Right. I have no idea. I’m not Ukrainian or Russian so I can’t speak for either, it just seemed to me that Ukraine and Russia are so close linguistically and culturally that it’s just difficult, I think, to draw a line. As somebody who was there when this was all beginning I’m honestly still very confused and I can’t wrap my head around the severity. At Maidan everything was super concentrated to the city center and outside of that life was on as normal (in Jan 2014 thru July 2014 when I was in Kiev). I think it would be tough to be Ukrainian. A lot of my friends have left Ukraine and immigrated to Poland or the US because it got to thepoint where it was impossible to support themselves and or their families

I was volunteering with Mormons. I’m not Mormon but I wanted to go and was really interested in learning more about Russia at the time. It was difficult to get a Russian visa and I was offered to volunteer in Ukraine and get everything i needed covered since nobody was willing to go because of the situation. I was young and kind of stupid but I don’t regret going. I honestly can’t say that I understand the situation any better in terms of what happened and what is going on right now. In January 2014 a lot was happening at the city center. It seemed like, at the time, when Crimea was declared a Russian territory (I think it was in May?) a lot of people were ambivalent and it seemed like most of Eastern Ukraine was pretty much part of Russia anyway. In Kiev it seemed like people were split down the line on most issues. Every one of my younger friends supported Euro Maidan and seemed to hate communism. I tried to ask them what it was like living in the USSR but a lot of them didn’t remember what it was like, but their parents seemed to have ambivalent opinions. I talked to some older people who missed living in the USSR. Also, near the city center (there’s a metro stop near Maidan that’s called Kontracktova Plosha) I remember there being some people selling Nazi memorbelia which I thought was weird. Like, selling old photographs of Hitler and stuff. It’s hard to imagine what is going on in Kiev right now because in 2014 literally everything was concentrated at the city center. Outside of that life was on as usual. I went to this town in East Ukraine that was near Lvov, I think it was called Kemenetz Podolski (I’m probably butchering the name) but I thought it was cool because they had a lot of communist monuments still standing. In Kiev most things were torn down. Also Western Ukrainians just seemed to have integrated that history more which was interesting. I wish I could have talked to more people and was better at Russian. I’m sorry I’m not the most articulate on my phone and the Lemmy app keeps fucking up.

Isn’t most of Eastern Ukraine pretty much Russia anyway?

I honestly wonder how many more military recruiters are gonna pop out of the woodwork on college and high school campuses now. Ugh.

Funny how that works.

You have definitely given me a lot to think about and your replies want to make me learn more. Thanks for offering some solid discussion here (I know I keep replying but honestly I don’t know how to message people individually).

It’s kind if creepy that you’re deducing people to chemicals and their thoughts and life experience to be the same as a computer.

I’m not going to try and pull out a bunch of fancy theories and flowery language to get my point across but I still feel like everything that I have read here leaves me feeling hopeless that people don’t care about what happens with AI and how people are going to be affected materially and spiritually.

Sure, that sounds nice in theory, that people will just chill and fall in love and eat food together and there will be sunshine and gumdrops and roses if AI takes over and communism is realized. But that isn’t what is going to happen. That is why I’m saying that AI is a really bad thing for everyone in reality and where we stand with the world right now.

The reality is what people will be replaced by AI. Capitalism will continue to be the driver of the world, and a lot of people will live in abject poverty. There will be no opportunities to work except maybe for the people who are caregiving for the elderly and disabled (if robots do not take over that). And people will continue to shit on artists or people who are critical of AI replacing them. Information, education, art, culture, music, research will be centralized to corporations that use AI and the few that upkeep it. This is bad for a lot of reasons. And even if people start colonizing Mars, what will there be to do if robots and AI are doing all the work? I guess people will get bored enough to just start making their own creative works, but that goes back to what I was saying before that it will be met with a lot of resistance from people who hate artistsorr believe that people don’t deserve to have anything materially or spiritually.

People need a reason to live. Like I said, even if you are going to reduce people to “meatsacks” there is a reason why people NEED things outside of food, water, and shelter. I believe in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but depending on the person and situation those needs can be moveable.

Can we stop this progression? I don’t know what is to be done - I guess we can only see it unfold and time will tell. But honestly I haven’t seen an argument that is giving me hope other than going back to the core of why I choose to be alive and keep going, and that is keep learning more and not give up. I guess that’s all I can do. Even if people tell me it’s futile.

Some people want to draw for work. What would be the point of just drawing “for fun” if your work is just kept to yourself and piled under a bunch of soulless AI generated images?

If everything gets automated, and nobody does anything since art can just be reduced to prompting, then what are people going to do? Sit in a room and rot? I’ve asked this question in the thread before but I didn’t get an answer.

The topic at hand here is art. It’s how I connect with the world. It is how I met my wife. It’s what motivates me to move forward when the world completely sucks.

I feel like it’s really unrealistic to assume that AI will create some kind of utopia that is free of work. What will people do? Tell me what a typical day will look like if literally everything, including art, is automated? If art is not going to be valued as an effective form of communication or experiencing the world, and that it is useless to learn and gain skills in because AI can do it better, then what is the point?

I believe that some arguments and statements are not worth listening to and that is so many of the comments in this thread. Unless you are an artist yourself you can’t speak on behalf of them.

It is sad that something actually makes life meaningful is being taken out of human hands. It’s akin to taking away hope and faith in itself.

I don’t feel motivated to live in a world where I would never get the opportunity to work toward something I cared about, and to be demoralized every step of the way because a computer can replace me at any second. On top of that, being reminded of it at every second of the way.

Even on top of that, from a purely scientific perspective, humans’ brains are the way they are because we have the need to be valued and feel useful and fulfilled. There is a reason why people work and always have worked toward something. There has never been a society that has not had some form of work in human history. Even during my time in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, people worked very hard even if they didn’t have jobs in the western sense. I’ve met African women who have worked harder than anybody I’ve ever known and they didn’t work a job.

I guess I’m alone in feeling the way that I do about it and maybe I just fundamentally disagree with someindividuals’s interpretations of the situation, but it is just very sad. A very sad future indeed. Imagine a world that is controlled by people trying to convince you that you should be fine with this. I guess all I can do is keep it to myself that I hate it or be seen as crazy for thinking that people are so quick to jump on a bandwagon for what the majority or the most domineering opinions in the room.

Edit: I also see and understand your idea that people could just do art as a hobby if AI automates everything, but the reality is that it won’t do that. Likely the only available jobs will be the ones that are physically and emotionally all encompassing (such as home health care or something) and people won’t have the energy to even do art as a hobby. And AI will just take away every job opportunity anyway. Do you honestly see socialism being integrated into the US (at least) any time soon? It is creepy to just deduct humans to chemicals and meatsacks. Where is the empathy? Also, if you are implying I’m an idealist when it comes to art, are the people in this thread who argue against me really so naively idealist to believe that socialism and communism will be integrated any time soon? And even so, would it be utopia if it is seen as worthless to do anything because AI can do it better?

After being on this thread today, I decided I’m going to take a break from being online at this point at least as it relates to politics. Thanks for the book recommendations and also your insight about communism.

There has been a couple of people here who have been very nice and seem to be interested in socialism to help other people and are taking into account these big questions about what it means to he human, and what makes life worth living. I appreciate yours and their insight in this thread.

Thanks very much for your insight and also the books recommendations. I’ll see if I can find a copy at the library and keep thinking about these issues. Maybe I can try to see if there’s a way that Marxism fits and offers any insight and answers.

I thought about it and we live in a really difficult time with all of these changes and everything that is going on with the world. It isn’t easy.

Thats very sad. I was at Maidan in 2014

Who cares? Are you really going to go as far as flaunt a your cultural capitol, gatekeep, and shame me for trying to have an honest conversation about what people should be expected to do if AI takes over everything? I’m here to learn, not to get dogpiled for having real concerns about this subject and the OP. I don’t like AI, as I understand the basis of socialism it is to allievate the burdens of capitalism. And it goes beyond production. You have done nothing but insult me and honestly make no sense in any of your arguments. I don’t feel any more inspired to hear more about your idea of Marxism and I’m not the only one.

I know about art and that is the topic at hand.

One last question since you seem hellbent on AI taking over work: what do you expect people are going to do when everything is automated by AI? Sit and decay and rot?

That makes no sense. People who go into the arts (specifically the entertainment industry) do things that are in demand and for the “bourgeoisie”. Everyone needs entertainment and novel ideas, or else they literally go crazy. There’s a reason that sensory deprivation in prisons is torture.

I feel like you’re doing a bunch of mental gymnastics to defend AI and dump on people in general who want to devote their time to doing something that is in line with developing their own skills and contributing to the well being of themselves and others.

You haven’t made any good arguments in support of AI if that is what your goal is to change my mind here.

The two posts you made in this post were just dunking on artists as just wanting to go into it to just be among capitalists and be the next Piccaso. Which is honestly ridiculous. Nobody wants to be an artist to get rich. On the flip side, everyone wants to get into tech to get rich, unless you are planning to go into academia or research with the aim of helping people and that isn’t often. Just look at AI developers. They aren’t creating the technology out of goodwill. It isn’t beyond reality to assume that most of the people defending AI aren’t artists. I’m going to call it for what it is: people who hate artists are jealous and they hate anybody who puts in the mental and physical labor to doing something that requires effort. Literally anybody is allowed to do what they want and deserves to feel good about building their skills in something. Being an armchair political theorist on Lemmy and online circles takes literally zero effort but it takes effort to do anything creative. Prompting AI game assets and furry boobs and overly rendered space porn doesn’t count.

For somebody who does art as their full-time day job you sure seem to think way more highly of programmers and not very highly of artists. I know you replied to another user saying that you were a full time artist but I doubt that is true. Prompting AI on Mid journey and all the other stuff you listed doesn’t make you a full time artist.

Thanks for the book recommendations, I’ll check it out!

I’m pretty sure that literally nobody these days expects that they are going to “rule among the capitalist class” by becoming an artist. You have got to be kidding me. It’s ironic because most of the users on this site are programmers/involved in developing computer science and you know that they are more well off and have more status than anybody who has ever claimed to be an artist here that is an artist first and foremost, not a programmer and then an art hobbyist as a second.

Literally anybody can be an artist or do anything if they want to do the work. Itisn’t reserved to a special class or something. Like what the heck.

The real question is why you’re so obsessed with defending AI and calling out “anti-AI artist” people.

Don’t worry, he isn’t an artist.

So you are going to pull out every stereotype on the Internet and shut me and everyone here who doesnt agree with your ideas down completely. Got it.

“Read theory dummy!” “Ignore the Trotsky dumbass!”

This is why the left is so divided and figures in the Internet online sphere of leftist politics have failed to create an environment that is any less horrible to people than the outside world.

What will you be doing when your job is automated, and when there is no value to learning artistic and creative processes? Do you genuinely believe that a socialist government will take over our current system to derail the moral and existential threats of AI? Socialism appeals to me because capitalism doesn’t make any room to consider quality of life and these are the reasons most people are critical of it on a variety of levels.

It sounds like you have given up on life if you think that you can deduce everything as quantitative labor, and feel better about yourself and the situation by reducing a person’s dream as “Oh well, it happened to tailors.”

There are a lot of people in the world who work industrial jobs such as sweatshops with hopes and dreams of connecting with other people through art, either through a job or some kind of community focused on artistic expression. My entire argument is that art is much more important to people than just doing a job - it is beyond “enjoying” something for some money.

It is really odd to me that you consider yourself a socialist and yet seem to have no regard and are arguing against my point that this is having and will continue to have a very negative impact on people’s quality of life. It has already caused despair and it will have a negative impact on education and development.

The way that these programs are used and the way that the data is obtained is unethical and beyond that it is not contributing anything since art never needed to be automated.

Like I’ve said and keep saying, anybody can be an artist if they put in the work. Even my partner, who has a disability, carpal tunnel in her wrist from working at a grocery store pushing 1,000 lbs pallets, takes time every day to work on her skills and has been beset by a number of factors in her life. What keeps her going is that she can work on becoming an artist so she can share her work with other people, and inspire them to do the same no matter how shitty their situation is.

People need something to live for. People deserve to feel like they’re good at something and are contributing their skills and interests to also motivate people to keep going in life.

I said this to another person, but AI is being developed to replace artists, not to help make them more productive. If something so central to what makes it worth being alive is being replaced, then what is the point? It’s okay to not embrace some technology. It doesn’t make you a Luddite.

The thing is that technology is being developed to replace artists, not to help them create more.

Thanks friend. It’s very sad to me that people would willingly not think critically about something like this, just because they think it’s “cool” to prompt overly rendered images of space aliens and furry boobs.

Because AI completely bypasses the entire creative process. It just does it for you by recycling ideas from other people that have already done the work. The thing that annoys me is that anybody can do anything or be anything they want if they put in the work. I’m married to an artist and she had devoted ALL of her free time to getting better since she was a kid, and between then and now she has worked a ton of shit jobs (including being a home health aide) to working in a grocery store. She STILL practices every single day even though she has a disability with carpal tunnel in her wrist from pulling pallets at her shit grocery store job.

AI isn’t doing anything to levelize the playing field in art. It’s just doing the work for somebody and taking away everything that makes doing something worthwhile.

It’s one thing to have a creative tool that helps with the process rather than something that bypasses the work entirely. At that point it isn’t art anymore - there’s a reason it’s called AI - it is artificial.

You can’t compare AI to a using a sewing machine for a creative project rather than handstiching. Because even if you use a sewing machine, you are still putting in that work on your hobby and not letting a computer do that work for you.

Sure, it’s great to know fundamentals of any artform but even digital artists use a lot of tools in their process.

Anybody claiming that AI is just a tool is not an artist.

Thanks, and you’re right - they don’t know. Literally, and I mean quite literally, everyone I know who went into programming or CS has done so for the money and status. Who in their right mind thinks that they are going to get rich being an artist? The only guy I know who isn’t at all interested in CS for the money is studying privacy and other ethical issues at the academic level. I know he’s very passionate about cryptology and math, and has devoted a lot of time to educating a lot of people about what he knows.

Artists I think are also use to criticism (especially the more they advance). So are educators or anybody that is in front of an audience.

Programmers and people who are defending AI don’t know what it’s like to have their work criticized and they can’t handle it. It’s because they aren’t artists and will resort to throwing insults or dogpiling instead of actually thinking about the criticism they are recieving.

This has been the only response here that has made the most sense.

Most people enter programming and CS, in general, for the money. I don’t think that anybody who is an artist expects to go in it to get rich. You are wrong about programmers spending more time developing their skills as opposed to artists. I live in Austin and am around programmers all the time - they have the money, time, energy and resources to do and get most things they need and want. My wife and I are in the arts and can barely afford to live but the reason we keep going is because we are motivated to keep going and we haven’t sold our souls.

The one person I know who is genuinely passionate about CS is doing graduate school and studying ethics within the field. He didn’t go into it for the money and honesty I haven’t met anybody else like him.

I appreciate it and I haven’t given up on being open to communism. This has just left a sour taste in my mouth because like religion (I myself would consider myself to be some sort of Christian), art is something that is deeply spiritual and sacred to many people’s lives. Some people have devoted their lives to it and deserve to be able to share it. It isn’t just something that people enjoy doing for a job, it is much deeper than that.

I’ve seen a lot of hate toward art and spirituality in ML circles and it is disappointing. At the end of the day, because of this and because I’m LGBT, I’m worried I can’t trust a lot of the people in the ideological circle.

If you aren’t an artist and don’t appreciate the amount of time, skills, and labor that goes into creating art then of course you wouldn’t see a problem with automating something that is central to the human experience and is the center of many people’s passion and dreams.

It sounds like you don’t care much about your job being automated because you have given up on life for the most part. You’re fine with the prospect of things getting so bad that nobody has any dreams any more. The government isn’t going to step in when everything becomes automated and give us UBI. It won’t be a utopia.

You won’t get to sit on your phone and Linux computer browsing Lemmy and prompting AI art and games. It’s not the kind of reality that you think it will be, if everything gets automated.

It is hard to say whether or not a “socialist” society would advance AI or not but a lot of what I have seen here is computer programmers (not artists) hate on artists or anybody who has dreams to do anything meaningful with their lives.

The reason anything is worth doing is because it is challenging and because it takes serious commitment.

I don’t think you can compare “enjoying” being a computer programmer to somebody who is devoted to being an artist and has spent years perfecting their craft. The problem here is that I see many people implying that they cannot do it themselves when in fact anybody can put in the effort to do anything they want. You could be an artist if you wanted.

It isn’t about retaining jobs, it is about people’s aspirations and drive to keep living. The meaning of life itself. When you take that away, what is left? What are you living for? You’re probably living because you believe in something or have aspirations to be able to spend time doing something that you love. To connect with other people.

I am not an expert but my partner is an aspiring animator and up to this date they have been motivated to make that dream come true. This has been devastating to many artists. Everyone deserves to have dreams, something to work for. For a lot of people, they don’t have anything but art and the dream of being able to “make it” as an artist. We are both married and gay so obviously we won’t be having children, and we don’t want any - so, it just feels like right now people really make it a point to make it known that they hate artists and that nobody deserves to have a dream or work toward a job that they like.

I think that reading through these replies have turned me off completely to exploring communism for the time being. I’m critical of capitalism and have been curious about exploring different ways of society existing outside of the devastating effects of capitalism, but it is sad that people even here don’t seem to value artists, and a couple of people have been openly hostile to question the development of AI in art. I refuse to believe that AI is being developed to create a utopia in many cases, I think it is seeking to displace many of us. I don’t know if the government would step in if everyone lost their job, and were completely unmotivated to continue on with life without something to look forward to.

Even more the technology is developed directly by people that want to displace people completely (I know Elon Musk is a huge investor for AI art programs). I don’t understand why anybody would want to defend the practice as a good thing.

I understand wanting to automate a job that is pure drudgery but people actually enjoy making art.

You are being rude and not making your ideology any more appealing honestly. I don’t care to be insulted and cursed at and it’s not why I said something in the first place. I believe that AI in art is going to be demoralizing for most people and artists in general. I don’t know why you are trying to defend something that was developed by capitalists and technocrats in Silicon Valley.

It is clear you are not an artist and don’t have any interest at all in thinking critically about the systematic issues that would make AI in art such an ethical delimma for so many people.

Are you saying that you’d want to live in a world without artists, and encourage laziness by letting people just type in prompts for inspiration? Even when I lived in a certain former USSR country, kids were still taught to write in cursive down to the tiniest detail. It isn’t about making things more productive, it is about taking into account skills such as discipline, introspection, and persistence. As somebody who is on the fence about communism as a political ideology, I’m seriously disappointed by most of the replies in this thread. I am very critical of capitalism but just laying over and saying that this existential crisis is nothing more than a productive change for labor demands is demoralizing. Society is spiritually sick and not being critical of the development of technology in this system and what effects it has is going to end up killing our spirit, reducing everyone to just get through life instead of actually living and participating actively.

If you just want to live and have no dreams other than sitting on the computer or your phone and popping out kids (if you’re a woman) and living in a pod, then I really am not sure what your argument is in support of any ideology that harms the human spirit so much. I think you and everybody is worth more than that though. Everyone deserves to have dreams and goals.

I don’t understand why people hate artists so much. Do you honestly want to live in a world without artists? Is that what you are alluding to?

Agreed to all. Anybody can build the skills to be an artist if they want to, but using a computer to do that work is bypassing that.

It is worth it. I think the model I bought also reads audio books out loud too.

Cool! Thanks for the resource. I recently got an inkbook ereader and it is honestly quite amazing.

That’s cool! What inspired this list? I’ll check out the ones you liked. I ordered an inkbook and it should be here today so it’s more motivation for me to read more instead of being on my stupid phone.

Do you have a list somewhere? I’m wanting to do something like this next year.

From what I experienced, Guinea has a lot of fertile land and pretty natural sights. Also, rich in bauxite and minerals.