Some thoughts on AI art and AI/software in general:

The impact of AI on artists is not unique to them. The same goes for all skilled fields affected by AI/software, but again, the effect is not uniquely produced by software. Rather, all of these instances are a sequential step towards capitalism's end point: complete proletarianization and reduction of all strata into a two-class system via the hyper-accumulation of capital.

The impact of technology on art is the same as the impact of the power loom on the weaver. Previously, you had artisans and a craft, with a single individual involved in all aspects of the production process and thus unalienated from their labor. Following capital development, you have laborers/technicians and a production process, with intense division of labor that grinds down workers into their unadulterated labor power. It's easy to see how artists' traditional interfacing with the art market (through direct sale, commission and patronage) lines up with the earlier, while studio systems for animators and SFX artists lines up with the later.

With that in mind, participating as a consumer in the art market will not reverse the trends of capital development. Neither would a socialist revolution to be frank. The Soviets did not smash the textile mills like as the Luddites thought to do, but sought to utilize capital development in a manner that benefited human development.

Now that I got your attention with my inflammatory statements, please commission your artist comrades and support them in their struggle to exist in what is already a very punishing world to live in.

That's it? Buy commissions?

I understand that you mean well. But there's probably something more we could be doing beyond just buying some art. Is anyone doing anything? Is literally anyone in the art world organised? Even if it's pop up small groups intended on activism, what are groups actually doing? Serious question, I want to know and have very little knowledge about this sector.

Technology isn't the problem and I stand by that. The problem is capitalism and if that is your message then I agree 100%. But with regards to the techonology itself we are still at least 1 or 2 decades away from this shit becoming good enough to actualy replace artists. I think that you are underestimating just how corporations actualy deal with artists, the instances where the whole workflow can be dumbed down by a single sentence or a few lines is actualy rare, though some industries are definitely worse than others.

The biggest impact will be where artist creativity isn't all that important to begiin with, advertising for example is a huge waste of time for everyone and I think taking people away from working on art for shit like that is not bad actualy.

Same thing for the majority of corporate software and design garbage bullshit. Do you realy need a human being to work hours a day designing buttons or icons? Who will ever give a shit about that? Right away you can't say this is all bad. You can't argue this point without sounding like a luddite, photoshop vs traditional art is a dead argument, let alone software like Zbrush.

So lets get to the worst parts say the game industry. Even here you can tell at least half of the stuff is already made through generic means. Think asset bundles(and then flipping). Procedural art i.e texturing, animation is huge already.

If you think Dall-e is a game changer then you don't know half of it, the modern workflow in the AAA industry is already highly artificial. Just look at UE5 and how much they are pushing the idea of massive content creation.

So this isn't imo even all that useful yet, you wont see AAA studios rushing to make an environment or character through Dall-e. Not for a long time, 10-20 years at least. And then there is Hollywood where artists are already being exploited to shit because the absurd workload. Now if you imagine an SFX studio maybe cutting workload by 10 or 30% is that realy bad?

Some people will lose their jobs for sure. But if the job is a 10-12h daily crunch in a SFX company is that even bad? For everyone else not suffering through the absurd grind and shit conditions, I say it is still far too early, come back in a decade. Even if somehow AI software becomes that good then I am not sure how the general public is going to react.

Realy ask yourself would you watch a movie that just popped into existence? Complete ai generated voices, ai generated models, environment, effects. All that was necessary is one guy writing a complete script. Maybe you'd watch the best ones. But the majority would be so incredibly generic I doubt you'd give a shit past a certain point.

Heck just look at the entertainment industry today, do you even care about all the work and effort behind the dogshit streaming shows out there? You can't because for those artists it is not about art anymore but about making money. As I said at the start the problem is capitalism not technology.

Liv Agar had an interesting point awhile ago related to crypto but I think applies pretty broadly. Often when we fight against capitalist “innovations” knee jerk response is to push against its use as opposed to moving it forward, i.e., using a “yes, and” progression to throw off the “reasonable” stans and win over those on the fence.

I think this is it: https://livagar.medium.com/cryptocurrency-and-the-end-of-capitalism-1-2-f11db6a4815b

I read the piece awhile ago and I remember her argument fell flat at times (could have benefited from some more more thought regarding certain aspects of blockchain) but it was a novel take I found merit in. Basically, that socialists should embracingly shape and challenge the applications of emergent technologies for a better world.

I’m just wondering how AI generation could shift art positively. You still generally need to provide prompts, and based on google everyone knows what you type in matters. I could see new art forms blossom from AI tools that either use it completely or as a component alongside other medias.

This is already a problem with meme art, but I think one major key will be to make sure we remember the name of the human artist (even if they’re just the one writing the prompts) over the name of the algorithm, and give them a platform to explain and benefit from their creations.