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The Fediverse Only Makes Time for Real Artists (media.piefed.ca)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/fedimemes@feddit.uk
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I'm going to post ai slop on the server you paid with your hard-earned cash. Piefed and hide ai option laughing at tech kid then beating them up.
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[–] 33 points 10 months ago (34 children)

There's no gray area about the resource cost and contribution to climate change being driven by gen AI though, youre just trying to justify it.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    People forget the left sensationalizes things as much as the right does.

    A lot of them show datacenter energy use for AI without comparing them to other other workloads. If you're worried about datacenter energy use, I sure hope you don't download any apps or steam any music/video.

    https://andymasley.substack.com/p/individual-ai-use-is-not-bad-for

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  • [+] 5 points 10 months ago (15 children)
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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Thats in no way "putting words in their mouth", I was pointing out what they were saying. Their point literally coalesced into "i posted a funny picture and it didn't hurt anyone" which is factually untrue by participating in driving demand for harmful tech.

    I wasnt insulting in any way, I was illustrating how their point fell apart. There is real, quantifiable harm.

    Whatever though

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  • [+] -1 points 10 months ago (7 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    That is what they were saying, though.

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  • [+] -2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    Oh fuck off

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [+] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)
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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [+] -8 points 10 months ago (15 children)

    I would say gen AI is much more resource friendly than hiring artists to do the same

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Thing is though, artists are people.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    I am not arguing that everyone should use gen AI over artists. I am just responding to the previous comment that is complaining about climate effects of AI. I am just saying that I think the climate impact of generative AI is way less then the impact of artist creating the same thing. Also, the datacenters are usually built in place where the water usage doesn't matter (and they usually recycle their water in coolong loops), so the climate impacts are often overblown.

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  • [–] -4 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    They can do something more productive.

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  • [+] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)
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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    What would you base that supposition on?

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    I hadn't done any calculation, but I guess hundreds of watts over a few seconds that datacenters need to generate an image is way less energy and water than what an artist consumes during several hours while he draws the same image. Plus the electricity for lights or computer consumes.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (5 children)

    Oh, ok, so then you just have absolutely no fucking idea what the fuck you're talking about.

    That tracks.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (4 children)

    Thanks, you are being really helpful... I at least tried to understand the problem and explain my reasoning. And yes, I do not know much about the topic, but everyone here is complaining how I am wrong without saying why so.

    So, to have an idea, let's do the calculation. Generating 1000 images takes on average 2.907kWh (Power Hungry Processing: Watts Driving the Cost of AI Deployment?, A. S. LUCCIONI et. al., 2024), though with very large varience (standard deviation of 3.31). So generating a single image consumes on average 2.91Wh. I have to make a few assumptions about the artist. First of all, I will ignore the energy their body would consume, since it is pretty safe to assume, they would need the energy anyway. Let's assume it would take the artist one hour to produce the same image (based on nothing, just the ease of calculation; feel free to correct me). If the artist was drawing using a PC monitor, they would consume tens of watt-hours based on the monitor (Internet article: What is PC Monitor Power Consumption? A Complete Guide, Akash, 2026). Computer with all peripherals would consume even more. If the artist would choose iPad, using official parameters (Apple Inc.), the iPad should last up to 10 hours with its 28.93Wh battery, so the drawing would consume at least 2.893Wh. This is slightly less then AI, but charging the iPad isn't 100% efficient. Also they would probably use a stylus for drawing, which also uses some electricity, so I would say the total power needed would be comparable (please don't force me to calculate these efficiencies). If the artist would draw on a paper, it would get so much complicated and probably lost in all of the assumptions about materials used, their production complexities, etc. But just for a comparison, a efficient LED light consumes from 4W (Internet article, How Much Electricity Does a LED Light Bulb Use?, 2025), so using a bulb for 44 minutes consumes more energy than generating an image.

    So overall under my assumptions, generating a image using AI is at least comparable, probably more efficient then hiring an artist to do the same.

    I ignored training the AI, because the more it is used, the less effect it has on the generation, and goes to 0 over time. In the same way I ignored the monitor / iPad / light bulb energy footprint during its production and transfer to the artist, since with more paintings this effect goes to 0 too.

    Please do not force me to do any more calculation. I think, this was enough.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    That’s a lot of fucking words that all just boil down to “I have no artistic or moral integrity and no respect or regard for the value of art or the human endeavor.”

    Go fuck a robot.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    This shows me how hateful and stubborn you are. I never said (and nobody in this comment chain) that gen-AI is better then artists. Of course I agree with how unfairly AI companies treat artists and that they should be supperted. The only thing I said was that I think gen-AI uses less power and so should be more environmentally friendly. Then you asked for proof, so I gave you a proof. The proof was based on a lot so assumptions, so it could be wrong, but it is still better then saying "I don't like AI, so it must be worse in every way".

    It seems insane to me that most people in here refuse to admit that there could be one single perspective in which AI is better, there is one single example where it is useful...

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    If you have to bend over that far backwards to try to get one tiny element of something to not sound abhorrent then maybe question what the fuck exactly it is that you are defending.

    Again, go fuck a robot.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Just tell me, what you think I am defending... I said that I support human artists in this fight. But everything has its pros and cons. I am defending the fact that one of the pros of gen-AI is that it is (according to my calculations) greener. It is also faster. That's all I am saying. I am not saying these pros outweight the cons, I'm just saying, this is advantagious about gen-AI. Maybe the question is why you refuse to admit there are any pros of gen-AI and why you assume everyone who disagrees a little bit with you has to be wrong and completely on the other side of the argument.

    There is nothing wrong with admitting there is something good in something I hate. For example I hate cars in cities, mainly the big ones, but I use them often, because in the current state they are the most efficient mean of transfer. I hate Trump, but have to admit, he is sometimes right...

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