[This is a guest post by Rikab Gambhir. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] First, they came for the artists, and I did not speak out…
Programmers and mathematicians are facing this now, but scribes faced this with the printing press, weavers with the mechanical loom, portrait painters with photography.
The dichotomy of end product vs process is bizarre. Sometimes, the end product is the process. You find the conclusion of this with performance art, but see glimpses of it with “hand-crafted” goods, or photoshoots on film. Sure, you could mechanize the production, or you could shoot digital and just slap a filter on it, but that’s not what art/craft is about.
Thing is, computer users have mechanisation already. We clearly just don’t know how to use it effectively yet. (The dismal efficiency:inefficacy ratio of the latest thing is further evidence.) Imagine yourself with the same amount of hindsight on now as we have on the printing press or loom, and tell me with a straight face the notable part is LLMs and not simply computers themselves. Buck Rogers’ history books will say, “In the early 2020s, the sixth or so attempt at AI served as a stark reminder to software practitioners just how immature their field really was”, and the next sentence will be about something else. Our pioneers are still alive is how new software development is compared to any other human endeavour. This isn’t the biggest upset so far or yet by a mile.
The dichotomy of end product vs process is bizarre. Sometimes, the end product is the process.
Indeed. I’ll go so far as to say the end product and the process are inextricably linked. It matters how a thing came into being. By-products don’t just vanish when you’re not looking at them. Which is why (tangent ahead!) the “means to an end” or equivalently “why can’t we just talk about the fun toy and not its effects on the world” view is so… childish to me - fully-fledged people have a responsibility to evaluate their actions in the context of their consequences. Just going, “yada yada externalities, can we gush about how convenient this is?” is some Farquaad “some of you are going to die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make”.
A fun reference for this thread might be Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
Programmers and mathematicians are facing this now, but scribes faced this with the printing press, weavers with the mechanical loom, portrait painters with photography.
The dichotomy of end product vs process is bizarre. Sometimes, the end product is the process. You find the conclusion of this with performance art, but see glimpses of it with “hand-crafted” goods, or photoshoots on film. Sure, you could mechanize the production, or you could shoot digital and just slap a filter on it, but that’s not what art/craft is about.
score 1 · canonical
Thing is, computer users have mechanisation already. We clearly just don’t know how to use it effectively yet. (The dismal efficiency:inefficacy ratio of the latest thing is further evidence.) Imagine yourself with the same amount of hindsight on now as we have on the printing press or loom, and tell me with a straight face the notable part is LLMs and not simply computers themselves. Buck Rogers’ history books will say, “In the early 2020s, the sixth or so attempt at AI served as a stark reminder to software practitioners just how immature their field really was”, and the next sentence will be about something else. Our pioneers are still alive is how new software development is compared to any other human endeavour. This isn’t the biggest upset so far or yet by a mile.
Indeed. I’ll go so far as to say the end product and the process are inextricably linked. It matters how a thing came into being. By-products don’t just vanish when you’re not looking at them. Which is why (tangent ahead!) the “means to an end” or equivalently “why can’t we just talk about the fun toy and not its effects on the world” view is so… childish to me - fully-fledged people have a responsibility to evaluate their actions in the context of their consequences. Just going, “yada yada externalities, can we gush about how convenient this is?” is some Farquaad “some of you are going to die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make”.
score 2 · canonical