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Can you think any situation where it is ethical to use AI in the creative process? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/writing@sh.itjust.works
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Let me assure you that the idea of AI disgusts me. Not just because it debates the quality of work and is a "cheat" to get past the word target, but because it stripey the writer themselves of their accomplishments.

However, it does strike me that people might want to write about subjects that they don't know a lot about. Scientific knowledge, crime, historical stuff. Could that be an ethical place to use AI - not to write it, but to ask "what would confectionary in the 1300s look like?" (For instance). Just niche questions.

Or is there a much better, easier way to look up niche real-world details like that?

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[–] -4 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Every decade of my life, new technologies for doing creative work have emerged that purport to reduce the workload of creatives yet always produce an inferior product. 3D CGI in film supplanted hand-drawn animation and now most kids movies look like shit. Digital special effects and motion capture supplanted practical effects, and now films don't hold up visually at all. Now we have the idiot box, and not only does it turn the written word from gold into lead, the effects of its use have frequently lead to decreased intelligence, more psychosis, placated personality disorders, and just straight-up fascist misinformation.

But, I am a permissive critic, and I'm always interested in what motivates a creative choice over whether a work is merely entertaining or pleasant. If Satan himself took a burning shit in your hand and you fingerpainted with it, I would be spellbound if you managed to do something interesting and meaningful with it; most of us would just scream in pain and jump from a window without delay. That's the beauty of art, don't you think?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (5 children)

    Idiot box used to be the TV.

    The issue with CGI is a bit complex. We see it all the time in ways that are completely unnoticeable. And the reason CGI is so bad is partially an artifact of producers refusing to stick to a vision; they are constantly asking for changes and digital effects houses can't tell them to go fuck themselves if they want to ever work again. It's an absolutely brutal business. The CGI house that won an Oscar for the Life of Pi went bankrupt the next year. So what you're seeing with bad CGI is probably the crunch work of the week before opening day. That was the story of The Flash.

    That said, CGI is often just the cheapest tool for the job, but often not the best.

    Two videos that cover this: No CGI is just invisible CGI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttG90raCNo

    and

    a comparison of Carpenter's The Thing (practical) and the remake. Thesis: we know the practical effects are fake, but we know the CGI is not real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttG90raCNo

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (4 children)

    I always forget this about CGI studios, the economic side of it. And yeah, I know CGI can be done well but it so rarely is partly because of that meddling.

    I should have come up with an original pejorative for LLMs, calling it idiot box was a sleepy mistake.

    A lot of what I said last night was motivated by a fresh rewatch of Hellraiser, admittedly. Even the hokey lightning and magic VFX had a sort of handmade charm to them, everything held together really nicely even after nearly 40 years.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

    The The Thing video I linked talks about how practical effects are more viscerally effective, even if they look "bad" our brain registers them as "real" at least; while our brains don't give any weight to things that it recognizes as CGI.

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

    I'll make a point to watch that one in my downtime, then. I wasn't even aware of a Thing remake until you mentioned it, but even knowing it exists I'm going into it already slightly irritated. Practical effects are hefty!

    All this to say, even though my original point was kind of badly put (tone doesn't carry well in text, I'm basically on the same page as everyone else), what you do with a tool like CGI can't just be cheaper or easier for a studio exec to meddle with, it has to be equally or more interesting than doing the work by hand or it just sucks.

    Like, I know studios aren't purely motivated by artistic integrity and never were, but the more we put new tools for cheapening the output into their hands, the worse our art gets. I think the same holds true for when small independent artists get those same tools. Some people will use them in unique ways that add to the conversation and bring culture forward, but most will just use it to make cheaper stuff. My fingerpaint/jumping out the window analogy didn't really make that clear, that's on me. I just think that doing things by hand is always going to (generally) work better than any tool that makes doing the work 'easier'...

    At least until we have removed the cost of doing art from the equation of what gets made. Once we're in a post-scarcity mode I'll be all for more powerful tools that make production easier.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    If you're really wanting to evaluate the impact/benefits of CGI en toto, watch that first video. I think it points to there being some things CGI is really good for--cost effective and invisible--and things it is bad for.

    I think it's about figuring out where that uncanny valley is. Re-watching LOTR, pretty much anything to do with people and people's movement is really hard to get right. Like the shots of them crossing the bridge at Moria were composited live-action shots syncing cameras between the miniature set and the live actors. But lots of Legolas' CGI action sequences are comically bad.

    But let's keep in mind that a lot of great classics, like The Mummy (Fraser) and T2 and The Abyss all were made with primitive CGI and still look fantastic, so it really is about approach.

    There is also a new thing that directors have to worry about--whether their carefully planned, all-day-setup-single-take practical effect will be dismissed as CGI. There are practical stunts that are not worth doing anymore because people will assume it's CGI.

    But, all in all, between the bad CGI and the oppressive color grading, this most recent era of movies is not going to age well at all.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Agreed. I think part of the creative choice you have to make with practical effects is, if you're going to do practical effects, do something so crazy people would assume was CGI and then brag about how it wasn't.

    Fury Road used CGI to great effect because of how intelligently it was used, like you say - invisible. Putting the real-life subjects right up close, having them do something insane with practical effects, and then CGI all around it, zoomed out. The CGI becomes window dressing for an already-impressive spectacle. That's a film that will always be worth revisiting because of it. So I can be swayed on CGI. It's just that tools will never be so good that you can use them unintelligently and still do good work. Legolas is a regrettable example of that.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

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

    Does it shame you not to have an interesting response? I thought you were here for conversation, my mistake I guess.

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