erin (she/her)

Yeah I don’t know if that source or that college make the point you think they do. AI art cannot exist without a constant feed of (non-consensual) human creativity. You can learn everything there is to know about AI “art” in a relatively short time span, because you have the plagiarism machine to do the composition for you. It isn’t so for any other medium. This point isn’t worth arguing, because it’s so self-evident. The knowledge and skill of photography clearly set it apart as an art form, whereas AI does not. AI “art” requires the knowledge and skill of actual artforms to even exist.

Photography’s genesis is fascinating and is taught about in art school. You conveniently left out the other side of that time, where the fledgling artform pushed back to prove its validity through multiple evolving forms and styles, which demonstrated that it is simply a new medium, not trying to replace or replicate any other style. That is explicitly what gen AI stands to do, and it even requires constant input of actual art to exist. Additionally , impressionism was far more a reaction to realism than it was to photography. Every new wave in art creates pushback from the other styles more popular at the time. Never before has every field of art so unanimously opposed what is clearly the cheapening and commoditizing of creativity through soulless reproduction. Gen AI can be fun to mess with, it can be interesting to explore the technology, but it is ultimately just a bubble being propped up by the exploitation of actual artists and consumers alike.

You clearly do not produce or understand the production of art, and why there is such a difference. Prompt engineering is not composition, and the only art that uses AI relies on human composition to give it any form of soul. This conversation isn’t worth having, as you’re still trying to argue that photography is analogous to AI art. Talk to artists.

Repeating it does not make it so. There are no AI art colleges.

I’m not dismissing it, and that doesn’t address the point at all compared to AI. It isn’t that technique isn’t important, it’s just far less of what you learn as an artist compared to the theory. Photography has its own advanced techniques just like all artforms.

I cannot disagree more, as someone that paints with multiple mediums, including oil. It may be much more time consuming, but most of the art is in learning how the human eye views images, how to make the eye be drawn around the image in the order you want, and many other technical and artistic details. I can’t even begin to discuss it here, it’s a field of professional art like any other. Frequently, it intersects with sculpture and other physical and digital mediums. There are colleges of photography that offer the same level and quantity of schooling that other artistic studies do. The skill in art is not in the fine motor controls and techniques, though they are important to learn. Much harder is learning about forms, color, values, how to arrange artwork to be pleasing to the eye (or discordant, like a tritone), and all the other multitude of steps in arranging and capturing the message the artist is trying to convey.

You’re just wrong and misinformed. I’m an artist, and every professional artist I know and went to school with shares my opinion. You have a very limited view of what photography can be, and it shows.

Edit: To be clear, professional photographers can spend huge amounts of time applying the knowledge they’ve learned through study and practice to arrange their subject, which is not simply “point and click.” Look at the work of professional modern photographers. Photography is accessible like a set of cheap acrylics is accessible. High level art of all mediums takes far more study and skill to do well than AI art.

What do you lose when someone transitions? They’re still the same person, just happier and expressing themselves truly. You lose nothing. The only loss to be mourned would be a relationship that’s no longer compatible. It’s a change, but it’s a positive one, and expressing any form of loss to someone going through such a difficult and scary time is incredibly hurtful.

That person still exists. Mourning their loss shows you don’t actually love them as they are.

Yeah basically. The person is still there. You should celebrate, not mourn, that the person you love is taking a step towards who they want to be. Acting like you lost something is incredibly hurtful, because the person is still right there, they’re just changing. If their gender expression is the only thing that made them important to you then yes, you’re a piece of shit.

He was a piece of shit and so are you for caring about him

The friend is not gone. This implies that you cared about who they were and not who they are. Any mourning is just an indicator that you don’t actually love this person, you love who you thought they were and don’t actually care about their happiness. Abusive behavior.

Is the argument that because there is a manufacturing process involved in making a hamburger that the suffering is worth it? I didn’t torture anyone to transition.

The argument AI fanboys make that it’s the same creative effort as directing or photography is absolutely insane and falls flat with even a tiny bit of critical thinking. Anyone can plug in a prompt. People study and work hard their entire lives to become good photographers and directors. Being able to take a decent picture is not the same AT ALL as a professional photographer, especially one of the successful ones, like all art. It takes incredible patience, timing, creativity, and technical knowledge. It’s an accessible art form, like most forms of art, but doing it at the highest level takes a lot of skill. You need to select and know a great deal about your subject in order to capture it well, and timing is often incredibly important. There are people that spend their entire professional lives pursuing one shot, and when they finally get it, the photo is priceless and nearly impossible to replicate. The idea that an art form people get degrees and spend years pursuing is the same as typing a prompt is crazy. Just because anyone can pick up a camera (or a pen, or a paintbrush, etc) does not make the art form that simple.

Directing is an art form too, and there’s a very good reason the art of great directors is immediately attributable to them on viewing, even with no context. Anyone making that argument has no idea what it means to direct. Just because some directors might be lazy or uncreative doesn’t mean the artform doesn’t exist. AI could never replace it.

I cannot read your comment without great difficulty. I’m sounding it out like I’m learning to read lmao

My dyslexia nightmare.

Saying “your views support this” is not making the argument you’re claiming it does.

You claimed they made several strawman arguments. The one you are pointing to is where they called your argument corporate apologia, which isn’t a strawman, whether you are or are not l, as it’s referring to the beneficiaries of your argument, which they argue to be corporations. The points they are making are sound.

For example (none of this is my actual beliefs), I could make an argument for unrestricted gun ownership. Someone, in disagreement with me, could say I need to take my gun lobby apologia and leave, after discussing why my position supports the gun lobby. In actuality, hypothetical me wants easier gun ownership for queer people and other marginalized groups. Me not supporting the gun lobby doesn’t make that a strawman. They aren’t making a strawman argument by saying because my argument supports the gun lobby, it is automatically invalid.

They do this exact same thing against your argument. They argue the points that your beliefs ultimately support corporations, not that your opinion is automatically invalid because you support corporations. If all they said was that last line about corporate apologia, you’d have a point, but they don’t. You’re simply misusing and diluting the strawman fallacy. You also claimed they made several strawman arguments, but failed to demonstrate the one example you pulled. I don’t even really care about your arguments or theirs in regards to my response, as others have covered my beliefs already, I only am concerned in discussing the improper use of logical fallacies to discredit people you disagree with.

Who. Decides.

I suppose you’re talking about the part about your post history, which seems flimsy. Just because some of your posts agree with the other poster doesn’t mean the ones specifically referred to don’t exist. A strawman is putting your ideas up framed such that you do not support them, but arguing that you do in order to make a simpler argument. That doesn’t appear to be happening, as lacking nuance isn’t the same thing as a strawman. You do seem to be making the argument referred to, and having a nuanced position from other posts doesn’t make that untrue. It also seems irresponsible to use that one point to discredit the entire argument, which broadly doesn’t care about said point.

That’s a fair point, but the question still stands. In a stateless society, who decides when violence is appropriate and which ideas deserve violence? What differentiates such individuals from the state, seeing as they are acting in lieu of one, enforcing certain ideals and rules via violence? My questions still stand.

I don’t see it, as it seems like you are in fact arguing that tools are neutral. Giving counter examples isn’t the same thing as a strawman, it’s challenging your argument. Did you mean a different part of their argument?

Who decides what ideas are and aren’t okay? Who decides which ideas are bad enough to use force against? What’s to stop those in charge of making those decisions from being compromised, or plants, or changing their minds, or having morals counter to the morals of their society, seeing as the voting clearly cannot be trusted. All it takes is fascism and conservatism to quietly seep into government and now we’ve created the perfect framework for them to shift the targets to those they oppose.

This week, trans people have been declared anti-party. Next week it’s disabled people. Tune in the week after for nationalism.

This is like building a big gun to protect ourselves from fascists but not putting any checks to make sure it’s wielded in the best interests of the people.

I understand that you disagree with their points, but I’m more interested in where the strawman arguments are. I don’t see any, and I’d like to understand if I’m missing a clear fallacy due to my own biases or not.

Can you point out and explain each strawman in detail? It sounds more like someone made good analogies that counter your point and you buzzword vomited in response.