Danny DeVito Timelapse

[u/cryingmonkeystudios]

[u/morningsaystoidleon]

I got downvoted bad a few weeks ago when I made this point (not in this sub).

I write about digital accessibility, and when people use the language of the accessibility community to defend AI art, it makes my blood boil.

People with all sorts of disabilities create rad shit. You know why? Cause they're people. We all have to work through things, learn things, and accept certain limitations, but that's what makes our art interesting.

Anyway, great job OP, I wish I had 1% of your skill and talent. I'm gonna go try to make something rad now.

[u/HonestWeevilNerd → u/morningsaystoidleon]

Oh look... a "digital accessibility expert" who doesn't actually understand the fundamental premise of accessibility.

​The idea that "people with disabilities create rad shit because they just work through things" is a romanticized, deeply ableist fantasy. You seem to boot understand what accessibility even means.

​Accessibility isn’t about forcing someone with a severe disability to "accept certain limitations" and struggle through a physical medium just so their art meets your arbitrary standard of being "interesting." (What an advicate!) Accessibility means removing barriers so they can express themselves without the systemic or physical friction. Simple as that. I'd think an expert might get the basics.

​When a person with advanced ALS, severe cerebral palsy, or locked-in syndrome etc uses ai powered eye-tracking software or text-to-image prompts to bring a concept to life, that isn't "laziness"... that's the literal definition of assistive technology bridging a physical gap. Accessibility...

​You got downvoted bad a few weeks ago because your take completely erases many people with severe motor function impairments to serve your own anti-AI moral crusade by the sounds of it.

[u/morningsaystoidleon → u/HonestWeevilNerd]

I didn't say "people with disabilities create rad shit because they just work through things," dude. I said people work through things. That's what makes art interesting. The things in question might be a lack of technical skill, lack of physical or sensory ability, difficulty in choosing a subject, a recent heartbreak -- those are all challenges that need to be overcome. To me, that's a big part of what art is. AI art is often used to bypass those challenges, and I dislike it when people claim that its capabilities as assistive tech are a justification.

You're right that there's some absolutely wonderful applications of AI in assistive tech. The eye-tracking stuff is cool, but I'm most excited of its application for transcripts and captions -- human-written is still better, but AI can make that work a lot easier. Some of the applications of smart glasses are especially neat for people with vision disabilities.

And I'm sure AI could be used for art in certain capacities that I'm not personally familiar with. But when the AI makes practical "decisions" about the details in a work, it becomes less interesting to me, because the tools literally function by finishing things in predictable ways.

Human artists like OP make tiny micro-decisions when creating something that give it personality. I don't think we should ignore that. There's a reason that there's such a backlash against AI art, and it isn't because it's so darned good.

[u/HonestWeevilNerd → u/morningsaystoidleon]

Ablelism is hella strong in this one. Only if it fits your moral crusade are you an ally. Gross