i agree
I believe the real problem is not the AI but the humans who use the tools. The problem with AI vs older tools is that certain types of people are pushing it as the “be all and end all” of tools. It will do everything for your. Then you have a group of people the are not critical thinkers and believe the advertisers, pushers, sales hype, snake oil salesmen etc. , and expect that it will do the job for them and the results will be perfection. This is not true and anyone that uses AI should have to be able to understand what is actually going on. In simple terms, old automated tools, chainsaws, excavator etc. could do a lot (and put people out of work) but they required human interaction and skill. Give a chainsaw to someone will little sense and less skill and you will cringe when you see the results.
I believe the same applies to AI. If the person expects it to think for you, and will do a better job then they should not be using AI. AI gets it wrong more times than it gets it right and if you don’t understand that there is going to be a lot of wrong things happening.
The problem is the people who are pushing the AI concept to make a quick buck and there are a lot of people who want to go along with that model.
Just my opinion on a small aspect of a large and complicated problem.
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Google Gemini tells me there’s a 95% chance this comment is AI generated.
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And now it’s up to 100%!
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You can use AI to create, but what current “AI” creates I would not qualify as art. Current generative AI and LLM technologies are basically just statistical abuse trained on theft; it lacks any actual comprehension of input or output and performs pattern matching with no intent, artistic or otherwise.
Consequently, the tool is very good at generating slop, and is frequently abused to generate slop. The two aforementioned technologies could be used perhaps as a quick sanity check for some projects, but any artistic merit to those technologies is, at best, incidental.
I believe something described as AI could eventually create art, but genAI and LLMs aren’t it.
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Your magic spells of name calling don’t work. Try again.
It’s a tired as your so called response. Such dizzying intellect.
Should probably scamper of to a “pro AI” 3D model site rather than play here. But alas, that is why the human programmers gave us the “ignore” button.
When it comes down to it, I’m not sure why you’re coming in swinging here…?
Thingiverse is saying that it wants to be a hub of human creativity by preventing the site from being flooded by content that was created in a major way by commissioning it from an LLM. In general, the idea is to both create a community that appreciates the effort and skill that goes into the craft, as well as fostering the skills of the next generation by letting people show of things that they have created. AI is indeed a tool that can be used to create, but if you’re putting a prompt into a program and presenting it as your own work and creativity… well, it’s really not as a result of your work or creativity, right?
To quote one of the Thingiverse admins from prior in the thread:
If you’re interested in putting your input here to direct the site in a more reasonable direction, then that’s fine. But I’m unsure how coming in and calling the concept in general stupid is going to accomplish anything–even if you’re right.
Which, if I may put forth for the record, I do not think you are.
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The Amish are by a lot of criteria doing very very well.
They’re for the most part happy and successfully. A totally rejection of technology has worked out great for them.
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@lozhensel
Something like this is how you should have lead. The more we shout the less others hear. Some people hate AI some some people love AI. The point is, that this concept warrants discussion so we can at least agree to disagree. Each side has valid points but if we are not listening to each other we certainly will not learn much.
I agree that AI is a tool and, used correctly/carefully can be of great benefit. The problem with any tool is that it can also be used destructively and carelessly. I do not believe that it is the AI that is the problem. I am more inclined to believe that the problem lies with the people that wield it or manipulate its use.
Maybe one day AI will be able to be creative independently but then at that point we will need to decide if indeed it is sentient. In that case we need to have had these discussions thoughtfully before we are forced into a corner but we certainly should not be fighting among ourselves.
As an addition to your art scenario I recently read about Robert Bateman who has never had a showing in the National Gallery of Canada. I have been a fan of his since I was young and when I heard this I was shocked. Apparently one of the issues is that art critics did not feel his style of painting was ‘Artistic’ enough. Maybe I am jaded here as I dropped out of my Fine Arts degree program due, in part, to how instructors imposed their own beliefs on my work, insinuating that they knew what I was thinking.
I don’t know… It’s doing some weird stuff already… And even those working on it are a bit scared…
It’s hyperbolic to be sure, but I don’t feel like training Skynet just to have a fun little meme war on my social media of choice.
Yes, I agree. If indeed, we are raising a new AI child then when we train we should not be teaching and exposing bad knowledge/skills etc.
As we should be doing with our own children, we need to be teaching critical thinking and providing good examples. When all you do is expose children to everything without differentiation you will not end up with a thoughtful, reasonable, critical thinkers.
AI needs to be educated in a much more controlled manner. Just because you have access to vast amounts of data and can process it fast does not mean you are capable of separating good data from bad data. That all needs to be included in the learning process. The sad thing is that we can’t even do that with our own population. Instead we disagree and then fight about it and usually its a very few that manipulate the masses to meet a very specific agenda, and not one that has the best interests of everyone in mind.
That’s my problem in a nutshell. It’s a dangerous technology trained by dangerous people who are too excited or motivated to just be “the first one to do it.” It’s also being used as political football to compete with rival countries doing similar things, hence these non stop data centers. Ignoring the sci-fi risks, the economic damage alone is immeasurable.
When I can get any prompt to do any task I need there is no need for anyone else to do said task. All that will be left is for people to work on building said prompt. Until the prompt can build itself. Then what is anyone going to do? We do not exactly function well in perpetual bliss. We do require struggle. Like it or hate it, but work is vital to our mental health. And when no one is working and/or working with one person and a dozen kiosks, that is not good.
Even throwing all of that aside as hogwash… AI has driven consumer electronic prices through the roof. A technology I want no part of and have no use for is killing my ability to enjoy some of my hobbies. So, yea. The whole thing doesn’t just concern me, it makes my eye twitch.
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Granted, I personally am not really old enough to have experienced how these specific technologies were reacted to by the public, but I of course can see how they’re accepted today.
But when it comes down to it, I think that there are two main modes in which we appreciate a work of art, whatever it may be.
First, is how we react when we see/experience it initially–the first impression that we get. “Wow, that looks amazing!” etc, etc. AI-generated content can very much have a lot of this.
But then second, there comes an appreciation for how that piece of art came to be. In a photo’s case, I can appreciate how the photographer decided to stage it, the camera settings, and the lighting. Perhaps even more importantly, I start thinking about the story behind it. Where was it taken? What does it depict? How did it get that way?
And with paintings or other forms of media, I can appreciate the work that went in to utilizing the brush to make the shapes on the canvas. I know how hard painting is, so I am all the more moved when someone creates a stunning painting using watercolor and brushes. Is it less impressive that JMW Turner didn’t mix his own paints? Well, technically yes, but there’s so much else there to appreciate to the point that I don’t care about that.
But in its purest form, when someone puts a sentence into an LLM and an image comes out… what is there to appreciate? They had an idea, cool, but then they essentially commissioned a program to create an image for them. My big issue is the people that claim that somehow doing this makes them an artist, when they didn’t put any real effort into trying to create something themselves. After all, photographers don’t say they “make” photos; they are very clear in that they just “take” them. But for some reason being an AI prompter makes you the “maker” of the resulting images? It’s all very strange to me.
Of course, there are now programs that you can continually edit and reprompt to refine your image. I can appreciate the intentionality there, but I can’t appreciate any of the actual image generation, since it was done entirely by a machine–one, I might add, is generally made by a company trying to generate as much profit as possible, and trained upon stolen work.
And then there is the issue of mass-producing slop. I’ve been seeing issues on other platforms of people uploading mass quantities of AI-generated models that aren’t optimized for printing, but are just designed to generate as many clicks and ad revenue as possible. If Thingiverse wants to be a hub for encouraging people to create quality models, disallowing AI is an obvious choice here. You say there’s no such thing as “soul,” but be honest–which has more soul; a design that has been meticulously crafted by a person over hours of work, or one that was generated by an LLM after a few moments’ thought by the prompt-writer?
Overall, will some integration of AI be accepted as legitimate forms of art by the general public? Perhaps, but I hope the currrent movement of trying to acknowledge people that simply request images from LLMs as artists fades away and is never rekindled. It’d be like if there was a movement in the camera era where people bragged about how painters were now useless and obselete. If such a thing happened then, it was ridiculous then, just as anyone supporting AI now is ridiculous to suggest that the existing artists are now unnecessary.
Hokey slogan or not, in a landscape where I am being constantly barraged by advertisements and popups suggesting I surrender my creativity to an algorithm, I absolutely want to resist that and dare to stay human.
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There’s a pretty famous story about Picasso selling napkin art for a lot of money–the point being that he practiced his whole life to get that good. It was easy in the moment, but he utilized his decades of experience to get to a point where it was that easy. And in my opinion, the challenge is the point in many cases. It is more impressive and more meaningful if the journey to make the art was more impressive. This is a very important part of it to me.
And at the end of the day, I just think that offloading a lot of the creative power to an AI is really unfortunate. Even with a lot of tinkering, the AI is still making a lot of the creative decisions for you.
If I use someone else’s art in the background of my video game without permission, that’s theft, because I did not pay them to compensate for my commercial use of their work. I am unsure as to why AI companies don’t have to pay to utilize other people’s copyrighted work to train their LLMs and then make money off of them. I consider that theft, but if you don’t I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I don’t like AI-created art, and I didn’t before Thingiverse changed ownership. Now whether this is a result of a cold and calculating corporate decision or not remains to be seen, but either way, I’m following my own path. I certainly am glad my views don’t align with the AI corporations that seem to be all for profit and growth and nothing else.
Though to be honest I’m not sure how resisting AI was done for corporate reasons; the easy way to get new investors is to ally yourself with AI–look at OpenAI’s meteoric rise in stock prices over the past few years.
Unfortunately, there have been influxes on sites like MakerWorld. You’re correct that they’re unprintable, but that doesn’t matter; they just need to LOOK printable long enough to get clicks and downloads.
And I’m not sure why this has to be an us problem. Why is late stage capitalism boosting a company that isn’t profitable, causing data centers to pollute water, causing computer prices to skyrocket, etc, something we have to deal with when we never asked or wanted this?
And I would imagine we are also mad about fascism killing people, but this is a forum about Thingiverse, so… it would be rather strange to say “you know, I don’t like how Thingiverse is moving away from AI, but since there are worse things in the world I guess I’m fine with it.”
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AI has created a landscape of sameness. All the channels on youtube that use it sound the same, look the same or just flat out suck. Its overrun with autodubbed AI presentations. I used to watch or listen for creativity. Its annoying.
I have seen videos or pictures of model kits and been woah, thats cool only to realize its bloody fake. I cant tell what is made by a creative and whats slop now. And its going to get harder and harder. No tag. No watermark. No opt out.
Its in every app I use taking up much of my screen with no way to shut it off. Why does AI need to be on Ebay? Its been the same basic concept for 30 years! Tech support? Whos gonna pay India then! Side note, automated tech support is one of humanities dumbest ideas. Forign tech support right behind it.
It has broken search engines because the data scraping to come up with search results causes traffic to the actual websites with the actual answers to cease. All so google can keep you on their website.
And thats just the internet.
But yea. What a wonderful new toy. As long as your amused its all good.
Hogwash my ass. Last I am gonna add.
Sorry you misunderstood what I was saying about the data. I was not talking about the AI training I was talking about the data that many of the models are returning back to users. It provide information that is already out there and much of it is not valid or does not work as the user expects. I am not blaming AI here I blame the users that believe it is accurate. I blame the promoters who push this as a panacea. I do not disagree with most of what you are saying but I do believe you are tilting at windmills to some extent.
huh. Got an email notifying me of a reply from our friend, but it seems it’s nowhere to be found. I hope they realize they’ve been barking up the wrong tree here and have moved on to other spaces–and I mean that honestly!
That member was removed from the platform for insulting other community members. I would like to take this opportunity to clarify that all ideas and positions are welcome here. In fact, I was following this conversation as well as another one, the points were interesting, although the reasoning behind them was quite debatable, which is completely normal in any forum. However, when it comes to personal insults, that is where we have to intervene
oh