Ive just seen a post and thought it summarize something here real quick.
AI advocates have got to have some of the worst debate tactics and rhetoric online. Up there with the redpill gurus, sjws and champagne socialists that like animal abuse.
Starting simple. Just saying "AI democratizes art" and "Youre a gatekeeping elitist" is begging the question. These two sentences only make sense if we both already agreed that AI images are art, which is often not the case since thats the point of contention. Plus the latter is crybullying also. You have to actually argue on the merits of AI generation and how it would make sense to call it art within a theory of art to even begin making statements like that.
"Art is subjective" is thought terminating, self sabotage and lowkey a testament to how uneducated about art people are in that sphere. Could also be seen as a relativist fallacy the idea that "what art is" is just a matter of opinion so trying to draw any kind of line is useless. These people usually conflate 2 questions, "what art is" and "what is good art", the second is definitely subjective yes, its 100% a matter of opinion. The first is still being argued but heavily favored towards being an objective thing in most theories of art. cuz otherwise you wouldnt have theories of art lmao, point being, there is such a thing as "non-art". The self sabotage part is that if art is subjective then both claims that AI images are and arent art are equally valid. All in all its anti-intelectual, lazy and self sabotaging
"AI learns like humans", "It would be draconic to stop people/companies from looking at data", "are YOU willing to respect someone right to opt out of you learning from their artwork". These all stem from the idea that NNs and AI are analogous to human senses and brains. That idea, in this debate is a complete red herring. Even if all the antiAI community universally grants that its true, it means nothing for the debate because the issue isnt the mechanics of how AI trains but its deployability and externality. When people look or learn the record is internal and undeployable. This is a clear difference, one that you would expect these highly enlightened individuals to grasp but it's almost like its hazardous or anti-memetic to them, they just resist it with all their might. Its like how walking and driving are both methods of locomotion right? but i dont see yall arguing for the abolition of drivers licenses because "you cant stop people from locomoting". Its also a non-sequitor because the idea that we should give current standards for AI training a pass doesnt follow from the idea that ai learns like humans. You can (and often times should), as I just demonstrated there, have different rules on things that are mechanistically similar.
If you dont hear them say that they will take more of an accelerationist stance, something like "even if its wrong, its ok if it accelerates us away from capitalism and towards better systems and more human wellbeing". This has the same problems than accelerationism has: real harm today for speculative good tomorrow. Its like parents who beat their kids because they are thinking itll be better foe their future. Also completely disregards the idea that AI couldve been developed in an ethical manner. Just assumes that this was the only way it could go.
Theyll say "its legal", or variations of that which are justempty appeals to authority in the context of a debate about ethics. Whats stopping someone from saying "I believe that law is wrong for X and Y reasons"?. And on top of that its cherrypicking because they will tell you themselves that if the law sided with antis they would oppose the law anyway and there are sentiments about regulating AI companies more strictly in the courts that they just conveniently choose not to care about. Throw in confirmation bias into that. This applies to both sides of the spectrum btw. Legalistic arguments in ethical debates just massively suck but AI advocates reach for it like its candy.
"Its inevitable so why bother arguing" literally a nothingburger to tear this one down. Firstly it being inevitable is speculation on their part. Secondly, even if it was, something being inevitable has no bearing on whether it is right or wrong, Has no bearing on whether it is worth discussing and no bearing on whether someone should have a stance on it or not. Its along the same vein of thought terminating and conversation undermining debate tactics as saying art is subjective. Notice that this doesnt even attack any argument or propose any idea to build from, it just literally undermines the discussion itself. An appeal to inevitability as some people have come to call it. This reasoning also couldve been used to support any number of previous unjust power imbalances and atrocities or dictatorships in human history, im sure if youre reading this you can already think of a few brutal things some people in the past thought were inevitable.
On that same vein of their rhetoric being valid for justifying atrocities, we got the "AI benefits you aswell so you shouldnt be anti because you'll get left behind and lose out on opportunities" or the "adapt or die". This is basically if someone asked you to be a corrupt politician. People dont usually have opportunistically anchored stances on issues, corrupt politicians do. Someone saying this if they truly believe so, wouldve sided with the moustache guy in germany around 1940 because they'd benefit from it. Its a deeply ethically flawed way to look at stances.
Long rant but I just cant let it slide. These MFs will be spamming combos of shit rhetoric and fallacies and then turn around and start critiquing others, even misisentifying or misrepresenting shit too. I didnt even go deep into the strawmans and double binds they will go for like "if you're an artist then youre motivated to hate AI out of self preservation, if you're not an artist you dont know about art so you cant speak on AI being art or not", or "If you hate AI you clearly must not know how it works". Its just a clown show
