AI is the future and why anti-AI rhetoric is deeply flawed
Posted: 27 May 2023, 16:40
One of the things I've been thinking about is that the Windows 7 "neo-luddites" embrace AI, yet the normies, "the updooters", seem to be the ones that are most against AI. A "neo-luddite" on this forum even used ChatGPT to suggest a laptop to get for Windows 7, help build Chromium 48, and for other uses. Why is it that we are more open to AI than the people that hate us so very much for being "behind"?
AI can be a good tool, if you self host it or do one of the jailbreaks or manipulation methods, it will do exactly as you ask as far as it can. You can ask an art AI to draw whatever you want, and it will do it to the best of it's abilities. You will most likely need to craft your responses very carefully and tweak negative prompts, but once you get it just right you'll be able to get what you want in minutes or less compared to the potential days a human could take. A coding AI wouldn't intentionally break compatibility without a good reason or being told to do so, unless the training data is intentionally manipulated. Anyone could ask it to make whatever they wish with as much compatibility as they could ever want and it would do it. Program doesn't work on 7? Just like how art AIs can draw near whatever you want, a coding AI could make an alternative or modification that does work on 7. Or tackling the issue from a different side, win32, the Vista Extended Kernel developer, is experimenting to see if AI can code Windows functions, it could significantly speed up extended kernel development. If a program uses the bloated QT library, a coding AI could modify the source, or create a new alternative and drastically decrease the size, removing most or any need for external dlls. Few humans make highly optimized and highly compatible code, while a good coding AI could give it to everyone.
Plenty of people will argue that AI "steals", which is not correct. Even if I give you your preconceived notion that whatever an AI makes is an just an "amalgamation" slopped into the output, that would be fair use. If you disagree, I recommend you give this a watch. It is an "amalgamation" of various animated films/TV shows stitched together to create an informative video about copyright and fair use. If AI generated content is an "amalgamation" that isn't fair use, whose to say this video isn't fair use as well? Banning AI generated content on copyright grounds could cause even further restriction of fair use no matter who makes it.
However I still disagree that AI "steals". An AI can learn from any image, song, piece of code, etc, just like a human can. If you tell me you draw art but haven't seen a copyrighted image, make music but haven't listened to a copyrighted song, write books but haven't read a copyrighted book, write code but haven't seen copyrighted/permissive/creative commons code, and so on, you're lying. Humans learn by example, and so does AI. Even if AI could be restricted from learning from something outside of just not releasing it, allowing humans to learn from said thing would be hypocritical. If I can learn from something so should AI. I made this image myself, and decided to try drawing a Getty Images like watermark from memory. It's been a long while since I've seen a Getty Images image so didn't get the size or color right, but it's still a translucent rectangle anchored to the right side with Getty Images inside of it. It's more accurate of a watermark than most freely available image AIs can make, yet this image is just fine.
Outside of just "stealing", another perceived issue is what about the jobs or income of these people that AI could be replacing? To put this into different terms, the basic argument is that AI bad because there's no universal basic income. Instead of increasingly pushing for universal basic income, we should just keep in place the old way of doing things, even if they're less efficient. This is just yet another transition period, within somewhat recent history we've had the assembly line speeding up production, pre-recorded music replacing live musicians, increasing use of reliable machines replacing human error in manufacturing, home media (and now streaming) replacing theaters. There will always be people against the next big thing, but progress is progress, you can't stop it. Even if a country bans the use of AI, production will just move outside to somewhere where it's perfectly fine. Not too much unlike how manufacturing is already mostly in China, Vietnam, India, etc these days where labor is cheap and regulations are lax, and not much can be done about it.
If I missed something or made a mistake please let me know. However I won't let trolls turn the thread turn into a 50 page battlefield.
Thank you to:
VictorTheVictor for using AI for many helpful purposes.
Louis Rossmann for Is AI generated art exploitation? (Also a recommended watch that expands upon the idea of the last paragraph.)
Eric Fadden for A Fair(y) Use Tale
If it weren't for these people, this post wouldn't have existed, or at least not in the current state it's in.
AI can be a good tool, if you self host it or do one of the jailbreaks or manipulation methods, it will do exactly as you ask as far as it can. You can ask an art AI to draw whatever you want, and it will do it to the best of it's abilities. You will most likely need to craft your responses very carefully and tweak negative prompts, but once you get it just right you'll be able to get what you want in minutes or less compared to the potential days a human could take. A coding AI wouldn't intentionally break compatibility without a good reason or being told to do so, unless the training data is intentionally manipulated. Anyone could ask it to make whatever they wish with as much compatibility as they could ever want and it would do it. Program doesn't work on 7? Just like how art AIs can draw near whatever you want, a coding AI could make an alternative or modification that does work on 7. Or tackling the issue from a different side, win32, the Vista Extended Kernel developer, is experimenting to see if AI can code Windows functions, it could significantly speed up extended kernel development. If a program uses the bloated QT library, a coding AI could modify the source, or create a new alternative and drastically decrease the size, removing most or any need for external dlls. Few humans make highly optimized and highly compatible code, while a good coding AI could give it to everyone.
Plenty of people will argue that AI "steals", which is not correct. Even if I give you your preconceived notion that whatever an AI makes is an just an "amalgamation" slopped into the output, that would be fair use. If you disagree, I recommend you give this a watch. It is an "amalgamation" of various animated films/TV shows stitched together to create an informative video about copyright and fair use. If AI generated content is an "amalgamation" that isn't fair use, whose to say this video isn't fair use as well? Banning AI generated content on copyright grounds could cause even further restriction of fair use no matter who makes it.
However I still disagree that AI "steals". An AI can learn from any image, song, piece of code, etc, just like a human can. If you tell me you draw art but haven't seen a copyrighted image, make music but haven't listened to a copyrighted song, write books but haven't read a copyrighted book, write code but haven't seen copyrighted/permissive/creative commons code, and so on, you're lying. Humans learn by example, and so does AI. Even if AI could be restricted from learning from something outside of just not releasing it, allowing humans to learn from said thing would be hypocritical. If I can learn from something so should AI. I made this image myself, and decided to try drawing a Getty Images like watermark from memory. It's been a long while since I've seen a Getty Images image so didn't get the size or color right, but it's still a translucent rectangle anchored to the right side with Getty Images inside of it. It's more accurate of a watermark than most freely available image AIs can make, yet this image is just fine.
Outside of just "stealing", another perceived issue is what about the jobs or income of these people that AI could be replacing? To put this into different terms, the basic argument is that AI bad because there's no universal basic income. Instead of increasingly pushing for universal basic income, we should just keep in place the old way of doing things, even if they're less efficient. This is just yet another transition period, within somewhat recent history we've had the assembly line speeding up production, pre-recorded music replacing live musicians, increasing use of reliable machines replacing human error in manufacturing, home media (and now streaming) replacing theaters. There will always be people against the next big thing, but progress is progress, you can't stop it. Even if a country bans the use of AI, production will just move outside to somewhere where it's perfectly fine. Not too much unlike how manufacturing is already mostly in China, Vietnam, India, etc these days where labor is cheap and regulations are lax, and not much can be done about it.
If I missed something or made a mistake please let me know. However I won't let trolls turn the thread turn into a 50 page battlefield.
Thank you to:
VictorTheVictor for using AI for many helpful purposes.
Louis Rossmann for Is AI generated art exploitation? (Also a recommended watch that expands upon the idea of the last paragraph.)
Eric Fadden for A Fair(y) Use Tale
If it weren't for these people, this post wouldn't have existed, or at least not in the current state it's in.