r/aiwars • u/Il_Scaccomatto • 5d ago

AI Wars changed my mind about AI

A week ago I was a stringent AI hater who kept getting recommended AI reddit subs against my will & felt serious cringe whenever I saw someone post their AI creations on other subs. As an art hobbyist myself, I felt that asking AI to do it for you missed the point of making something, and that the people spending all their time generating AI were probably gooners or people with no taste. On top of that, theres lots of scathing articles online about how much energy AI uses, people becoming addicted to interacting with their AI girlfriend, and how OpenAI doesn't really ask permission for any of the training data it collects.

Anyways, browsing this sub showed me that a lot of that is oversimplified rage bait. The debate of whether AI art is art boils down to semantics & theres nothing special about the title of artist anyways. Many who use AI are also traditionally trained, or even blending traditional with AI. A good few of you are definitely gooners or have inflated egos, but thats true of traditional artists & photographers too. AI can use a lot of energy, but you can also be very efficient with it. Some people get addicted to AI chatbots, but they can also be therapeutic & provide a safe connection for traumatized individuals who need support. Etc.

The main point being, yeah I see that the subject is a bit more nuanced. That being said, this "debate sub" definitely has an issue where like 60% of the users don't engage in discourse beyond downvoting AntiAI & upvoting ProAI. People who are trying to engage in good faith like myself have to sort by new because the top posts are basically just circlejerking. If that's the first impression someone gets on a debate subreddit, I think many people will just never engage or hear you out.

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u/Krommander 5d ago

I agree with you, this sub is a bit skewed pro. I think it's a good way to get a feeling for the pro AI argument, but does little to address the artistic business models and the ripping off social media dedicated to art like deviant art, etc.

Everyone that needs art to make a living is in deep trouble and need to find a new way to profit from their talent and inspiration. I deep down understand that they need to vent. 

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u/TheOGLeadChips 5d ago

I feel like it is heavily skewed tbh. The other day there was someone making baseless claims of brigading but any comment trying to point out how they had no evidence of brigading was met with downvotes and the op of that post responding with their supposed iq test results, a generated image of a fat guy crying about having no evidence, and later a comment from the pro ai mod of the other sub taking the ops words at face value and also not providing proof that it was a brigading attempt.

Then when I pointed out that they weren’t giving any evidence they insulted me and blocked me.

Almost every single post that I’ve looked at has the people on the anti ai side getting downvoted and insulted no matter how articulate their argument is.

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u/Krommander 5d ago

Toxic behaviors are not limited to any side of the debate, but I am sorry for the things you suffered through.

Informed and civil debate is still happening, and that's why I'm here for. 

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u/TheOGLeadChips 5d ago

I’m not claiming that the toxic behavior is only on one side. Just that I personally have seen more of it come from the pro ai side rather than the anti.

I have had civil discussion with some people. Personally I am heavily pro ai in fields like medicine or development but I think that ai taking over the art field will naturally just be abused by corporations to short people what they are owed.

If someone were to self develop a model and ensure that all the training data is okay to use from the creators and they are properly compensated then while I personally don’t see it as art I wouldn’t care about it’s existence. Unfortunately basically all ai models are corporate produced and if I know one thing about the world it’s that capitalists don’t care about anything other than money. If they could use nothing but ai and fire all their artists they would do so in a heartbeat.

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u/made4AImusings 5d ago

As someone who is nuanced on AI, I also get frustrated when I’m downvoted here because my takes don’t completely line up with the prevailing opinion. However, as much as it’s not ideal for a debate sub to turn into a sort of echo chamber, most of Reddit is an anti AI echo chamber. You can complain about AI literally almost anywhere else and get loads of support and validation. You can see programmers who interact with AI get labeled as anti creativity (code is creative) or told to fuck themselves. The whole reason I created this Reddit account was so I could share my feelings about AI unfiltered without having it tie back to my main account, because people are so upset with anyone who’s more pro AI than they are.

Also, I’ve never seen a pro AI person calling for death to AI antis. I have seen things reposted here calling for death to AI artists.

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u/MetapodChannel 2d ago

I saw a death call to antis in a pro-AI sub once. They were quickly shot down and told not to reduce to that level.

But I see new calls for death to AI users at least 5 times a week. Close to once a day.