UX-wise it's quite minimalistic, that seems one of their differentiators. And I'm liking it!

You can pair program.

With tools like this, the artist is not removed from the art. He just has more leverage.

I would argue the opposite even: this is more personal, as a singular artist can now do more by himself, without relying on others to do the parts that he couldn't do before.

AI strips a lot of the intention from the work. The artist might want a wooden house with a straw roof and while they design the house they might add framing and other small touches to the house and to the viewer the small decisions could be as important as the choice for a straw roof.

When the artist AI generates it they get a house with wooden house with a straw roof and nothing else has any thought or intention. Its less personal, the viewer previously did not have to question what the artists intention was now they do because its likely the artist had no intention or thought towards a particular part of the art.

There are a lot of assumptions here about how an artist uses the AI tools. Suddenly artists stop fussing and planning and sketching and mocking and drafting and redrafting and polishing until the work is perfect and communicates their intent in the way they need, and turn into completely different people. When a person just tosses a prompt at an LLM and accepts the result, you would be hard pressed to call them an artist.

So the artist simply accepts the AI generated wooden house. Might it be possible that he does not?

Furthermore, before AI, artists also used assets that came from other creators, accepting them wholesale. No intention, then?

The issue I see here is that we're judging the tool, not the artist.

It reminds me so much of the digital photography backlash. But here we are.

Digital photography is completely different. The principles do not change whether you’re shooting film or digital. You have to frame the shot. You have to make sure the exposure is what you want. You have to set f-stop. Even if you try to argue that automatic settings on cameras negate all of that, which I don’t agree with but let’s allow it, at the end of the day you have to pick the focal distance and frame, which are the anchor points of the entire photograph. That is not the same as an AI generated facsimile, and whether you’re shooting film or digital does not change that fact.

When use a LLM tool to write, paint, or generate a photograph, you are not actually writing the words, you are not actually physically painting, and you are not framing a photo. It is literally a different process and medium. You can enjoy that, even I have at times, but it’s not the same thing.

That's the issue with metaphors, they are always different. Try steelmanning the issue and see what you think. I'm not here to prove a point, and I hope you're not either. I'm here to learn.

And what I'm learning is, artists are happy.

This is rather patronizing and does not foster dialogue/learning. Nobody trying to learn talks down to somebody like this with such confidence that they are right.

This is a topic I know very intimately and have strong feelings on. You are welcome to disagree with me, I am not the god of cameras and therefore always right, but I also should not be so quickly dismissed when it comes to this topic simply because you disagree with my take on AI generated “photography.” I use air quotes not to mock you but to emphasize that I do not consider it photography. It’s a different process and medium, it’s a different tool and result. None of this is a reflection of its merits or the people who utilize it.

I believe your metaphor was a very poor one so I expressed it. If you think it’s appropriate than feel free to explain it, but IMO, prompting an image and shooting it with a camera in your hands is not the same thing. So don’t start talking down to me and lecturing me on “being willing to learn” simply because I explained my reasoning on this.

Like?

Inflammatory partisan and identity politics activism.

Directly interfering in the u.s. government

A consistent pattern of grandiose over-promising and under-delivering in his products (FSD, robotaxis, electric-semi, boring company etc)

and plenty more

Classic commoditize the complement, well done on SpaceX's side:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

Every time a state tries to regulate, it loses to the states that promote instead. Seems to be a better evolutionary strategy.

It has already started:

  zero-graph v1
  origin source-text
  module "hello"
  hash "graph:a7f7e6899a73f3b4"

  node #decl_ad8d9028 Function name:"main" type:"Void" public:true fallible:true
  node #param_4610ae76 Param name:"world" type:"World"
  node #expr_c403020c MethodCall name:"write" type:"Void"
  node #expr_653eeb6e Literal type:"String" value:"hello from zero\n"
  edge #expr_c403020c arg #expr_653eeb6e order:0

https://zerolang.ai/

Loving this, not loving the negativeness in this thread.

I wonder what the negativists will say about Reflect Orbital, which uses their Eärendil space mirror to light the world.

* https://www.reflectorbital.com/

Why do you see things as negativeism vs positivism? Do you not live in a world where good and evil are syncretic? That mindset is bizarre, to me.

My personal experience with Starlink is that it's an expensive LTE alternative. It's not a broadband replacement, the entire thing is pretty clearly a coverup for dual-use technology in low earth orbit:

    Starshield was adapted from the global communications network Starlink but brings additional capabilities such as target tracking, optical and radio reconnaissance, and early missile warning. [0]

Reality doesn't hinge around negativism and positivism. It's a mixture of both, it's unhealthy to pretend that technology only has positive uses and cannot ever have negative side effects.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield

I choose positivity, because it allows me to live a happy life.

Regarding Starlink, I like it because it gives people free internet in flights. It gives a friend the possibility to stay in a rural home while being able to work. It gives tens of thousands access to information when there are catastrophes like the Venezuela earthquake.

It makes people being able to live a happy(er) life.

Satellite internet existed before Starlink. Those people had access to other options, I know that because I was one of them!

Do you still choose positivity when Starlink is used to target and attack civilians and civil infrastructure? Are you still "positive" if Russia or China starts attacking Starlink with satellite weaponry? Are you positive about Starlink when Kessler Syndrome takes over, and leaves customers dependent on a logistics network that was never for them?

There are positives and negatives. As a rural Starlink customer, I feel comfortable saying that the negatives far outweigh the positives.

why do you think "lighting the world" is good in this case

Exactly. Elon Musk does things for (1) fun (2) revenue in order to fuel his real mission: derisk humanity by conquering Mars.

I like him! :D

I don't like him. I don't hate him either. He's not a thing in my life. But the companies are, SpaceX etc. do impact me.

Basically I would hate to see HN become Reddit.

It's definitely happening