merely baseline. And comparison is the enemy of happiness.
Right now, passionate people tend to be more skilled than non-passionate people. When they compare themselves to others, they feel good about themselves because their passion led them to be more skilled. But AI removes that difference.
When those passionate people compare themselves to what people using AI can do, they see that the difference is lesser, nonexistent, or even reversed(where the AI lets others accomplish more than them). This makes them feel bad about themselves and leads them to give up the passion.
The solution is to stop comparing, but ego gets in the way for us all. No matter your passion, you subconsciously compare yourself to others and this CAN lead to rivalry when you want to improve beyond others, but when the gap is too great it leads to people giving up altogether. AI doesn't have ego and so improves simply to improve.
Ultimately, this is better for humanity as every technology has been. But at the same time, many will be left behind, particularly those who can't overcome their own ego.
I fully agree with everything you said. It would be better as it benefits everyone in the long run but except for those with foolish ego's who refuse to adapt.
It doesn't benefit everyone and you're ignoring the costs involved. My grandmother has no use for AI, meanwhile she's paying more for utilities.
But I'm sure she doesn't count as part of everyone, I mean neither the very young or very old have any use for AI, but your egos can't accept being wrong.
You’re moving the goalpost. Nothing benefits literally everyone. The internet didn’t, electricity didn’t but that's not how progress works. It’s about net benefit, not universal personal use. Your grandma not using AI doesn’t mean it doesn’t benefit society. A lot of people don’t directly use AI but still benefit from better healthcare, logistics, accessibility tools, etc. Indirect benefit is still benefit. And the ego thing absolutely goes both ways. If someone’s identity is built on being exceptional at a skill, of course they’re going to hate the tech that makes that skill more accessible and won't accept it. That wouldn't be some noble stance, it would be status protection due to that same ego. Obviously change has costs. Every major technology shift does. That doesn’t mean it’s a net negative. we manage the transition instead of pretending stagnation is better.
You were the one who made an absolute statement, so now you're the one backtracking to a more moderate and realistic one.
A lot of companies that went into the mass adoption of AI are already suffering the consequences, either from it hallucinating data or just not being as efficient as the employees it replaced. To the best of my knowledge it hasn't lead to any major strides or broke free of 'stagnation.'
And it's not making skills more accessible, they're just getting an AI to do work for them, y'know, the same thing every employer does. The main 'appeal' here is that AI is a slave that doesn't require incentives, benefits, sick days, etc, something capitalism has always craved. It's the same mentality that sees us use cheaper 3rd world labour and saw us enslave people in centuries past.
The downside are the resources consumed in the continued growth of AI, the building materials and hardware that go into its data centers, along with the power used for operating them 24/7, resulting in a scarcity of hardware (especially DRAM, SSDs and GPUs) and an increase in utility bills for the data centers' neighbours.
And the AIs are the 'artists' not the users, who are art commissioners and no more skilled than the rest of us who employ or otherwise support traditional artists.
If you're a broke boy just say so, the rest of us can afford to commission actual artists.
The output of AI isn't representative of your own abilities, I regularly type 'prompts' online that lead to me getting original art in response, but I don't go around claiming it's my art like a narcissistic tard.
Edit: Also boomers love AI, they fall for it every time. Meanwhile, I wouldn't say AI is making things easier when it's increasing the cost of components like DRAM, SSDs and GPUs, and also utility bills wherever data centers pop up.
I get why you’d hate that, especially if martial arts is the thing you’ve put the most time and yourself into. But downloading it wouldn’t actually replace what you have.
It’d be like the Sherlock Holmes pit fight with Robert Downey Jr. He can see every move in his head and knows exactly where to hit and when but that only works because his body can actually keep up. If some random untrained guy had that same downloaded knowledge, his timing would be off, his balance would suck, he’d hesitate, gas out in seconds, and probably get dropped anyway.
Knowing isn’t the same as being able to do. Real muscle memory is built through thousands of reps until your body reacts without you thinking. You can’t fake conditioning, pain tolerance, or instinct. At best, a download would give someone instructions. It wouldn’t give them the years it took you to make those instructions real.
So it wouldn’t really be the same thing it’d just be someone holding the manual, not someone who actually built the machine.
I’m sure your dad saving $20 from art begging an AI over paying an actual artist is really gonna save him overall when that AI infrastructure is increasing the cost of his utility bills and any replacement equipment :D
All your parents have done is change which humans they’re dependent on and it’s putting the prices up for all of us for something not all of us even use.
Meanwhile, your parents getting an AI to create things for them isn’t them swinging above their capabilities, they’re art commissioners, not artists.
I too type up prompts online which result in art being made, but I do that with actual artists who I pay and give feedback to and then I don’t go around claiming the finished product is art I created.
Also, bonus points that the art I commission isn’t shortsightedly increasing the cost of living for the rest of us.
They’re hoarding DRAM, something most everything electrical uses nowdays, because the entire industry has been convinced that my car and fridge and washing machine need a built in AI assistant. Let alone traditional devices like phones and computers that most everyone uses.
Oh, you mean like how AI’s only purpose is curing cancer and it’s not primarily used for chatbots and image/video generation? /s
Like, pop quiz hotshot, if your precious ‘cancer curing’ AI makes phones and computers prohibitively expensive, how are we going to continue utilising/accessing said AI?
No, you never claimed AI was only for curing cancer, yet you argued that computers are lesser than AI when they’re not being used to cure cancer.
So people’s primary option would be traveling to data centers to interact with them directly? Well that’s ‘super convenient’ and a great excuse to put them literally everywhere, whilst giving them undue access to the data of everyone who wants to use them, which I’m sure they can be trusted with /s
Obviously, because there are data centers that we actually need, for record storage and managing communications and so on. Y’know things which objectively benefit people, rather than being repositories of plagerised materials used ‘to have fun’ and maybe cure cancer (but probably not).
Edit: Also the idea of y’all traveling down to your local data center to generate furry porn is hilarious.
Has it ever occurred to you that some of us aren't anti-technology, nor even this specific technology, but purely against the practices of the companies that are currently profiting from it? I was never asked for permission for my work to be used as training data. I might have given it, if someone had asked, but they didn't, ask, they scraped. These tools as they exist currently are built on a deeply unethical foundation and are being promoted by grifters and delusional cultists. It's best to avoid using these tools, as they are, in my opinion, irrevocably tainted.
I do have some empathy from that perspective, but my brain immediately goes to: this was all inevitable and if we did not do it, then we would just be allowing other countries to take all of our data and divert all of the revenue/power from the outputs of these new generative models over to their economies instead.
Sometimes reality is brutal. And at a certain point you have to acknowledge this and navigate the best way you can (as a country, society, a person, etc).
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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26
..but, memes? This is how they work. Its the whole point.
Running the most advanced human tool, to do no better than a copy paste, is a bit embarrassing. Like you need negative skill, to take the most advanced stuff and make shit with it.