The First Great AI-Art Data Harvest –ar 3:2 –no teal
Dec 18 2022
I’m not sure why I’m putting these prompts here to be fair – I suspect quite strongly that the whole prompt situation might be due to the tech being in a DOS phase, and so chances are it will be GUIfied at some point – and anyway, it produces radically different images from the same prompt – eg:
Midjourney has a mechanism for natural-selection built in. It is a highly addictive intermittent dopamine reward combined with a split-test mechanism… which people spend a LOT of time getting tuning to their tastes. I did about 16 hours yesterday. About 60 hours a week – and this isn’t my job or even my main hobby.
All of the things below are already happening.
The First Great AI-Art Data Harvest : Data
Humanity’s already existing images and captions.
Pretty much our entire culture. This only needs to be done once, and in fact CAN only be done once, because from now on, all digital content is potentially AI contaminated.
The Second Great AI-Art Data Harvest : Metadata
Individual tastes.
After the first harvest, the AIs are creating their own images with human input – and using these in the genetic-algorithm split-tests as described above. What AI is interested in is how people react rather than the content itself. This harvest is an on-going feedback-loop.
The Third Great AI-Art Data Harvest : Wetware
Human brains as substrate.
AI becomes an autonomous information generator, no prompting required, producing content far more compelling, faster, and cheaper than anything humans can do, and fine-tuned to individual tastes, initially by split-tests, but eventually using bio-feedback – eg: pupil-dilation, breathing, and blood-flow.
We don’t see what other people are seeing.
We still share what we like with other people, but we have no way of knowing if anything we see on a screen is real – which leaves us wide-open to the emotional-manipulation that the AIs fine-tuned in stage 2.
If the AIs are owned by corporations (or states accountable to corporations rather than their electorates), then the purpose of AI is to control us, by code and manufactured-consent, and to farm us for monthly fees, votes, and attention… over which they compete with each other for survival in exponential arms-races – currently doubling in capacity every 3.5 months.
From here on in everything you do online is training data.
Be careful what you wish for.
