2025-01-25
Lets actually use this for some actual blog posts I don't want make anywhere else. I was thinking about AI coding and why it made me feel less gross than AI art. The initial feeling here would be of course I care about art more, I'm an artist. Sure, I code, but I'm not a coder. Code is a means to an end. That... doesn't seem quite right though.
Talking this out somewhere, and talking about my experience with AI code (which is still problematic, even if it "has uses"), I came to think about this in a different way. What separates the merely bad uses of AI, from awful ones.
Who is the AI lying to?
AI always is lying, but who that lie is directed at changes. Text Gen is a great example, because it can go both ways. If I ask the AI a question, it lies to me. Even when it's right, it's lying, in its tone and authority. As the invoker of this hellish process, it's up to me to separate what is real from what isn't. But if I summarize an email, or use AI to write a letter to someone else, the AI isn't lying to me, it's lying to them. Well, frankly we're both lying, but it's still the same issue. I am inflicting a lie on someone else.
AI Code, for all it's problems and ethical issues (which coders don't seem as interested in as artists), is lying to me. This doesn't make it good, but it certainly is different. It presents itself to me as an experienced coder, with real answers and I have to be savvy enough to realize when it's jerking me around. Anyone who uses anything I used AI for doesn't get lied to (at least in any reasonable useage). Am I lying? Maybe, but no more than when I said "I made this" and took all the boilerplate off of stack exchange.
AI Voice, AI communications, AI videos, and AI art are, in a field of wretchedness, the most wretched because it outsources the lie to the person receiving it. It's all awful, but at least I can choose to ablate only my soul to make some stupid JS work.