It's going to be a blip on human history ultimately. Almost every AI art image ever generated will only exist online and a couple of hundred years from now in the next dark age both the art and the technology will be gone and forgotten. I've not seen any AI art that humanity would attempt to preserve during a dark age or decline.
I address the spiritual issue of why AI art is bad recently myself:
"The constraint is artificial. The human feeding the bot is not creating anything in actuality he is engaged in an empty game of novelty that will eventually expire. For all the humans creative prompts sooner or later the output would be indistinguishable from the chat bots. In essence the technology removes the humanity of the participant. Once humanity is removed there is a void, nothingness."
I quote you further: "Once humanity is removed there is a void, nothingness. The erasure of the soul is to me evil."
This is true, there is no life in AI-art, AI-writing, and so on. From a certain line of reasoning, one could say our general cultural drift is 'life turning against itself', and technology is the means by which life does so. You speak beautifully about goals, and how AI can set no real goals. Yes indeed, and this is of the essence of the problematic. The human is the choosing animal par excellence, but with techno-science increasingly coming to order our lives, the human no longer orders his own life, sets ends for his own life. This ordering is done by technology. And thus, man has renounced or outsourced part of his essence, one could say. Additionally, with developments of technology. No one ever asks (before a technology is developed or implemented), 'is this beneficial for humanity and do we want it?' no, it is just developed. It is possible? Let us do it. This is the 'reasoning', which in many ways is an absence of reasoning. Now with this paradigm, life turning against itself/renouncing itself, and technology as the means... With AI-art, as you say, it is the apex of this, man renounces his ability for creation itself, that which arguably is what makes him man. Today, by giving words to some robot. And in the future, as you point out, the robots can go put words to other robots, and man becomes merely a spectator, or a victim....
This is a framework I can stand by. But, I am hesitant in calling these developments evil. Nerds have always created things, and nerds will always create things. The world goes where it goes, and sub specie aeternitatis, it is all part of the same drift. A drift which goes cyclically, in all likelihood. Evil? Perhaps, but evil is only a test. Contraries are known by contraries. Maybe, robots will roam the world, AI will control it, neuro-science will have explained free-will away, and amongst all this, a man will grow weary, and decide to sit amongst it all, asking himself, as if for the very first time: "who am I?" A beautiful moment, do you not think? As if for the very first time, soul has come to know itself. And at this moment, this man cannot help but think that maybe all this 'artifice' was needed, for him to know himself in that moment. And he will be right.
This drift to 'create' new technology, this desire born within life to drift away from itself, this is all natural to life. It is of the essence of the essence to depart from itself, and eventually, to return to itself.
"In the same way, AI forces us to reflect on our activities. If some robot can write emails just like I do, then how can I write emails that a robot can’t? If a robot can write your thesis for you, then was your thesis-idea even worth anything to begin with?"
Consider manual labor, and physical strength.
By the same logic:
If a bulldozer, mechanized tower crane, farming tractor, or forklift can lift 5,000x what my biceps can lift, then were my biceps even worth anything to begin with?
Machines make humans obsolete.
Industrial economies are no longer dependent on human labor. Therefore the logic of markets, capitalism, profitability, etc. makes huge numbers of people irrelevant.
This is an example of technological miracles succeeding to such a beautiful, awesome extent that they exceed imagination, and begin to displace traditional social functions. Communities erode.
Emails are of course a waste of time, and corporate culture is suffocating, emasculating. But I think it's quite possible, even highly probable, that AI will displace white collar employment.
Now, there is an element where this is hilarious, and has a certain poetic justice to it, because corporate cubicle culture is corrupted by Woke fake jobs, and the white-collar tech industries have laughed and preened smugly as Silicon Valley offshored the factory jobs of the Rustbelt, and blue-collar men wasted away with opiods.
So this kind of massive incoming technological disruption might be a welcome tsunami to crash against our stagnant, corrupt civilization.
But I see no reason why the miracles of technology should be measured against the basic spiritual needs of humanity... Work is not just about the measurable output, but also about the spiritual and psychological rewards of working hard and struggling in pursuit of a higher goal.
Paulos MythPilot has written well about how societies should be formed around human flourishing, in response to modern upheavals.
"The current hostility of governments and institutions towards their subjects is very strange. For most of human history, it was in the best interest of rulers that their subjects should flourish. More men, women, and children in your kingdom meant more soldiers and laborers. In a world defined by human power, more humans meant more power. Even continuing into the age of mass democracy and industrialization, larger populations could field larger armies. Therefore developed powers had an interest to grow their populations. However, with the advent of nuclear weapons and mass automation, large populations were no longer necessary. Bombs could protect borders, and goods and food could be made by machine. Population growth came to be viewed as a liability...
...For a time these systems worked, even after manufacturing was sent overseas and subjects would no longer be required to even produce, because the inconvenient masses were re-conceptualized as consumers: they could demonstrate their utility to nations and corporations by buying things. As long as the economy continued to expand and there was a constant stream of new things to buy the system could sustain itself.
...
...many government bodies which in previous ages might have been concerned with contributing to population growth and human flourishing are instead committed to policies that are structurally hostile to it, or animated by favoritisms that have the effect of denying support to majority populations. For example, when the stated policy of governments is permissive of mass migration, and the overriding moral motivation for the deployment of new government resources lies only in favor of new populations, the end result is neglect or hostility to the concerns of a country’s core population, a position of de-facto eliminationist policy. The point is, many middle-class Americans are alienated and have no recourses for official support. There are millions of bright people out there who are ripe for someone to help take care of them and bind them together into high-quality groups that can go out into the world and do things."
TLDR: Useful technology eliminates previous forms of labor.
Scientific ingenuity has the potential to eliminate most jobs.
Ordinary humans shouldn't be blamed for being outcompeted by factories. Individual men should be mentored by aspirational rolemodels to struggle, work hard, earn self-respect. But average men aren't "special" or "creative". And that doesn't make them defective, or lazy, or worthless. 200 years ago, a lot of these men would've been perfectly responsible, productive, boring citizens.
Economic utility is crucial, but productivity will always aggregate into a Pareto distribution. 80% of people are mediocre from a competitive standpoint in any given domain, but they still need a way to live, build families.
decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid,
drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a
society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects
of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values."
The natural can never be inferior to the artificial; art imitates nature, not the reverse.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
It's going to be a blip on human history ultimately. Almost every AI art image ever generated will only exist online and a couple of hundred years from now in the next dark age both the art and the technology will be gone and forgotten. I've not seen any AI art that humanity would attempt to preserve during a dark age or decline.
I address the spiritual issue of why AI art is bad recently myself:
"The constraint is artificial. The human feeding the bot is not creating anything in actuality he is engaged in an empty game of novelty that will eventually expire. For all the humans creative prompts sooner or later the output would be indistinguishable from the chat bots. In essence the technology removes the humanity of the participant. Once humanity is removed there is a void, nothingness."
https://arthurpowell.substack.com/p/why-ai-art-is-bad
Interesting, thank you for sharing.
I quote you further: "Once humanity is removed there is a void, nothingness. The erasure of the soul is to me evil."
This is true, there is no life in AI-art, AI-writing, and so on. From a certain line of reasoning, one could say our general cultural drift is 'life turning against itself', and technology is the means by which life does so. You speak beautifully about goals, and how AI can set no real goals. Yes indeed, and this is of the essence of the problematic. The human is the choosing animal par excellence, but with techno-science increasingly coming to order our lives, the human no longer orders his own life, sets ends for his own life. This ordering is done by technology. And thus, man has renounced or outsourced part of his essence, one could say. Additionally, with developments of technology. No one ever asks (before a technology is developed or implemented), 'is this beneficial for humanity and do we want it?' no, it is just developed. It is possible? Let us do it. This is the 'reasoning', which in many ways is an absence of reasoning. Now with this paradigm, life turning against itself/renouncing itself, and technology as the means... With AI-art, as you say, it is the apex of this, man renounces his ability for creation itself, that which arguably is what makes him man. Today, by giving words to some robot. And in the future, as you point out, the robots can go put words to other robots, and man becomes merely a spectator, or a victim....
This is a framework I can stand by. But, I am hesitant in calling these developments evil. Nerds have always created things, and nerds will always create things. The world goes where it goes, and sub specie aeternitatis, it is all part of the same drift. A drift which goes cyclically, in all likelihood. Evil? Perhaps, but evil is only a test. Contraries are known by contraries. Maybe, robots will roam the world, AI will control it, neuro-science will have explained free-will away, and amongst all this, a man will grow weary, and decide to sit amongst it all, asking himself, as if for the very first time: "who am I?" A beautiful moment, do you not think? As if for the very first time, soul has come to know itself. And at this moment, this man cannot help but think that maybe all this 'artifice' was needed, for him to know himself in that moment. And he will be right.
This drift to 'create' new technology, this desire born within life to drift away from itself, this is all natural to life. It is of the essence of the essence to depart from itself, and eventually, to return to itself.
I disagree.
"In the same way, AI forces us to reflect on our activities. If some robot can write emails just like I do, then how can I write emails that a robot can’t? If a robot can write your thesis for you, then was your thesis-idea even worth anything to begin with?"
Consider manual labor, and physical strength.
By the same logic:
If a bulldozer, mechanized tower crane, farming tractor, or forklift can lift 5,000x what my biceps can lift, then were my biceps even worth anything to begin with?
Machines make humans obsolete.
Industrial economies are no longer dependent on human labor. Therefore the logic of markets, capitalism, profitability, etc. makes huge numbers of people irrelevant.
This is an example of technological miracles succeeding to such a beautiful, awesome extent that they exceed imagination, and begin to displace traditional social functions. Communities erode.
Emails are of course a waste of time, and corporate culture is suffocating, emasculating. But I think it's quite possible, even highly probable, that AI will displace white collar employment.
Now, there is an element where this is hilarious, and has a certain poetic justice to it, because corporate cubicle culture is corrupted by Woke fake jobs, and the white-collar tech industries have laughed and preened smugly as Silicon Valley offshored the factory jobs of the Rustbelt, and blue-collar men wasted away with opiods.
So this kind of massive incoming technological disruption might be a welcome tsunami to crash against our stagnant, corrupt civilization.
But I see no reason why the miracles of technology should be measured against the basic spiritual needs of humanity... Work is not just about the measurable output, but also about the spiritual and psychological rewards of working hard and struggling in pursuit of a higher goal.
Paulos MythPilot has written well about how societies should be formed around human flourishing, in response to modern upheavals.
"The current hostility of governments and institutions towards their subjects is very strange. For most of human history, it was in the best interest of rulers that their subjects should flourish. More men, women, and children in your kingdom meant more soldiers and laborers. In a world defined by human power, more humans meant more power. Even continuing into the age of mass democracy and industrialization, larger populations could field larger armies. Therefore developed powers had an interest to grow their populations. However, with the advent of nuclear weapons and mass automation, large populations were no longer necessary. Bombs could protect borders, and goods and food could be made by machine. Population growth came to be viewed as a liability...
...For a time these systems worked, even after manufacturing was sent overseas and subjects would no longer be required to even produce, because the inconvenient masses were re-conceptualized as consumers: they could demonstrate their utility to nations and corporations by buying things. As long as the economy continued to expand and there was a constant stream of new things to buy the system could sustain itself.
...
...many government bodies which in previous ages might have been concerned with contributing to population growth and human flourishing are instead committed to policies that are structurally hostile to it, or animated by favoritisms that have the effect of denying support to majority populations. For example, when the stated policy of governments is permissive of mass migration, and the overriding moral motivation for the deployment of new government resources lies only in favor of new populations, the end result is neglect or hostility to the concerns of a country’s core population, a position of de-facto eliminationist policy. The point is, many middle-class Americans are alienated and have no recourses for official support. There are millions of bright people out there who are ripe for someone to help take care of them and bind them together into high-quality groups that can go out into the world and do things."
https://www.mythpilot.com/p/great-house-plan-ii
TLDR: Useful technology eliminates previous forms of labor.
Scientific ingenuity has the potential to eliminate most jobs.
Ordinary humans shouldn't be blamed for being outcompeted by factories. Individual men should be mentored by aspirational rolemodels to struggle, work hard, earn self-respect. But average men aren't "special" or "creative". And that doesn't make them defective, or lazy, or worthless. 200 years ago, a lot of these men would've been perfectly responsible, productive, boring citizens.
Economic utility is crucial, but productivity will always aggregate into a Pareto distribution. 80% of people are mediocre from a competitive standpoint in any given domain, but they still need a way to live, build families.
Math is merciless; civilization shouldn't be.
Industrial society manufactures large numbers of resentful biotrash Communists who seek power by tearing down beauty, strength, wisdom.
"Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics.
Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they
intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc.
These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use
them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER
masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait."
...
Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can
have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man
has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he
will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually he
may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true
of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain
their power. But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no
need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power. This
shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one’s power.
...
Any of the foregoing symptoms can occur in any
society, but in modern industrial society they are present
on a massive scale. We aren’t the first to mention that the
world today seems to be going crazy. This sort of thing is
not normal for human societies. There is good reason to
believe that primitive man suffered from less stress and
frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life
than modern man is.
...
...
for most people it is through the power process
— having a goal, making an AUTONOMOUS effort and
attaining the goal — that self-esteem, self-confidence and
a sense of power are acquired. When one does not have
adequate opportunity to go through the power process the
consequences are (depending on the individual and on
the way the power process is disrupted) boredom, demoralization, low self-esteem, inferiority feelings, defeatism,
depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration, hostility, spouse or
child abuse, insatiable hedonism, abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating disorders.
...
The conservatives are fools: They whine about the
decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid,
drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a
society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects
of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values."
—Uncle Ted, Industrial Society and its Future