A painting signed “Jane Smith, with robotic assistance” doesn’t exploit anyone.
That depends on just how much “robotic assistance” was involved. I would want to see a much more detailed account. Suppose her contribution was just her signature? Or just the words of her prompts and her decision to select which of its paintings to sign? Not enough. I want to see the thought that went into each brush stroke, and you can’t get that with an image generator.
Mind you, personally I think (but will not argue here) that truck with AI rots the soul, and I wouldn’t care for anything by “Jane Smith, with robotic assistance”.
Could you expand on your comment? Do you mean that whether AI-assistance is exploitive even when disclosed depends critically upon the detail in the disclosure? So, for your extension of the example, if Ms. Smith is offering her purely prompt-based robopaintings for sale that would be exploitive (independent of offered price?) but not if she provided a detailed explanation of what she did versus the robot? Of are you saying that, per your broader view of AI, Ms. Smith is exploiting herself?
I think I tried to address both quite legitimate concerns in the essay, so I’m eager to hear where you think I’m confused or mistaken. Thanks for the comment, regardless.
I’m not sure what you mean by “exploitive”, but I’m not going to pay attention to “art” to which the “artist” contributed nothing but asking for the picture she wanted. Not as art, that is. Whatever she may be asking for it is more than I am willing to pay, even if the price is just my attention. Confession does not excuse the sin.
Now, I have seen art (only in Second Life, for some reason) that I know is made with AI, and that I have found worth looking at closely and appreciating. I know little of these artists’ processes, but I’m sure that more happened than just “paint a mouse in a yellow jacket with jetpack, skis, and goggles” (or whatever) and clicking retry a few times. I have multiple thoughts and feelings about these, and I expect my views to develop over time.
My intention with Ms. Smith was to distinguish disclosure from non-disclosure, where non-disclosure exploits reasonable expectation that any creative output is the work of a human, and disclosure no longer exploits that expectation, qua Dennett.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for any kind of acceptance of prompt-only content creation. I don’t think I’m advocating for any particular acceptance of AI-assistance in general, only for a possible framework for how to think about the ethics that attach to it.
That depends on just how much “robotic assistance” was involved. I would want to see a much more detailed account. Suppose her contribution was just her signature? Or just the words of her prompts and her decision to select which of its paintings to sign? Not enough. I want to see the thought that went into each brush stroke, and you can’t get that with an image generator.
Mind you, personally I think (but will not argue here) that truck with AI rots the soul, and I wouldn’t care for anything by “Jane Smith, with robotic assistance”.
Could you expand on your comment? Do you mean that whether AI-assistance is exploitive even when disclosed depends critically upon the detail in the disclosure? So, for your extension of the example, if Ms. Smith is offering her purely prompt-based robopaintings for sale that would be exploitive (independent of offered price?) but not if she provided a detailed explanation of what she did versus the robot? Of are you saying that, per your broader view of AI, Ms. Smith is exploiting herself?
I think I tried to address both quite legitimate concerns in the essay, so I’m eager to hear where you think I’m confused or mistaken. Thanks for the comment, regardless.
I’m not sure what you mean by “exploitive”, but I’m not going to pay attention to “art” to which the “artist” contributed nothing but asking for the picture she wanted. Not as art, that is. Whatever she may be asking for it is more than I am willing to pay, even if the price is just my attention. Confession does not excuse the sin.
Now, I have seen art (only in Second Life, for some reason) that I know is made with AI, and that I have found worth looking at closely and appreciating. I know little of these artists’ processes, but I’m sure that more happened than just “paint a mouse in a yellow jacket with jetpack, skis, and goggles” (or whatever) and clicking retry a few times. I have multiple thoughts and feelings about these, and I expect my views to develop over time.
My intention with Ms. Smith was to distinguish disclosure from non-disclosure, where non-disclosure exploits reasonable expectation that any creative output is the work of a human, and disclosure no longer exploits that expectation, qua Dennett.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for any kind of acceptance of prompt-only content creation. I don’t think I’m advocating for any particular acceptance of AI-assistance in general, only for a possible framework for how to think about the ethics that attach to it.