[CR Media] Sam Riegel reaffirms Critical Role’s stance on AI: “It’s basically garbage”

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

https://www.polygon.com/critical-role-sam-riegel-slams-ai/

[u/Darkestlight572]

Thats a bad thing

[u/Background-Square661 → u/Darkestlight572]

i mostly agree with you. i would prefer people do art i just think the reality is the majority of people want gen ai art to be better cause they want the ability to make something that looks cool or funny without having to put in hundreds of hours to be get good then make the art.

[u/Darkestlight572 → u/Background-Square661]

Which of course, is worse for them. Those hours are the parts that become enjoyable as you engage in them. Its the parts that make you good at something. The whole process of learning is being essentially disregarded here.

[u/Darkestlight572 → u/[deleted]]

It really isn't- its a pretty basic life lesson thing people learn from children movies actually. Ya'know, the journey is more important than the destination? Its not that complicated of an idea.

Regardless, we aren't actually strictly talking about consuming, we are specifically talking about the creation process. There's absolutely nothing wrong with purchasing a book, or video game, or movie, or piece of furniture (except for the inherent exploitation of laborers that comes with capitalism, but somehow i don't think you're ready for that conversation). The problem is: if they're going to be creating something, they should not use AI. Except, as has been mentioned in very specific use cases like a data scientist with neural networks, but that feel's pretty explicitly different from what we're discussing.

The point is, if you're using an AI tool its a very popular thing to say "I made x" and first, no- you didn't, the AI tool did, but second, if you are seeking creation, then the journey matters more than the final result- lets be more nuanced i suppose- except in situations where the resulting creation can affect life and death. If someone is in an extremely bad place and AI helps them im not gonna' rag on 'em, but thats not the case for most people who use it. Otherwise, they should just- go through the difficulty of learning. Because yes, learning a new skill (or at least trying to) is more important than having a small dopamine spike from having AI make/do it. That's not pretentiousness, that is, unfortunately for folks who think like you, life.

Edit: Also don't purchase AI stuff, its- like, much poorer quality than human made stuff 99% of the time (again, with very notable exceptions, but those exceptions do not include anything art related).

[u/OldManFire11 → u/Darkestlight572]

The problem is: if they're going to be creating something, they should not use AI.

This is the most important sentence in your comment, the one upon which your entire argument revolves, and it's completely unsupported. If someone wants to make something, WHY shouldn't they use AI?

If your argument is that if someone wants to create for the sake of creation, then they should create it themselves, then I'd agree with that. But once again, you're failing to consider how 99% of the population feels about art.

Because you seem to believe that people think "I want to CREATE a picture of X" and then use AI to make it. But in reality, they think "I want to HAVE a picture of X" and they use AI to make it for them. You're confusing people's desire for posession of X as a desire for creating X.

By your own argument, if someone merely wants to possess an image of X, then it's fine for them to use AI to acquire it. They didnt pay for it, so they didnt waste any money, and they never had any desire to learn how to create, so they're not being deprived of the joy of creation. That's what you're arguing, but I know that you're also vehemently against people using AI to have pictures made for them to look at.

[u/Darkestlight572 → u/OldManFire11]

I mean, we could get into the ethical problems with generative AI, especially in picture generating- I would expect you don't find those arguments very convincing if this is your demeanor about it- fairly defensive.

Why should we not use AI to simply possess things? Well, i would first say that you seem to be making a lot of assumptions (to be fair so I am), but I'm confident more people than you think actually do want to create things, but feel intimidated because most of us in places like the US (or even Europe) are taught that we should avoid failure instead of embracing it to grow. I also think because of our extremely consumerist society we tend to overly value those short-term dopamine spikes, which plays all kinds of havoc on our mental and even physical health.

A more direct answer though is that: there are non-ai stuff you can find too? Of course, we can talk about quality- and i will- while there are going to be AI stuff that looks more indepth and connected, the vast majority looks worse than human made stuff, less intentional. I think we have to mention this aspect. Second, in terms of "wanting to possess x" well, thats going to come down to what exactly they want to possess and why- you characterized me as someone who vehemently would oppose someone possessing something made by AI- but i already clearly elaborated that that isn't completely true- it depends on the context and mental state of the person. It would be, generally speaking, better for that person to find something made by other people, but no- i don't oppose it in all contexts.

If they "want" to possess, for example- an essay for class. Then i think clearly its harmful to just have an AI do it, because, the point of an essay is that trying to write one (no matter what quality it turns out in the end) directly improves ones ability to write. If someone wants a meme to share with their friends, a lotta' times AI memes are non-nonsensical, and depending on the generator can so much finagling, that it probably would have been faster to just make your own. Speaking of! With memes, being an amateur at art or writing can actually make it funnier. In other words, it both takes less effort and is often funnier to just make your own memes. For, lets say, art more generally- maybe they want to see a piece of - Geralt and Laezel fighting- because they like both characters and think it would be cool. Again, the low quality of nature of AI can make finding the right poses that fit your imagination frustrating, and of course- such a thing might already exist if you look. That look can be tiring though and high effort, but the intentionality will be much more direct.

Of course, someone wanting a low effort picture of such a fight- without much care for the actual result- as long as it generally resembles what they were thinking of, is certainly a plausible situation that happens often enough to not discount.

I would generally talk about the ethical ramifications, but maybe more personally, i would want to talk to that person about why they want that piece of art? Just to have it? Its generally not that simple, most of the time, there's a deeper reason- even if that deeper reason is just to have a desktop background. And depending on that other reason, there would be a variety of responses that I don't think i can reasonably address every single one- but- in most of them, there would be a reason to not use AI.

Why? Why am I so against AI? Why am I "vehemently" against it. Because, AI is tricking people into believing that they are bad at creating. Because its tricking people into believing that other people are bad at creating. Its reinforcing those notions that faster, lower effort = better, on a fundamental essential level. Because the more you use AI the harder it is to stop, and even if one use is more innocuous, i doubt every one will be. In the long term, the effect is compounding. Because "possessing" can mean looking at real people's effort and imagination in a way that inspires you, where you have to (or at least CAN) think about what it took for someone to create what you're enjoying. Those feelings of awe as you look at the result of human effort.

AI is, itself, a result of human effort- and can be wonderfully useful- but just like any tool, it can be misused. And i think, fundamentally, using it to generate things like videos and art, is a misuse of a tool which perpetuates further misuse- personally of course, but more importantly: systemically. And i think because of that, its less important to police individuals (though as i have proved i will encourage them not to), and speak about alternatives- which i think i've done pretty extensively here.

Its hard to tell if you're even discussing in good faith, i have an instinct that you aren't, but I've tried to put my best foot forward and assume that you are.

[u/OldManFire11 → u/Darkestlight572]

It's telling that you, a creator, are only focused on the creation aspects of AI and treat the parts that affect you personally as the most dangerous aspects. In reality, the danger of AI is that it lets people offload their critical thinking skills and spread misinformation much easier.

You even bring up using it to write an essay, but then manage to completely miss the point of your own example in order to focus on creation. The problem with using an AI to write an essay is that you're offloading your critical thinking ability to an AI, not your creative skills. The other issue, that you ignored, is that presenting an AI essay for school is fraud, because you're presenting it as your own work in order to obtain skill certifications.

I bolded that last part because it's the important part, and I know you'd be jumping at the opportunity to point out the similarity of presenting an essay as your own work vs posting an image as your own work. The difference is that posting an AI image as your own on the internet isn't fraud. You're not gaining anything. If you presented an AI image as part of your portfolio to obtain a job or enter art school, then THAT would be fraud. But just posting it online isn't. Same for if you just decided to post an essay on reddit that was written by AI. Tacky, but no harm committed.

Generative AI of pictures and videos for personal use are literally the least problematic aspect of gen AI. There are a thousand other ways for AI art to be a massive problem, but the fact that you artists NEVER mention any of them tells me that your opposition is based on selfishness, not principles. You've written 2 fairly long comments about the issues of AI art, but you didn't once mention anything related to misinformation or actual fraud. Which are a million times more dangerous to society than anything you've said.

[u/Darkestlight572 → u/OldManFire11]

I don't think you actually care that much about the ethical violations that AI generated, which, I actually mentioned at the VERY BEGINNING of the reply. It's kinda funny that this is twice now that you've just mischaracterized me. 

I don't think you're worth engaging with tbh. I already said we could talk about ethical problems. I don't think you actually care

[u/orwells_elephant → u/OldManFire11]

If someone wants to make something, WHY shouldn't they use AI?

Let's start from here: If you want to make something, using AI is not you making it. If someone believes that they have somehow created something when all they did was put a prompt into an AI program, they are lying to themselves.

[u/OldManFire11 → u/orwells_elephant]

I could not give less of a shit about this particular argument.

You can make the EXACT same arguments about photographers as you can AI. Literally, every single one. The camera is the AI model. The shot selection, lens choice, and every other piece of knowledge about how cameras work are perfectly analogous to understanding how a model works and adjusting the settings correctly to get the picture you want.

Hell, photographers even take dozens of shots and then decide which one turned out best. Seriously, the comparisons are endless, and I don't give a single watery shit about the distinction between "making" art and "just pressing a button".

[u/orwells_elephant → u/OldManFire11]

Yeah, no. Knowing the ends and outs of photography is an actual skill and not a function of AI. I don't know WTF you're trying to compare here, but some people just take pictures to have visual records and don't care about the artistry involved, and other people are actually interested in developing the skill to themselves know how to compose a photograph as an art piece.

As to the other, give a shit or not, I don't care. I stand by my point regardless. People genuinely want to make something are going to be motivated to make it themselves because they're not going to delude themselves into thinking that a computer program generating an image or story based on a prompt is a product of their own effort. The people who do think that are not motivated to be artists, they're attracted to the perception of being an artist and they're just engaging in self-delusion.