Source (Bluesky)
One of the issues is a lot people don’t want to do amateur stuff. They aren’t comfortable even starting because then they’ll start comparing themselves to others and begin self loathing.
“Ugh, I’m 32 years old and I draw like a 3 year old. Fuck this.”
This applies to more than just art.
“I can barely manage to operate the basics of a computer there is no way I’ll ever code.”
“I have no sense of rhythm and I’m out of shape I’ll never be able to dance and not look terrible.”
“Can barely socialize platonically at all, there is no way I’ll ever talk to that cute girl/boy, I’m going to die alone.”
Agreed! The people I knew who had the deepest and most varied skillsets were:
- not afraid to look foolish while learning something
- able to spend a lot of time learning it.
That’s all it really takes. Sounds easy but it’s not.
Its weird, being smart can also bite a person in the ass in this respect. If you are a ruminator or over analyze you’ll spiral yourself away from trying new stuff at a hair trigger.
able to spend a lot of time learning it.
This is subjective, you have to spend some time to be somewhat proficient in whatever skill, but you don’t have to be a master carpenter to screw two pieces of wood together.
Yeah, I remember the first time I tried archery in a VR game. I sucked so bad. But I kept going for 10 hours anyway. I still sucked so bad… but then I went to bed and woke up in the morning and it had all sunk in while I slept. I was immediately pretty good at it then, literally over night. But I had to put in the 10 hours of sucking. Hard to do. I have now put about 100 hours into that character and I pretty much never miss a shot within 50 meters.
Other skills take way longer. Archery in VR limits alot of variables, no draw weight, the arrow knocks to the same place every time, and the string draws to a fixed max pull back distance. So every shot is the same power level and the arrow flies out at exactly the same horizontal and vertical offset. So it’s actually a pretty relatively easy skill to pick up.
It’s really this, people don’t want to dabble in something anymore, just do something for the sake of doing it. My wife always ‘complained’ about me learning to play the guitar for a few weeks, then start painting, but after some time it was writing or programming followe by playing darts. Whatever it was, it was alway pursued as a hobby. Today my wife will comment that our (teenage) kids have it made, since whatever they want to try for a hobby, we will have some stuff laying around to try it.
I want AI to do retopology for me, not to make pictures. Yes, this is a cry for help.
Bereft of context, I can understand the appeal of typing a description and getting an image (I know you can get more fine-grained than that). I remember when it first was upon us, me and my friends obsessively toyed with it to see what we could get it to produce.
Personally, I lost interest pretty quickly, especially when it became clear that a handful of companies were looting the commons to enrich themselves and put professional and amateur artists out of work.
Yeah, I was really looking forward to google making more of those neat images with all the eyes and the dog faces. Additional fingers were always a plus for me, like cracking an egg and finding two yolks.
Now, instead of AI creating man-made horrors beyond my imagining (which are alien and rainbow colored), AI creates man-made horrors within my imagining (excuses for corporate layoffs, aggressive ads, etc, all excused by internet posters who don’t value art to begin with and have no idea what it is. Quit abdicating the human experience to matrix algebra).
AI images may may or may not be art, but it will never be YOUR art, any more than the art of artists I employ is my art. It just isn’t.
However, I think any AI argument that doesn’t mention capitalism as a factor is incapably reductive. As other commenters indicate, even very physically restricted individuals can and will create art.
Because they often have the means that many under capitalism do not: they often have time because they aren’t under full time employment. They have extra mental energy, the “spoons”.
Once again, the issue is ultimately a deflection from systemic issues that the upper class insist they aren’t intentionally worsening 🫠
I just went outside, picked up a rock and drew a stickfigure on the street with that rock
AI art requires a smart device and internet connection. You can do pixel art with the same
