Technology

My company recently hired some "AI expert" to help us slop the place up a bit more. He gave a presentation where he had an expressionless, dead-eyed, generated version of himself straight from the bottom of the uncanny valley introduce him, talked about how much he loves AI "art," droned on about how AI helped him improve his golf game, then proceeded to give the most substanceless presentation for a good half hour rife with buzzwords and AI generated stock photos.

So anyway, employee morale is super high now that we had to sit through a presentation where a man making 3 times our salary demonstrated that his entire job is to tell the executives what they want to hear about AI every once in a while and play around with chatbots and AI image and video software the rest of the time.

It's not art, I'd argue. In the same scene that some long filmed things aren't cinema.

"""Art"""

I love this so much. Every single photo in the alternatives to AI is so much better than the slop.

Yes, on an extremely technical level, the slop is more accurate, in the exact same way that blending a cheeseburger is more proficient than chewing it. I want the jagged edges and real creative choices.

As much as I agree with the author, I'm almost positive he's wrong about the majority of people hating AI art. It's ubiquitous at this point, and by its nature that means tons of people are using it themselves. And, as long as it remains free, people are going to keep doing so.

Maybe that will change when physical reality overtakes hype-driven economics. Until then I can only hope AI art gets looked at the same way clipart was in the early 2000s someday soon. It is unbearably cringe.

I use Suno a fair bit from time to time. I spend a lot of time refining the lyrics and then I play around with music generation until I find the right vehicle for them. It really scratches an itch because I haven't written poetry for decades and I've never been able to write songs.

The result is music I really enjoy listening to and is meaningful to me ("meaningful" in quotes because some of it is just pop fluff). But one else wants to listen to it. And that's fine, I'm really just doing it for me.

I have yet to hear anyone else's AI generated songs that I gave a shit about, either. I think it's like the uncanny valley, except I can't tell the difference between generated and real music. But there's a je ne sais quoi that real music has generated music just... lacks. And it's only in the process of working on a piece that it takes on that quality, but only for the individual — probably because they attach to their input rather than the generated quality of the rest.

Anyway, people will get away with AI stuff in the background where something real commands attention, but if you ever make it a focus, i think people will tune out. You can just feel the... soullessness.

It's anecdotal, but my top YT video on my channel is about training the algorithm to give you less AI slop.

That dude definitely masturbates.

In an article about money laundering, two hands shaking with a wad of cash between them. And three thumbs. 🤦‍♀️ (Whoever let that get posted on the website should be fired.)