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Witnessed someone argue that genAI is socialist because it's a "free resource" and that "art is imperialist" and I'm just gobsmacked (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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His argument was literally that

  • artists, writers, and programmers are "labor aristocracy" and deserve no respect because they're sitting around making art and writing code while other people are toiling and laboring,
  • genAI is a "free resource" ("it's free for me to use at work") that "helps everyone make things" instead of having to rely on skill and expertise and therefore makes everything equal,
  • it's hypocritical of people to be worried about the environmental and societal impact of genAI because "only white people are worried about it now that their hobbies are being threatened and everyone else is catching up".

Pointing out there there are artists and programmers from every race and economic class, as well as perfectly ordinary people in every walk of life who are all actively being harmed both by the theft of ideas and labor and by the physical effects of gigantic data centers ruining communities, was met with much hand-waving and incredibly impenetrable philosophical jargon.

I'm particularly incensed because I'm as leftist and anticapitalist as they come and this felt like the fuckery some conservative cockwomble would try to come up with to parody socialism, except this guy was completely serious.

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[–] 1 point 1 day ago* (2 children)

That's absolutely not true at all, IMO.

Not all art is created for the purpose of creative expression. Much of the labor performed by artists is better classified as "communication". It conveys information or ideas for non-creative purposes.

Technical manuals have meaning without creative intent. The logo for your local pizza place has meaning without creative intent. Even things like application interface design can have meaning without creative intent (creativity in UI is actually a rare thing to need; mostly we're building on established paradigms people are comfortable with. Sometimes creativity is needed and good but not always)

So I fundamentally disagree with your premise as a rule. The type of art people are passionate about is creative art. But not all art needs to be creative.

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  • [–] 1 point 18 hours ago (1 child)

    Perhaps I made a poor judgement in my word selection. By "creative", I meant that the creation should be intentional—i.e. the creator should be capable of intent. When I say "art", I mean creative (intentional) imagery.

    If the "art" is not creative, should it really be called art? If someone said they're taking an art class, would you assume they meant soulless corporate design?

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago

    Your dismissal of the value of "soulless" art is kinda f'd IMO. Visual design is an entire profession. Technical writing is a skill that's important. Just because they aren't creative for their own sake doesn't make them worthy of dismissal as "soulless".

    As with most things in the world, the truth is much more nuanced than it may seem at first glance. Most art humans create doesn't belong in a museum. That doesn't make it worthless. And making the creation of "average" artwork more accessible to non-artists isn't inherently a bad thing.

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