A 2024 Discussion Whether To Convert The Linux Kernel From C To Modern C++

[Old Grouch]

But not entirely. We're already seeing people on the autism spectrum struggling with discrimination from school-system bureaucrats who receive false positives from "students may not use A.I. to write their papers" detectors because our use of grammar and vocabulary has always been a bit "robotic" and checking for struggling with ex nihilo creativity is one of the ways they diagnose the associated executive dysfunction.

Likewise, if you use a LoRA that changes the art style away from the uncanny-valley photorealism A.I. art loves to something like that 1930s/40s/50s/TV80s Disney cartoon style (eg. DuckTales, Talespin, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, etc.) or something suitably "generic anime" and make sure to inpaint the mistakes away, I already struggle with telling whether something is A.I. art or just another piece with the boring amateur-artist posing/composition that Stable Diffusion got over-trained on because insufficiently creative humans do it so much.

The problem arises: how does one distinguish between a convincing simulacrum of creativity and actual creativity? It's John Searle's Chinese Room again, which continues to generate passionate debate among philosophers with opposing views. I take the view that Large Language Models are not even convincing simulacra, which in its own way tends towards being controversial in some circles.

[lowflyer]

The problem arises: how does one distinguish between a convincing simulacrum of creativity and actual creativity? It's John Searle's Chinese Room again, which continues to generate passionate debate among philosophers with opposing views. I take the view that Large Language Models are not even convincing simulacra, which in its own way tends towards being controversial in some circles.

Old Grouch, thanks for the pointer to the "Chinese Room"

[lowflyer]

But not entirely. We're already seeing people on the autism spectrum struggling with discrimination from school-system bureaucrats who receive false positives from "students may not use A.I. to write their papers" detectors because our use of grammar and vocabulary has always been a bit "robotic" and checking for struggling with ex nihilo creativity is one of the ways they diagnose the associated executive dysfunction.

Likewise, if you use a LoRA that changes the art style away from the uncanny-valley photorealism A.I. art loves to something like that 1930s/40s/50s/TV80s Disney cartoon style (eg. DuckTales, Talespin, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, etc.) or something suitably "generic anime" and make sure to inpaint the mistakes away, I already struggle with telling whether something is A.I. art or just another piece with the boring amateur-artist posing/composition that Stable Diffusion got over-trained on because insufficiently creative humans do it so much.

Doesn't that - sort of - proove the point?
"robotic" repetitions do not qualify as "new work" and may lack creativity - irrespective of whether they come from a machine or from a human. The problem with the school-system bureaucrats is not the same issue. If they "robotically" use A.I. checkers on their student's works to qualify it as "It has A.I. in it" without looking at the content, they're not doing their work properly. It is a similar mistake like the students that use A.I. to write their papers. The root of the problem arises by the definition "students may not use A.I. to write their papers".

The problem as such however, is not new either:
There is an ongoing debate about whether Collage can be cosidered art. Remember the outcry in the artist community over Andy Warhol's works? In Europe, photographers have a really hard time to get copyright protection for their works because "photographs generally do not qualify as new works".

Changing the style may be fun. But my original point was not "how to identify if a work contains A.I.". Imagine going to an "art exhibition" where dozends of such "works" are on display - boooohoohooooring! It is boring because of the lack of creativity.

[Anux]

Changing the style may be fun. But my original point was not "how to identify if a work contains A.I.". Imagine going to an "art exhibition" where dozends of such "works" are on display - boooohoohooooring! It is boring because of the lack of creativity.

There is an AI art exhibition in my town, everything looks like a random number generator feed into different art styles. There is no meaning to any of this "art" and most people immediately notice that.

[darkonix]

The problem arises: how does one distinguish between a convincing simulacrum of creativity and actual creativity? It's John Searle's Chinese Room again, which continues to generate passionate debate among philosophers with opposing views. I take the view that Large Language Models are not even convincing simulacra, which in its own way tends towards being controversial in some circles.

It seems that reality has again catched up with Philip K. Dick.

[ssokolow]

Doesn't that - sort of - proove the point?
"robotic" repetitions do not qualify as "new work" and may lack creativity - irrespective of whether they come from a machine or from a human. The problem with the school-system bureaucrats is not the same issue. If they "robotically" use A.I. checkers on their student's works to qualify it as "It has A.I. in it" without looking at the content, they're not doing their work properly. It is a similar mistake like the students that use A.I. to write their papers. The root of the problem arises by the definition "students may not use A.I. to write their papers".

It's not that people on the autism spectrum lack creativity. It's that LLMs have a tendency to mimic autistic patterns of speech, grammar, and phrasing.

Changing the style may be fun. But my original point was not "how to identify if a work contains A.I.". Imagine going to an "art exhibition" where dozends of such "works" are on display - boooohoohooooring! It is boring because of the lack of creativity.

My point was that, if you change the art style to one that A.I. doesn't "uncanny valley" on, then you develop a large overlap in between what a creative person can prompt an A.I. to produce (especially with things like inpainting, regional prompting plugins, etc.) and what uncreative humans have been producing by hand, receiving copyright on, and not getting challenged on the ethics of.

[ssokolow]

There is an AI art exhibition in my town, everything looks like a random number generator feed into different art styles. There is no meaning to any of this "art" and most people immediately notice that.

There's tons of pre-A.I. art where the only meaning is "This is something a human made, therefore we must read meaning into this nonsense because art has value purely from being something rich people can launder money with".

[Anux]

There's tons of pre-A.I. art where the only meaning is "This is something a human made, therefore we must read meaning into this nonsense because art has value purely from being something rich people can launder money with".

True, but at least you can identify artists that really do art and ignore the other ones.

[lowflyer]

It's not that people on the autism spectrum lack creativity. It's that LLMs have a tendency to mimic autistic patterns of speech, grammar, and phrasing.

I didn't intend to hint that (I guess you got that). The underlying problem is general ignorance and lazyness of people.

• The lazy student that doesn't invest in real work and uses A.I. to write his paper
• The lazy prof that doesn't want to read the paper and just uses A.I. to disqualify it
• The lazy insurance clerk that answers your complaint with "the computer did it"
• The artist that deliberately produces crap because he can get away with it. (and probably teases himself with the reactions of the "experts")

My point was that, if you change the art style to one that A.I. doesn't "uncanny valley" on, then you develop a large overlap in between what a creative person can prompt an A.I. to produce (especially with things like inpainting, regional prompting plugins, etc.) and what uncreative humans have been producing by hand, receiving copyright on, and not getting challenged on the ethics of.

Spot on!

[ssokolow]

True, but at least you can identify artists that really do art and ignore the other ones.

The problem is that the same argument could be levied against digital art because the people who make it don't understand how to mix paints or handle a chisel or what have you and probably was levied against them initially.

Hell, digital art made art accessible to a lot of bad artists who found pencils too ugly and paints too expensive.