That they tend to be formulaic, shallow, and repetitive does change this fact. Have you not noticed the increasing drop off in interest since Endgame? Even before that movies were either hit or miss with whether or not the audience was willing to tolerate the specific slop Disney was selling them. General consensus seems to be people are getting sick of Marvel slop - which is perfectly understandable since it’s slop, not art.
You’re confusing propaganda for art when they are not the same things. They can be if the creators in question are talented enough, but they are not inherently the same thing by default. Propaganda can be effective without being of good quality (up to a point).
General consensus seems to be people are getting sick of Marvel slop
Do you have any data to back this up or just “seems to be”? Cause companies typically don’t keep producing stuff that doesn’t sell. That some people are “sick of it” is no surprise, but it’s important to make sure we’re not confusing strong feelings about a thing with mass representation in opinions about it, i.e. if 5 of a 100 people are really super disgusted with Marvel but another 50 out of a 100 keeps showing up for it, that 5 is not the consensus, no matter how loud they are about it.
It could be Marvel is on a significant downward trend. It would be hard for anything that long-running to not be on some kind of downward trend. But is it on a downward trend because people evaluate it as “slop” or for other reasons? The imperial core itself is on a kind of downward trend, depending on how you look at it. It’d make a kind of sense if repetitive imperialist propaganda is losing some of its appeal.
“Slop” itself is becoming a kind of “slop” at this point as language. It’s kind of tiring seeing it repeated over and over, as if it’s some kind of magic word to show how valueless a thing is. What even is “slop”? What are the characteristics of a Marvel movie that make it that? What are the characteristics of generative AI that make it that? There is a certain irony in reactive hatred of generative AI claiming an inherent valuelessness resulting from handing off production of artisanal works to a computer and then turning around and handing off production of their analysis of the situation to vague, ill-defined buzzwords.
It’s interesting when asked to explain the sentiment of denigrating the technology of AI rather than just attacking the capitalism (which we should clarify is always a relationship not technology itself) people often end up having to resort to Nietchzean takes; the exaltation of the artist, preferred artistry, and those with discerning tastes against the unwashed masses; and then claim that is pro–worker - the tastes of the non-artisanal worker is immaterial compared to the ubermensch artiste.
We, as marxists, when doing the above should educate ourselves why the above is reactionary, and really double down on truly learning dialectical materialism.
There are too many in the western marxist tradition who are marxist because its like the “hidden gem” corner coffeshop of “ideologies” or because its “provocative” - so it becomes abstracted as a matter of social prestige capital (“I am the most morally forthright” “I believe in the secret little thing which makes me smarter than those hillbillies”)
What a stretch. Incedible how the moment it’s artists under the bus y’all suddenly don’t care about them, even infering they somehow are not workers.
Did you throw the weaver under the bus when the loom was invented when you explained we aren’t getting rid of the loom? Did you burn the loom instead? Is the marxist solution to unemployment due to technologial advancement to resort to ludditism? Is that your idea of worker solidarity? Or should the marxist conception of worker solidarity sublimate that?
You’re going to have to explain how your take is not Proudhonism.
I’m not making any of those claims, miss me with that. I’m pointing out how absurd it is that you don’t even see artists as workers and feels the need to make less of them.
Funny that just saying that is enough to start claiming I’m somehow a Proudhonist.
I’m not making any of those claims, miss me with that. I’m pointing out how absurd it is that you don’t even see artists as workers and feels the need to make less of them.
Then make a claim instead of crocodile-tears-workerism.
For anyone actually interested in learning and developing their understanding of artisanal reaction:
I am taking my time reading the first article you have sent.
First even before anything else needs to be said i do not see how other MLs can engage with LLM generated images and videos and do not see how this is going to worsen AI induced psychosis that is already bad and how them openly embracing it and trying to normalize it doesn’t worsen the situation, if not i do not see how any of you can explain some other solution than rejecting Generative models for shit it has no practical purpose in like writing or any other art. And regarding everything else, i do not see the cost of developing LLMs worth it almost every scenario but well, what do i know.
I do not understand what the author even implies by the first argument, the one about hating the work done by the machine equals hating the work done by the lowly peasant, what work dude, what is the artist even expressing here/ its the machine expressing and the artist giving guidelines, outsourcing the expression onto it, it isn’t procreate or something that makes the process easier or more efficient it removes the entire expression itself. I do not understand the multiple analogies you and others have given regarding how it is the lack of effort that makes something by AI deemed less, no, its the fact its not an expression or human expression, this is more akin to buying an IKEA bed stand and claiming it is the same as something sculpted by the wood worker. If your ideas of human expression and art are so bleak that you think a machine does the same thing as a human, what sort of people am i calling comrades?
The thing the artist is actually expressing is the fucking prompt and nothing else. God, the entire thing pisses me off so much, you are outsourcing your ability to express? what’s the point of even living at that point. If you think the most any human can express is by writing a bunch of prompts, whats even the point of living?
Fuck off. I’m not entering this whole shitshow of a discussion again, already have experienced this more than enough on this site. It’s absolutely baffling that you can just claim “the exaltation of the artist, preferred artistry, and those with discerning tastes against the unwashed masses” like anyone is saying that artists are superior, when in fact they are just workers like everyone else.
It’s incredible the amount of hate some marxists have for artists.
I’m guessing you would have liked me to respond to the above with:
Fuck off.
You have reactionary sensibilities and are upset being called out on your underlying sentiment, for which you had several oppurtunities to clarify but you refuse to explain yourself.
No one asked you to respond and since you did you could have asked to clarify if you didn’t understand what is going on.
Like, for example, why would I hate artists? I could make another educated guess why you think so here but then you will use the same excuse again that you have so far - you didn’t say the reason explicitly and then will refuse to stake a claim.
It’s absolutely baffling that you can just claim “the exaltation of the artist, preferred artistry, and those with discerning tastes against the unwashed masses” like anyone is saying that artists are superior, when in fact they are just workers like everyone else.
The above was a literally a response to someone claiming commerical mass market movies are not art despite someone else explaining they are for masses of folks, in the context of everything that was claimed elsewhere here by others too about the “specialness” of art. What is that but gatekeeping? What about the gatekeeping to keep art to those who only have the means or time to do so? What about allusions to the metaphysical quality of creativity? Oh right, you refuse to make a claim.
Not once have you explained why the socialised automation of every other labour is acceptable but not the artisan, and how that exception would not be reactionary. Your silence is deafening. That’s not solidarity.
Marxism ain’t a club you try to prove how proleteriat you are.
And we have not even taken historical materialism into account. Because ultimately this is not amount just making art. This about making art and being paid to do so.
Art which has been paid for, since classes have been a thing (ie most of human civilisation), have overwhelmingly represented the various culture milieu of those who have extracted value from others’ labour. The history of paid art has overwhelmingly been the sensibilities of the upper classes - even if the actual work was done by the working classes. And now to allude to the idea that AI under captialism changes that overall relationship is disingenious at best: making the anti-AI art generation argument = “pro-worker” the real absurdity.
And to make an exception for automation of the artisanal worker at the expense of every other worker is the “superiority” you yourself have refused to explain.
When retail was being moved online artists were happy to order paint or “self publish” through amazon destroying the art supply and book stores, but when artists jobs are threatened by automation they expect everyone else to rally around them.
You can’t actually be serious. Artists destroyed art supply and bookstores, not amazon that entered the market aggressively undercutting and buying and doing everything they could to destroy these? This can’t actually be a serious take being upvoted in this site, I refuse to believe this shit.
Apparently we only care about the right proletariats, the wrong ones we don’t care about. It’s incredible the amount of hate some marxists have for artists.
Artists didn’t destroy the art and book stores capitalism did. The point is that artists didn’t make posters to decry the loss of retail workers.
We see videos of farms in China where 2 men do the job that 50 used to do because they use drones and we celebrate it. How is it any different than AI making one graphic designer able to pump out 20 rough drafts in 10 minutes instead of 2 days?
Its not that we hate artists, it is that artists are not special. We hate the idea that some workers deserve to have their jobs protected from automation and others do not. Do you not see how arrogant and supremacist it is to think the entire working class should stand up against the automation of image generation when they have given up on fighting automation in every other field?
I can’t speak for them, but I didn’t take that from darkernations’ post at all. As far as I can tell, the general point here is that when arguments in defense of the status quo of what is considered “art” and “artist” start getting into elitist territory (e.g. “x is ‘real’ art, but y is not”, “people are fine with consuming shit and can’t appreciate ‘real art’”, “art has to pass a ‘je ne sais quoi’ vague bar of quality to be considered ‘good’”), it starts breaking from solidarity with working class interests and becomes this thing like “I don’t care if most artists never ‘make it’ as long as me the special artist who is a talented one and uplifted for it can be recognized for my contributions.”
That might sound like a lot to extrapolate from it and it’s not necessarily all explicitly voiced stuff in this particular thread, but it’s the kind of stuff anti-AI gets up to. People have a status quo which they depend on for their livelihood and so they want to defend it. That’s understandable. Some unions have already been fighting in this sphere to ensure they don’t get sidelined by shitty AI. Unions, for all their limitations they can have under capitalism, do tend to understand one thing, which is how to negotiate with circumstances. What internet anti-AI tends to do is more like trying to shame the genie back into the bottle and going for whatever argument is convenient to do so, without proper consideration of the implications of the argument.
For example, one of the common internet arguments against generative AI is that it “looks bad”. But what happens if the technology has a breakthrough that allows models to do fine details more accurately? And what about humans who make mistakes in their art? Here you get the people who say stuff like “oh well, their art is charming in spite of the mistakes because a human made it.” Well were they going and seeking out and buying that person’s “charming” art? Or were they spending their time liking video essays on how some piece of media has massive quality issues? Giving “sucky artists” a pat on the head for their effort doesn’t pay their rent. A limited number of artists can actually “make it” pre-AI and institutions justify their positions as them being “talented” or “working super hard”, whereas the ones who didn’t “make it” must be missing some special quality that would allow them to get through (the “X Factor”). Post-AI, that is still true. The main difference is even the “talented” ones are feeling threatened now. When people push vaguely-defined “bad art” further down the ladder, in order to try to protect the position of the “talented”, that only further splinters and confuses the issue and potential solidarity.
So it’s not that artists don’t matter or are not workers. It’s more that common anti-AI positions don’t even tend to support artists or artisanship as a whole. They instead tend to fall in line with the status quo, which is an elitist ladder of exclusivity, nepotism, and the movements of capital, and one that is largely controlled by major conglomerates, not individual artists or artist unions.
Do you have any data to back this up or just “seems to be”? Cause companies typically don’t keep producing stuff that doesn’t sell. That some people are “sick of it” is no surprise, but it’s important to make sure we’re not confusing strong feelings about a thing with mass representation in opinions about it, i.e. if 5 of a 100 people are really super disgusted with Marvel but another 50 out of a 100 keeps showing up for it, that 5 is not the consensus, no matter how loud they are about it.
I’m basing this mostly on the declining rates of ticket sales, Disney+ subscriptions, and positive reviews combined with the increase in Disney+ subscription cancellations and the upsurge in general anti-Disney attitudes.
It could be Marvel is on a significant downward trend. It would be hard for anything that long-running to not be on some kind of downward trend. But is it on a downward trend because people evaluate it as “slop” or for other reasons? The imperial core itself is on a kind of downward trend, depending on how you look at it. It’d make a kind of sense if repetitive imperialist propaganda is losing some of its appeal.
The efficacy of propaganda isn’t dependent on the state of the propagandizing entity but on whether or not the propaganda in question is convincing or at least compelling. Imperialist propaganda has certainly become less convincing in recent decades yet nevertheless remains compelling all the same; hence why even some “Leftists” will end up exposing their imperialist brainrot even while being more aware on other issues. BadEmpanada and Hasan Piker are a good example of this.
Marvel’s decline is due to fatigue, which is due to a mixture of both over-saturation of the Superhero Genre in general but also because of declining quality in the works presented.
“Slop” itself is becoming a kind of “slop” at this point as language. It’s kind of tiring seeing it repeated over and over, as if it’s some kind of magic word to show how valueless a thing is. What even is “slop”?
Unironically this is exactly how many non-Marxists react to Marxist language. Words have meanings - if you don’t know what they mean, look them up. The dictionary is freely available to anyone with internet access. This whole section feels performative.
What are the characteristics of a Marvel movie that make it that?
Poor writing, shallow worldbuilding, flat characters, one dimensional enemies, illogical plotlines, rushed pacing, bad storytelling, among many other multitude of things that are all a consequence of the movie only existing to sell toys.
What are the characteristics of generative AI that make it that?
The complete lack of human experience in the creative process. Any piece of art is a reflection of its creator and even if it’s ‘bad’ art you can still feel their experiences, their views, their feelings, etc. dripping through every page in a book, every scene in a movie, every line on a canvas, etc. An artist puts themselves in their work. AI does not do this because it cannot do this. It has no ‘self’ to place inside. It has no history, no experience, no values, no thoughts, etc. It’s an algorithm; a machine. It can ‘think’ only within the limits of its programming.
There is a certain irony in reactive hatred of generative AI claiming an inherent valuelessness resulting from handing off production of artisanal works to a computer and then turning around and handing off production of their analysis of the situation to vague, ill-defined buzzwords.
That you don’t know what a word means doesn’t make it a buzzword. This is naked pseudointellectualism. You’re not nearly as deep as you seem to think you are.
Okay. Here’s one definition, clearly taken from modern use:
digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence
But that doesn’t really say anything about what “low quality means”. It goes on to give quotes as examples:
An AI-enabled social media future also raises concerns around deterring AI slop—mass-produced, junky and superficial content that clogs up the web and social media accounts.—
Katelyn Chedraoui
Slop can now be found anywhere, from unsettling images on Facebook of Jesus fused with prawns to poorly written Kindle books …—
Tess Bennett
The closest to a concrete example given seems to be “Jesus fused with prawns” but it’s unclear whether it’s talking about a visual mess or a creative fusion of concepts.
So it’s largely just being circular saying that slop is low quality and low quality is slop.
Poor writing, shallow worldbuilding, flat characters, one dimensional enemies, illogical plotlines, rushed pacing, bad storytelling, among many other multitude of things that are all a consequence of the movie only existing to sell toys.
So… low quality? That’s what this boils down to, isn’t it? And if so, why not just say that? It’s more transparent in meaning than “slop”. Though also more revealing of the point of view behind it; that “low quality” artisanal work is deserving of disgust and rejection.
The complete lack of human experience in the creative process. Any piece of art is a reflection of its creator and even if it’s ‘bad’ art you can still feel their experiences, their views, their feelings, etc. dripping through every page in a book, every scene in a movie, every line on a canvas, etc. An artist puts themselves in their work. AI does not do this because it cannot do this. It has no ‘self’ to place inside. It has no history, no experience, no values, no thoughts, etc. It’s an algorithm; a machine. It can ‘think’ only within the limits of its programming.
What does this have to do with perceived quality though? If humans can churn out movies that are somehow still “slop” by your definition, then what’s distinct about AI generated stuff in this regard? There are already people who get fooled and can’t tell the difference because the differences aren’t actually as distinct as they think, on the surface. In fact, because generative AI is derived from human works, it would be weird if it felt nothing at all like human creations.
In reality, AI has biases based on how it was trained and what it was trained on. To use a basic example, an AI trained primarily on the works of shakespeare will largely produce things that sound shakespearean. Is this not a reflection of shakespeare and the culture that produced the form of his modern works than an AI might be trained on? Just more removed from his active involvement?
Another way to consider it, is if AI-generated stuff was truly lacking in anything resembling what humans make, it would not be at all relatable to humans. But clearly, in practice, it often is to a degree. It just lacks directorial intent a lot of the time. Instead of getting what you had in mind exactly, you get an approximation based on an amalgamated cultural lens.
Also, pseudo-rant incoming, as a writer, “their feelings, etc. dripping through every page” is some flowery bullshit. It’s a nice sentiment if you want to be poetic about it, but it’s not how the raw reality of it works. It doesn’t matter what I feel if the language I’m using and the mastery I have over it does not work for expressing it as I intended. This was one of the first things I noticed when I was younger and was trying to figure out how to translate “stories in my head” to novel-like prose. They are not the same and I still struggle with it sometimes.
An artist doesn’t put themself in their work. They take something, which is derived in part from their own self and in part from the world they have grown up in and are immersed in, and they try to translate it via the language that they know and the methodology they have to express themself, into something that we call an artform. And if they try really hard at this and fail on the craft of it and the logistical mechanics of how to excel at a given craft, their work gets called “low quality”, maybe even “slop”. The artistic world doesn’t give a shit how much “soul” you put into something if it doesn’t show in the work. If the value was about that, we’d be judging works based on proof of how many hours and how many crying sessions and personal revelations a person put in rather than the end result.
Never, when I see people critiquing or lambasting a work of art, do I see them going, “I wonder how many times the people involved spent long hours agonizing over a little detail. That would add to the value of it if they did.” People only give a fuck about that when it’s some individualist marketing campaign talking about an artist’s backstory to sell more of the product.
I disagree with the assertion that art is subjective. Art - in my opinion - can be defined as something expressive made through the love and passion of its creator and which is a reflection of its creator. The argument that art is subjective comes from the assumption that what makes something art or not is how it’s interpreted, which I vehemently disagree with. I am very much opposed to the individualist thinking behind “Death of the Author” and similar ideas. Art has meaning to it; it’s given a purpose by the person making it. It exists for a reason and has a reason to exist.
Slop is devoid of reason. The creator is not saying anything through it; they are trying to make money - or in the case of AI specifically are just doing what they’ve been programmed to.
I disagree with the assertion that art is subjective. Art - in my opinion - can be defined as something expressive made through the love and passion of its creator and which is a reflection of its creator. The argument that art is subjective comes from the assumption that what makes something art or not is how it’s interpreted, which I vehemently disagree with. I am very much opposed to the individualist thinking behind “Death of the Author” and similar ideas. Art has meaning to it; it’s given a purpose by the person making it. It exists for a reason and has a reason to exist.
The artists can appreciate their art but it is in that engagement that transforms it into art. If somebody who is not the creator appreciates something as art does it cease to be art because the artist has decided what they produced did have not love or had passion in it? If “death of the author” could have an individualist take then what does collective interpretation of a creation, even against the artist’s intention, do? Could that collectivist action nullify the individualist interpretation (of death of the author)?
Art is a relationship of the consumer (insert better term there) and the creation - that relation is real but is borne out of the material conditions of the class society as it stands today. The art of the artist does not exist in a vacuum and it is this relation to the world that dismantles any invidualist take of what is an artist and what is art. The objectivity is in that real relationship.
I would strongly recommend Georges Politzer’s Elementary Philosophy, not necessarily to convince you of dialectical materialism but at least understand convincingly what it is about. One understands relations but has an objective reality. It is not positivist.
Death of the Author does not negate the love and passion to create art but to understand why one must understand how one sublimates individualist takes without resorting to reaction; dialectical materialism is how one sublimates this - it is very much a collectivist understanding.
The artists can appreciate their art but it is in that engagement that transforms it into art. If somebody who is not the creator appreciates something as art does it cease to be art because the artist has decided what they produced did have not love or had passion in it? If “death of the author” could have an individualist take then what does collective interpretation of a creation, even against the artist’s intention, do? Could that collectivist action nullify the individualist interpretation (of death of the author)?
That isn’t how it works. Neither the artist nor the viewer’s interpretation of something makes it artistic. The art itself comes from the time, energy, and labor poured into it. The investment of that time, energy, and labor is a reflection of the creator’s passion even if the creator isn’t aware of it or in denial of it.
Art is a relationship of the consumer (insert better term there) and the creation - that relation is real but is borne out of the material conditions of the class society as it stands today. The art of the artist does not exist in a vacuum and it is this relation to the world that dismantles any invidualist take of what is an artist and what is art. The objectivity is in that real relationship.
Completely disagree. Art, as a reflection of its creator, is defined by the passion of that creator in its production. The consumer and their interpretation of it is an irrelevant factor here. Art is not created to be consumed; it is created to express. That expression can occur without any consumption taking place. Art is not an economic transaction but the manifestation of a person’s whole self through a different medium.
I would strongly recommend Georges Politzer’s Elementary Philosophy, not necessarily to convince you of dialectical materialism but at least understand convincingly what it is about. One understands relations but has an objective reality. It is not positivist.
Death of the Author does not negate the love and passion to create art but to understand why one must understand how one sublimates individualist takes without resorting to reaction; dialectical materialism is how one sublimates this - it is very much a collectivist understanding.
I am a Marxist. I know what dialectical materialism, thank you very much.
art itself comes from the time, energy, and labor poured into it.
Maybe consider if anything else had those three factors but would not be considered art. Could someone produce something with passion and still not be art? (If so, why?) Or is all passionate production art?
The consumer and their interpretation of it is an irrelevant factor here
By definition the artist has to consume their own art and is not excepted by this.
The consumer and their interpretation of it is an irrelevant factor here. Art is not created to be consumed; it is created to express. That expression can occur without any consumption taking place.
This is hyper-individualism. It is anti-social. Not withstanding the artist consumes their own art.
I am a Marxist. I know what dialectical materialism, thank you very much.
You’re confusing propaganda for art when they are not the same things.
You are confusing good quality and effort for art. A childs drawing on the fridge looks absolute dog shit, but still made their parents smile and is artful in its own ways.
I did nothing of the sort. Not once did I equate “art” with “good”; that is a strawman argument you cooked up in your head. I am vehemently against such an interpretation. Bad art is still art, but that isn’t what this line is talking about - the line is specifically talking about PROPAGANDA.
Propaganda is not good art. Propaganda is not bad art. Propaganda is not art at all; they are distinct concepts.
I did nothing of the sort. Not once did I equate “art” with “good”; that is a strawman argument you cooked up in your head.
You simply exchanged “bad” for “slop” and think you made a different point entirely. In your post there is no functional difference between the two since you have described it. You criticised marvel movies with the language that one would use when they call something bad.
That’s why i said you are confusing the two. You now stating that is not what you meant doesn’t actually change the fact that you did say that bad art is not art.
I am vehemently against such an interpretation. Bad art is still art, but that isn’t what this line is talking about - the line is specifically talking about PROPAGANDA.
The line about propaganda is later in your comment. Besides, propaganda is still obviously art. It is an expression and aims to evoke a certain feeling and certain thoughts within you. There is, again, no functional difference.
You are against artists and actively trying to harm them. If you were in charge of such decisions in a socialists society then that society would undoubtedly be worse
You simply exchanged “bad” for “slop” and think you made a different point entirely. In your post there is no functional difference between the two since you have described it. You criticised marvel movies with the language that one would use when they call something bad.
Slop is bad, but it is not art. Art can be bad, but bad art isn’t slop.
This isn’t hard.
That’s why i said you are confusing the two. You now stating that is not what you meant doesn’t actually change the fact that you did say that bad art is not art.
No, that isn’t what I said. That is what you read and is a mistake on your part.
The line about propaganda is later in your comment. Besides, propaganda is still obviously art. It is an expression and aims to evoke a certain feeling and certain thoughts within you. There is, again, no functional difference.
This is wrong. Propaganda isn’t inherently art. It can be art but it is not art by default. The purpose of art is self expression while the purpose of propaganda is influence perspectives.
You are against artists and actively trying to harm them. If you were in charge of such decisions in a socialists society then that society would undoubtedly be worse
That they tend to be formulaic, shallow, and repetitive does change this fact. Have you not noticed the increasing drop off in interest since Endgame? Even before that movies were either hit or miss with whether or not the audience was willing to tolerate the specific slop Disney was selling them. General consensus seems to be people are getting sick of Marvel slop - which is perfectly understandable since it’s slop, not art.
You’re confusing propaganda for art when they are not the same things. They can be if the creators in question are talented enough, but they are not inherently the same thing by default. Propaganda can be effective without being of good quality (up to a point).
Do you have any data to back this up or just “seems to be”? Cause companies typically don’t keep producing stuff that doesn’t sell. That some people are “sick of it” is no surprise, but it’s important to make sure we’re not confusing strong feelings about a thing with mass representation in opinions about it, i.e. if 5 of a 100 people are really super disgusted with Marvel but another 50 out of a 100 keeps showing up for it, that 5 is not the consensus, no matter how loud they are about it.
It could be Marvel is on a significant downward trend. It would be hard for anything that long-running to not be on some kind of downward trend. But is it on a downward trend because people evaluate it as “slop” or for other reasons? The imperial core itself is on a kind of downward trend, depending on how you look at it. It’d make a kind of sense if repetitive imperialist propaganda is losing some of its appeal.
“Slop” itself is becoming a kind of “slop” at this point as language. It’s kind of tiring seeing it repeated over and over, as if it’s some kind of magic word to show how valueless a thing is. What even is “slop”? What are the characteristics of a Marvel movie that make it that? What are the characteristics of generative AI that make it that? There is a certain irony in reactive hatred of generative AI claiming an inherent valuelessness resulting from handing off production of artisanal works to a computer and then turning around and handing off production of their analysis of the situation to vague, ill-defined buzzwords.
It’s interesting when asked to explain the sentiment of denigrating the technology of AI rather than just attacking the capitalism (which we should clarify is always a relationship not technology itself) people often end up having to resort to Nietchzean takes; the exaltation of the artist, preferred artistry, and those with discerning tastes against the unwashed masses; and then claim that is pro–worker - the tastes of the non-artisanal worker is immaterial compared to the ubermensch artiste.
We, as marxists, when doing the above should educate ourselves why the above is reactionary, and really double down on truly learning dialectical materialism.
There are too many in the western marxist tradition who are marxist because its like the “hidden gem” corner coffeshop of “ideologies” or because its “provocative” - so it becomes abstracted as a matter of social prestige capital (“I am the most morally forthright” “I believe in the secret little thing which makes me smarter than those hillbillies”)
I found this article an excellent attack on the above sentiment:
https://redsails.org/the-problem-of-recognition-in-transitional-states/
What a stretch. Incedible how the moment it’s artists under the bus y’all suddenly don’t care about them, even infering they somehow are not workers.
Did you throw the weaver under the bus when the loom was invented when you explained we aren’t getting rid of the loom? Did you burn the loom instead? Is the marxist solution to unemployment due to technologial advancement to resort to ludditism? Is that your idea of worker solidarity? Or should the marxist conception of worker solidarity sublimate that?
You’re going to have to explain how your take is not Proudhonism.
I’m not making any of those claims, miss me with that. I’m pointing out how absurd it is that you don’t even see artists as workers and feels the need to make less of them.
Funny that just saying that is enough to start claiming I’m somehow a Proudhonist.
Then make a claim instead of crocodile-tears-workerism.
For anyone actually interested in learning and developing their understanding of artisanal reaction:
https://redsails.org/artisanal-intelligence/
And this is Marx attacking Proudhon more than a century ago:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/
Too many of us have Proudhonist takes; please learn from those mistakes.
I am taking my time reading the first article you have sent. First even before anything else needs to be said i do not see how other MLs can engage with LLM generated images and videos and do not see how this is going to worsen AI induced psychosis that is already bad and how them openly embracing it and trying to normalize it doesn’t worsen the situation, if not i do not see how any of you can explain some other solution than rejecting Generative models for shit it has no practical purpose in like writing or any other art. And regarding everything else, i do not see the cost of developing LLMs worth it almost every scenario but well, what do i know.
I do not understand what the author even implies by the first argument, the one about hating the work done by the machine equals hating the work done by the lowly peasant, what work dude, what is the artist even expressing here/ its the machine expressing and the artist giving guidelines, outsourcing the expression onto it, it isn’t procreate or something that makes the process easier or more efficient it removes the entire expression itself. I do not understand the multiple analogies you and others have given regarding how it is the lack of effort that makes something by AI deemed less, no, its the fact its not an expression or human expression, this is more akin to buying an IKEA bed stand and claiming it is the same as something sculpted by the wood worker. If your ideas of human expression and art are so bleak that you think a machine does the same thing as a human, what sort of people am i calling comrades?
The thing the artist is actually expressing is the fucking prompt and nothing else. God, the entire thing pisses me off so much, you are outsourcing your ability to express? what’s the point of even living at that point. If you think the most any human can express is by writing a bunch of prompts, whats even the point of living?
How would GenAI stop you from creating your own art?
Fuck off. I’m not entering this whole shitshow of a discussion again, already have experienced this more than enough on this site. It’s absolutely baffling that you can just claim “the exaltation of the artist, preferred artistry, and those with discerning tastes against the unwashed masses” like anyone is saying that artists are superior, when in fact they are just workers like everyone else.
I’m guessing you would have liked me to respond to the above with:
You have reactionary sensibilities and are upset being called out on your underlying sentiment, for which you had several oppurtunities to clarify but you refuse to explain yourself.
No one asked you to respond and since you did you could have asked to clarify if you didn’t understand what is going on.
Like, for example, why would I hate artists? I could make another educated guess why you think so here but then you will use the same excuse again that you have so far - you didn’t say the reason explicitly and then will refuse to stake a claim.
The above was a literally a response to someone claiming commerical mass market movies are not art despite someone else explaining they are for masses of folks, in the context of everything that was claimed elsewhere here by others too about the “specialness” of art. What is that but gatekeeping? What about the gatekeeping to keep art to those who only have the means or time to do so? What about allusions to the metaphysical quality of creativity? Oh right, you refuse to make a claim.
Not once have you explained why the socialised automation of every other labour is acceptable but not the artisan, and how that exception would not be reactionary. Your silence is deafening. That’s not solidarity.
Marxism ain’t a club you try to prove how proleteriat you are.
And we have not even taken historical materialism into account. Because ultimately this is not amount just making art. This about making art and being paid to do so.
Art which has been paid for, since classes have been a thing (ie most of human civilisation), have overwhelmingly represented the various culture milieu of those who have extracted value from others’ labour. The history of paid art has overwhelmingly been the sensibilities of the upper classes - even if the actual work was done by the working classes. And now to allude to the idea that AI under captialism changes that overall relationship is disingenious at best: making the anti-AI art generation argument = “pro-worker” the real absurdity.
And to make an exception for automation of the artisanal worker at the expense of every other worker is the “superiority” you yourself have refused to explain.
When retail was being moved online artists were happy to order paint or “self publish” through amazon destroying the art supply and book stores, but when artists jobs are threatened by automation they expect everyone else to rally around them.
You can’t actually be serious. Artists destroyed art supply and bookstores, not amazon that entered the market aggressively undercutting and buying and doing everything they could to destroy these? This can’t actually be a serious take being upvoted in this site, I refuse to believe this shit.
Apparently we only care about the right proletariats, the wrong ones we don’t care about. It’s incredible the amount of hate some marxists have for artists.
Artists didn’t destroy the art and book stores capitalism did. The point is that artists didn’t make posters to decry the loss of retail workers.
We see videos of farms in China where 2 men do the job that 50 used to do because they use drones and we celebrate it. How is it any different than AI making one graphic designer able to pump out 20 rough drafts in 10 minutes instead of 2 days?
Its not that we hate artists, it is that artists are not special. We hate the idea that some workers deserve to have their jobs protected from automation and others do not. Do you not see how arrogant and supremacist it is to think the entire working class should stand up against the automation of image generation when they have given up on fighting automation in every other field?
I can’t speak for them, but I didn’t take that from darkernations’ post at all. As far as I can tell, the general point here is that when arguments in defense of the status quo of what is considered “art” and “artist” start getting into elitist territory (e.g. “x is ‘real’ art, but y is not”, “people are fine with consuming shit and can’t appreciate ‘real art’”, “art has to pass a ‘je ne sais quoi’ vague bar of quality to be considered ‘good’”), it starts breaking from solidarity with working class interests and becomes this thing like “I don’t care if most artists never ‘make it’ as long as me the special artist who is a talented one and uplifted for it can be recognized for my contributions.”
That might sound like a lot to extrapolate from it and it’s not necessarily all explicitly voiced stuff in this particular thread, but it’s the kind of stuff anti-AI gets up to. People have a status quo which they depend on for their livelihood and so they want to defend it. That’s understandable. Some unions have already been fighting in this sphere to ensure they don’t get sidelined by shitty AI. Unions, for all their limitations they can have under capitalism, do tend to understand one thing, which is how to negotiate with circumstances. What internet anti-AI tends to do is more like trying to shame the genie back into the bottle and going for whatever argument is convenient to do so, without proper consideration of the implications of the argument.
For example, one of the common internet arguments against generative AI is that it “looks bad”. But what happens if the technology has a breakthrough that allows models to do fine details more accurately? And what about humans who make mistakes in their art? Here you get the people who say stuff like “oh well, their art is charming in spite of the mistakes because a human made it.” Well were they going and seeking out and buying that person’s “charming” art? Or were they spending their time liking video essays on how some piece of media has massive quality issues? Giving “sucky artists” a pat on the head for their effort doesn’t pay their rent. A limited number of artists can actually “make it” pre-AI and institutions justify their positions as them being “talented” or “working super hard”, whereas the ones who didn’t “make it” must be missing some special quality that would allow them to get through (the “X Factor”). Post-AI, that is still true. The main difference is even the “talented” ones are feeling threatened now. When people push vaguely-defined “bad art” further down the ladder, in order to try to protect the position of the “talented”, that only further splinters and confuses the issue and potential solidarity.
So it’s not that artists don’t matter or are not workers. It’s more that common anti-AI positions don’t even tend to support artists or artisanship as a whole. They instead tend to fall in line with the status quo, which is an elitist ladder of exclusivity, nepotism, and the movements of capital, and one that is largely controlled by major conglomerates, not individual artists or artist unions.
I thought I was the only one who noticed this lmao I’m so sick of this stupid ass word now
I’m basing this mostly on the declining rates of ticket sales, Disney+ subscriptions, and positive reviews combined with the increase in Disney+ subscription cancellations and the upsurge in general anti-Disney attitudes.
The efficacy of propaganda isn’t dependent on the state of the propagandizing entity but on whether or not the propaganda in question is convincing or at least compelling. Imperialist propaganda has certainly become less convincing in recent decades yet nevertheless remains compelling all the same; hence why even some “Leftists” will end up exposing their imperialist brainrot even while being more aware on other issues. BadEmpanada and Hasan Piker are a good example of this.
Marvel’s decline is due to fatigue, which is due to a mixture of both over-saturation of the Superhero Genre in general but also because of declining quality in the works presented.
Unironically this is exactly how many non-Marxists react to Marxist language. Words have meanings - if you don’t know what they mean, look them up. The dictionary is freely available to anyone with internet access. This whole section feels performative.
Poor writing, shallow worldbuilding, flat characters, one dimensional enemies, illogical plotlines, rushed pacing, bad storytelling, among many other multitude of things that are all a consequence of the movie only existing to sell toys.
The complete lack of human experience in the creative process. Any piece of art is a reflection of its creator and even if it’s ‘bad’ art you can still feel their experiences, their views, their feelings, etc. dripping through every page in a book, every scene in a movie, every line on a canvas, etc. An artist puts themselves in their work. AI does not do this because it cannot do this. It has no ‘self’ to place inside. It has no history, no experience, no values, no thoughts, etc. It’s an algorithm; a machine. It can ‘think’ only within the limits of its programming.
That you don’t know what a word means doesn’t make it a buzzword. This is naked pseudointellectualism. You’re not nearly as deep as you seem to think you are.
Okay. Here’s one definition, clearly taken from modern use:
But that doesn’t really say anything about what “low quality means”. It goes on to give quotes as examples:
The closest to a concrete example given seems to be “Jesus fused with prawns” but it’s unclear whether it’s talking about a visual mess or a creative fusion of concepts.
So it’s largely just being circular saying that slop is low quality and low quality is slop.
So… low quality? That’s what this boils down to, isn’t it? And if so, why not just say that? It’s more transparent in meaning than “slop”. Though also more revealing of the point of view behind it; that “low quality” artisanal work is deserving of disgust and rejection.
What does this have to do with perceived quality though? If humans can churn out movies that are somehow still “slop” by your definition, then what’s distinct about AI generated stuff in this regard? There are already people who get fooled and can’t tell the difference because the differences aren’t actually as distinct as they think, on the surface. In fact, because generative AI is derived from human works, it would be weird if it felt nothing at all like human creations.
In reality, AI has biases based on how it was trained and what it was trained on. To use a basic example, an AI trained primarily on the works of shakespeare will largely produce things that sound shakespearean. Is this not a reflection of shakespeare and the culture that produced the form of his modern works than an AI might be trained on? Just more removed from his active involvement?
Another way to consider it, is if AI-generated stuff was truly lacking in anything resembling what humans make, it would not be at all relatable to humans. But clearly, in practice, it often is to a degree. It just lacks directorial intent a lot of the time. Instead of getting what you had in mind exactly, you get an approximation based on an amalgamated cultural lens.
Also, pseudo-rant incoming, as a writer, “their feelings, etc. dripping through every page” is some flowery bullshit. It’s a nice sentiment if you want to be poetic about it, but it’s not how the raw reality of it works. It doesn’t matter what I feel if the language I’m using and the mastery I have over it does not work for expressing it as I intended. This was one of the first things I noticed when I was younger and was trying to figure out how to translate “stories in my head” to novel-like prose. They are not the same and I still struggle with it sometimes.
An artist doesn’t put themself in their work. They take something, which is derived in part from their own self and in part from the world they have grown up in and are immersed in, and they try to translate it via the language that they know and the methodology they have to express themself, into something that we call an artform. And if they try really hard at this and fail on the craft of it and the logistical mechanics of how to excel at a given craft, their work gets called “low quality”, maybe even “slop”. The artistic world doesn’t give a shit how much “soul” you put into something if it doesn’t show in the work. If the value was about that, we’d be judging works based on proof of how many hours and how many crying sessions and personal revelations a person put in rather than the end result.
Never, when I see people critiquing or lambasting a work of art, do I see them going, “I wonder how many times the people involved spent long hours agonizing over a little detail. That would add to the value of it if they did.” People only give a fuck about that when it’s some individualist marketing campaign talking about an artist’s backstory to sell more of the product.
If art is subjective, isn’t it by defintion a relationship with its viewer? Wouldn’t that be the more dialectical approach?
I disagree with the assertion that art is subjective. Art - in my opinion - can be defined as something expressive made through the love and passion of its creator and which is a reflection of its creator. The argument that art is subjective comes from the assumption that what makes something art or not is how it’s interpreted, which I vehemently disagree with. I am very much opposed to the individualist thinking behind “Death of the Author” and similar ideas. Art has meaning to it; it’s given a purpose by the person making it. It exists for a reason and has a reason to exist.
Slop is devoid of reason. The creator is not saying anything through it; they are trying to make money - or in the case of AI specifically are just doing what they’ve been programmed to.
The artists can appreciate their art but it is in that engagement that transforms it into art. If somebody who is not the creator appreciates something as art does it cease to be art because the artist has decided what they produced did have not love or had passion in it? If “death of the author” could have an individualist take then what does collective interpretation of a creation, even against the artist’s intention, do? Could that collectivist action nullify the individualist interpretation (of death of the author)?
Art is a relationship of the consumer (insert better term there) and the creation - that relation is real but is borne out of the material conditions of the class society as it stands today. The art of the artist does not exist in a vacuum and it is this relation to the world that dismantles any invidualist take of what is an artist and what is art. The objectivity is in that real relationship.
I would strongly recommend Georges Politzer’s Elementary Philosophy, not necessarily to convince you of dialectical materialism but at least understand convincingly what it is about. One understands relations but has an objective reality. It is not positivist.
Death of the Author does not negate the love and passion to create art but to understand why one must understand how one sublimates individualist takes without resorting to reaction; dialectical materialism is how one sublimates this - it is very much a collectivist understanding.
That isn’t how it works. Neither the artist nor the viewer’s interpretation of something makes it artistic. The art itself comes from the time, energy, and labor poured into it. The investment of that time, energy, and labor is a reflection of the creator’s passion even if the creator isn’t aware of it or in denial of it.
Completely disagree. Art, as a reflection of its creator, is defined by the passion of that creator in its production. The consumer and their interpretation of it is an irrelevant factor here. Art is not created to be consumed; it is created to express. That expression can occur without any consumption taking place. Art is not an economic transaction but the manifestation of a person’s whole self through a different medium.
I am a Marxist. I know what dialectical materialism, thank you very much.
Maybe consider if anything else had those three factors but would not be considered art. Could someone produce something with passion and still not be art? (If so, why?) Or is all passionate production art?
By definition the artist has to consume their own art and is not excepted by this.
This is hyper-individualism. It is anti-social. Not withstanding the artist consumes their own art.
Cool.
You are confusing good quality and effort for art. A childs drawing on the fridge looks absolute dog shit, but still made their parents smile and is artful in its own ways.
I did nothing of the sort. Not once did I equate “art” with “good”; that is a strawman argument you cooked up in your head. I am vehemently against such an interpretation. Bad art is still art, but that isn’t what this line is talking about - the line is specifically talking about PROPAGANDA.
Propaganda is not good art. Propaganda is not bad art. Propaganda is not art at all; they are distinct concepts.
You simply exchanged “bad” for “slop” and think you made a different point entirely. In your post there is no functional difference between the two since you have described it. You criticised marvel movies with the language that one would use when they call something bad.
That’s why i said you are confusing the two. You now stating that is not what you meant doesn’t actually change the fact that you did say that bad art is not art.
The line about propaganda is later in your comment. Besides, propaganda is still obviously art. It is an expression and aims to evoke a certain feeling and certain thoughts within you. There is, again, no functional difference.
You are against artists and actively trying to harm them. If you were in charge of such decisions in a socialists society then that society would undoubtedly be worse
Slop is bad, but it is not art. Art can be bad, but bad art isn’t slop.
This isn’t hard.
No, that isn’t what I said. That is what you read and is a mistake on your part.
This is wrong. Propaganda isn’t inherently art. It can be art but it is not art by default. The purpose of art is self expression while the purpose of propaganda is influence perspectives.
Fuck off.