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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36040 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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Yud is trying to make a point that people are mean or 'don't care', but he's doing it poorly.

That's not the point. The point is that there is no reliable societal mechanism to share the economic gains of technology with those most affected, and that there is no reason to believe that such a mechanism will exist in the future if it doesn't exist now. And yes, there are economic gains from Stable Diffusion. The gains are from everyone who uses SD art without having to pay an artist. That this has not translated into monetary profit for StabilityAI does not disprove his thesis, it strengthens it. The fact that StabilityAI does not have the money to compensate artists even if they wanted to is proof that everyone who was pontificating that AI companies could just "share the gains" was not thinking clearly about the gears-level mechanisms by which AI would transform the world.

The gains are from everyone who uses SD art without having to pay an artist.

The fact that StabilityAI does not have the money to compensate artists even if they wanted to is proof that everyone who was pontificating that AI companies could just "share the gains" was not thinking clearly about the gears-level mechanisms by which AI would transform the world.

On the one hand, you're correct that people being made obsolete by the new AI aren't being directly compensated for their lost income. On the other hand, you just explained how the gains are being distributed as widely as one could possibly hope for.

I'm certain there's some economic theory/concept that explains this (marginal cost of labor?). Yes, it will harm human artists that earn their keep through commissions, but the cost barrier (edit: for the prospective consumer of art) there was always going to be high (especially after seeing Tumblr do its best to meme more respect for artists and their prices), AI just lowered the cost barrier dramatically.

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