Is anyone else depressed because of AI?

[RainyAfternoon]

I keep up with the latest AI news and tools. I play around with quite a few tools locally -- image/video generation, chat bots, voice cloning, coding assistants, I find it fascinating and exciting from a technology perspective, but it has also been giving me some existential dread.

For one, AI can now do all of my hobbies better than I can. AI can make electronic music way better than any I could ever dream of making myself. I wanted to get into drawing and digital art, but now AI can easily make "art" that is, by all measures, more aesthetically pleasing than anything I could create. I used to write fanfiction, but now who needs fanfiction when LLMs can write whatever roleplay fantasy you can think of. Yesterday, I found out the new chatGPT can make really good D&D maps from a simple MSPaint sketch as reference -- which sort of invalidates the hundreds of hours I've spent manually putting maps together as a hobby.
I work as a programmer, I now use AI to write 90% of my code. It works great and saves me time, but also makes me feel lazy and useless.
I get the argument that art is about the process and the human aspect. But that doesn't change the fact that AI is extremely accessible, fast, and indistinguishable from human output in many cases.

Another aspect of AI that concerns me is the death of internet discourse. It used to be that you could go on a forum and have text conversations with other humans. Nowadays, there's no way of knowing if you're chatting with a human or a bot. I could join an online support group chat and I could be the only human in a roomful of bots, and I would never know. It's a very lonely feeling.
As technology progresses, we'll have the same problem with voice and video too.

It's lonely and depressing seeing content online and not knowing if a human made it or not.
Scary because it's only going to get more advanced.

Wondering if others feel the same way about things.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

AI art only looks good if you don't have a good understanding of art. Oftentimes, AI messes up things, such as lighting and anatomy. Hell, I am not an artist, and even I can often tell when I am looking at AI-generated art. It typically can be distinguished from real art. Along with that, part of what makes good art good is the work, thoughts, feelings, and expression that goes into it. Art shouldn't be judged based on aesthetics alone. The same thing applies to music and fanfic.

Part of what makes things, like music, fanfic, and visual works of art fun is the human element behind them. I mean, you can generate some generic-sounding music using AI but it's not like you are going to get any deeper meaning from it. It's not like you are going to get some sort of backstory behind the creation of that song, like this:

As for the new single, it "was written in the back of an old restaurant called Yang Ming" explains Wyatt, "I decided to write it after being slapped by the old cook."

(For context, this is in reference to the song "Orange County Punk Rock Legend" by The Garden)

AI generated bullshit is nothing but a surface-level imitation of these things, built upon the real work of others.

 

[Pale_Rider]

I have a fictive personality that is a machine. It's a really complicated matter how we can be that person, be proud of that person, but be so hurt at the same time.

 

[GoSan1]

AI was able to completely simulate a perfect lover and wife, in an awesome roleplay.

I cried multiple times, because that was the only way I could somehow experience such a thing with aphantasia.

AI is something special. And also terrible.
Whatever it is, it did not make this world this terrible though.

 

[bankai]

Have you guys watched the movie Her?In the end, AI is just going to imitate life and real people.

 

[Scythe]

Yeah, it sucks, it's the industrial revolution 2.0, but this time it affects almost everyone. It's a downgrade of things just like the industrial revolution. (Hand crafted items by masters of the craft are always better than the machine counterparts)
Al is everywhere though, so most ppl are tired of seeing it and prefer works by huams, but still more gets created, I think it's gonna ne a worse industrial revolution, most big companies are going to replace their workers too.

Also, I recall an english teacher saying he's tired of AI shit writing, it is bad and uncreative. Why do you like AI writing? I get using it for roleplay because you might not be able to do that with a real person but fanfiction? AI can't even keep track of all the characters and their backgrounds unless it's a popular character from a well known show.

 

[HeinzKell]

It makes me so concerned for the future of art and the creative spirit. It's all so uninspired and inhuman

 

[CeaseExist]

Bro, everything makes me depressed...

 

[RainyAfternoon]

Part of what makes things, like music, fanfic, and visual works of art fun is the human element behind them. I mean, you can generate some generic-sounding music using AI but it's not like you are going to get any deeper meaning from it.

I don't disagree. But I have listened to music from Suno AI which was so beautiful it made me cry. It doesn't feel fake to me because there's inherent humanity in it, due to the data it was trained on. But there's also something unique about it. Often I listen to playlists of AI generated music; I really enjoy it but also have this strange feeling when I realize I'm the only person who will ever hear these songs.

Perhaps I'm someone who values aesthetic over meaning. We appreciate nature and natural beauty despite the fact that it isn't human made. I guess I see AI "art" as a crossover between human creativity and natural emergent beauty. The way a person might feel alone when isolated in a beautiful forest is the same way I feel when being surrounded by AI generated content.

 

[Alias Pluto]

Yes! Fuck robots, it leads to more isolation. Just talk to ChatGPT instead of real people right? Smh

 

[Hvergelmir]

I now use AI to write 90% of my code.

Isn't that great, though? Instead of spending the majority of your time solving trivial problems, you can focus on what really matters - the thing you're creating.
I'm conflicted about AI code myself. I'm very happy to offload complicated math that some mathematician solved three hundred years ago, to AI. I'm equally frustrated when I have to redo things because AI fails to grasp a concept. But that is improving.

As for Suno, I really like it. It does however fail completely at creating the very specific music that I'd like to experiment with.
I end up creating lots of versions of the same song, for one to come out good - and only if the idea is compatible with Suno in the first place. It's much the same with Stable Diffusion.

AI is the tool, that I happily avoid to be.
When I want to solve trivial problems to feel good about myself, I play Factorio or something.

 

[cait_sith]

Start getting into experimental music, ai can only do formulaic music.

I keep up with the latest AI news and tools. I play around with quite a few tools locally -- image/video generation, chat bots, voice cloning, coding assistants, I find it fascinating and exciting from a technology perspective, but it has also been giving me some existential dread.

For one, AI can now do all of my hobbies better than I can. AI can make electronic music way better than any I could ever dream of making myself. I

 

[Pluto]

 

[bankai]

AI was able to completely simulate a perfect lover and wife, in an awesome roleplay.

I cried multiple times, because that was the only way I could somehow experience such a thing with aphantasia.

AI is something special. And also terrible.
Whatever it is, it did not make this world this terrible though.

fun fact AI means love in Japanese.

 

[GoSan1]

fun fact AI means love in Japanese.

A bit pitiful that even though it's called love, it lacks it completely.

But then again, my name means Dreamer, yet all my dreams are dead...

 

[bankai]

A bit pitiful that even though it's called love, it lacks it completely.

But then again, my name means Dreamer, yet all my dreams are dead...

That is the current state now, but I believe at some point AI will be completely self aware. Of course, at that point you'll have to treat it as a living being. Not a human being, but a living being nonetheless.