Artless 9 - The future of creative work 6th January 2025

Opinion

The future of work for artists

Someone pointed out to me that using AI, "An individual of average technical skill but extraordinary vision can now leverage AI to build sophisticated applications, launch companies, and make complex strategic decisions at minimal cost."

It is not my case that AI tools are useless. Nor that they are not going to make life easier in many respects. But the fact of the matter is that there is no shortcut to building sophisticated applications, launching companies, and making complex strategic decisions at minimal cost. There is value in learning how to do all of these things. People who only take shortcuts never grow the muscle in their legs that might enable them to travel long distances. Getting to a place quickly and easily has its value, but not if the goal is to keep travelling beyond that point.

A cab can take you from one place to another. But you won’t become a driver as a result of it. If all you care about it getting somewhere, by all means, use AI tools to make life easier. But if you have greater ambitions than that, know that AI can’t and shouldn’t be the future for you. It may very well do the exact opposite of what you are expecting.

The creative chakra

It sometimes feels like the never-ending cycle that governs the universe involves an artist building something and then engineers and MBAs coming in to monetise it until eventually they become millionaires by stealing from the artist and the artist starves and keeps creating somehow until the next MBA turns up and then the cycle repeats all over again.

Our present AI situation is an example of it, but it has happened previously too. Like the AO3 case and the Google Books case.

It is of course, only too easy to paint the artist as a victim. What is needed is for the artist to become a canny businessman whose goal isn't profit at any cost. Literally, the worker taking the means of production into his own hands.

Links

Cory Doctorow on why artists are easy to exploit

Cory Doctorow writes in Pluralistic: "People make art because they have to. As Marx was finishing Kapital, he was often stuck working from home, having pawned his trousers so he could keep writing. The fact that artists don't respond rationally to economic incentives doesn't mean they should starve to death. Art – like nursing, teaching and librarianship – is necessary for human thriving." Read the full piece. Worth it.

The bot apocalypse is beginning

There is news that Meta is soon going to allow AI bots to legally exist on their platforms. I had warned some time ago about the incoming bit apocalypse. Prepare for a social media landscape where you get angry at machines because they say things designed to make you angry. Meanwhile, an ad plays nearby. Eventually, you get tired of it and build a bot of your own to rage against these bots. Social media then becomes a place devoid of human beings.

Harbingers of the AI bot apocalypse

AI-generated models are already a huge part of your feed. BBC did a profile on one of them.

Racism against Indians online

Arpit put out a hard-hitting video about how racism against Indians online needs to be seen in the context of the racism Indians themselves perpetrate against each other.

The podcast reputation in India

Punit Pania went on AMV podcast and they spoke of how, among other things, podcasts are a weird medium in India . They discuss why it took the shape of chudail and jyotish nonsense. Listen to the whole episode but if you are only interested in this segment, watch / listen from 1:14:52.

Is social media really bad?

Alice Cappelle goes into the research that says social media is bad for the mental health of children and the counterpoints to that research. She concludes (and I tend to agree) that social media is only bad because its present form is a toxic one. There may be versions of it out there that are unburdened by the need to profit from our attention. Those may very well be acceptable and even healthy.

Why no debunks

"People ask me why I don't debunk things anymore. Let's analyse together."

On the Richard Dawkins problem

No small part of being an atheist online is being clubbed together with the likes of Richard Dawkins. Many theists use him as a catch-all for all things atheism and I personally have made it clear for ages that I don't like him. His approach towards religion is wanting, his position on transphobia is crass. Drew here lists various issues he has with Dawkins as an atheist. Worth a watch.