Lime Bar @limebar@mastodon.social
I am a little shocked at the lack of solidarity I see between artists working in different mediums wrt genAI.
Musicians who would never use it to make music use it to make cover art
Graphic artists reach for it to make music over their videos
Writers use it to illustrate their articles
And, considering software development an art, many use it to create web sites or apps to host their art.
None of this is necessary. All of this is harmful to the other artists.
Collaborate ffs.
Stop it.
Aug 09, 2026, 12:17 AM
I think a big part of the problem is that most people just can’t afford each other.
Sure, you can do “paid in kind” (which has it’s own complexities) but mainly there’s so many overheads in life, as well as middlemen extorting out their cut that hiring a creative is cripplingly expensive.
It’s something only affordable to either those with a lot of disposable income, or those who are planning to make a hefty profit from it (and won’t be worrying about money in the meantime either).
Even in times when I was making the same income as a plumber, the idea of hiring one was deeply financially intimidating. Even an independent one. The way it’s stacked, you can only afford to hire people in a lower class/caste/tax-bracket than yourself.
Unions. We need 'em. Great episode on unions in a TrueAnon ep (podcast) about a week ago.
I’m just going to take a moment to appreciate that they considered software development an art. It’s a rare moment.
It’s funny how many non-programmers see programming as a repetitive and boring task… Like, the whole point of it is to take boring repetitive tasks and automate them away. And the bits that are really well understood are the bits you don’t need to deal with, because there’s already libraries for that. Definitely an art (or a craft at least).
It’s funny how many programmers see it the same way. Actually bugs the shit outta me, haha.
The human brain always picks convenience.
We simply cannot help ourselves.
I’ve grown immensely cynical about that this past decade. Like, literally every chance we get to take a less destructive path, I observe people skip it because it’s slightly less convenient… that’s why they use AI.
They could give another artist $20 for something important, but our monkey brain is tired and picks the 5 second solution instead. I bet they don’t even look outside ChatGPT.
…So yeah, I think we’re in trouble. As this is not going to stop.
IMO the drive to convenience is a product of the pressure of living under capitalism (as you mentioned, tired, but also fearful), and our society’s abdication of nearly all forms of responsibility (of which looking out for each other is one).
As much as I love to blame capitalism for most things, I think this one does just boil down to human psychology. It’s probably fair to say it’s exacerbated by capitalism though.
There are things we could do to mitigate it; that’s what regulations are for. But yeah, if left alone, people will tend to do whatever spends the fewest calories.
If everyone were angels we wouldn’t need money and the issue is that struggling artists have none to spread around. Collaboration is not the answer. Ending the oligarchic kleptocracy so we can afford to pay artists their worth is.
Everyone thinks AI can do everyone else’s job except their own.
I personally don’t think so, and will not disrespect people by using it. It’s just amazing how the fad at work went with everyone posting how they were going to automate away every other job responsibility but theirs. The crazy part is how eager they shared their concepts with the very people they were basically saying were obsolete.
AI can do any job. Doing the job with finesse and originality, not so much. But it will do it adequately, expediently, and repeatably. It will never get bored, (so long as that is not programmed into it) and does not require rest, food, or recuperation time. If a robot breaks, it can either be repaired and be back to work in hours or days or be replaced instantaneously with no troublesome moral entanglements regarding ending a person’s lively hood.
You can hate them all you want, but from a purely CBA perspective, it’s plain to see why there’s’ a move to it.
As CGP Grey put it in his fantastic video on the subject: Not everyone wants a triple press fair trade soy macchiato with oat milk foam; most just want a decent cup of coffee.
But it will do it adequately, expediently, and repeatably.
LLMs have a key weakness in that they aren’t repetitive. They come up with a new solution to the job every single time they’re prompted. Sometimes it can do the job adequately and expediently, sometimes it produces nonsense, and you’ll never know when.
The c-suite have convinced themselves that LLMs don’t have this flaw and that they can be treated like any other automation, that they can be relied on to do the same thing over and over, and then reality intrudes when they find out these are probability engines.
The chatbots can’t actually do any job.
I’m not talking about chatbots. AI can be tailored to suit the need. You wouldn’t expect a receptionist to do the job of the engineer anymore than you’d expect Excel spreadsheets to operate a CNC machine.
The OP is obviously about chatbots, so, I’m not sure why you aren’t talking about chatbots.
I’m talking about ALL AI. Narrowly defining them to just chatbots skews the scope of the discussion on the matter, IMHO.
The cat’s outta the bag on AI. Either learn to prompt or fall behind. All professional industries have implemented it into their pipelines. Even my local hole in the wall bars and restaurants have that shit on their menus now. It’s everywhere. It’s in everything.
Most consumers don’t even give a shit until someone builds a data center in their back yard. Fuck AI, but also purity testing on AI is gonna burn more innocents than it will halt the adoption of AI.
Imagine uncritically regurgitating the lies of billionaires. They are not going to give you any billions, bro. You are literally nothing to them.
It’s so heavily subsidized that you get access to AI for free, e.g. Google’s search summary, but on the other hand, they’re busy building up infrastructure to such a degree that they caused a shortage of hardware. In general, nobody would be willing to pay for unsubsidized AI. The only way AI sticks around is if the taxpayer ends up footing the bill. And Trump will probably try to make this happen.
The reality is that almost no self sustaining artists can afford each other’s work. Instead artists are forced to charge prices other artists would consider their entire grocery bill. Instead they have to hope they can either get patronage from the wealthy or some sort of corporation.
I’m in a band and we drew our first art and logo, sold merch and albums, now we pay local artists for commissioned art. We plan on never using AI for anything. It’s really not hard if you respect other artists as much as you respect yourself.
AI is churning out low quality products at a high rate. artists i see offer commissions around 20 bucks at a significantly higher quality than AI. while you won’t get the mona lisa anywhere for 20 quid, it is about the same price as chat gpt go costs you per month.
usually you don’t need the magnum opus of an artist for supporting art. you need good quality, which for an experience artist is achievable in reasonable time and money. support eachother!
Dude have you ever tried to collaborate with anyone?
Also, A, no one has money.
And B: it turns out learning an art form to a high enough degree to use it to sell something involves (generally) doing it from a young age and each different skill requires other related skills. Nobody has the time to make music, and learn art, and then graphic art, and marketing, and writing, and accounting.
Also, A, no one has money.
Make one friend. I dare you. Just to try.
No one is saying everyone needs all those skills…
See line 1
I used to be a whizz at Photoshop elements. I could make .gifs, I could do lense flares, gradients, clean up line work, color in layers, shift chromatics, all of it.
Now i can barely understand Gimp enough to mirror a copy paste command.
So there’s also an element of maintaining relevant skills.
solidarity brother! im a visual artist, and i deleted spotify in solidarity with musicians. i download from bandcamp now.
Stop it. Get some help.
Edit: image for clarity
Edit 2 for more clarity: Stop using generative AI and get help from artists and creatives.
Which bit? Caring about the welfare of other creatives?
This was a reference to the MJ meme about using drugs. I’m saying people should stop using AI to replace creatives and get help from humans instead.
Thanks for the explainer :)
Something tells me they’re using the Michael Jordan “stop it, get some help” as a representation of what the post is actually meaning to say about artists. Not that you, OP, are wrong for and need to not make this post. Poorly communicated, at least lol
To add to your point, that user posts to the Fuck AI community
Ah, could be, thanks.
reminds me of piracy in the early days of napster and kazza.
I know someone who does work related to performing arts and wants a website, but they have no technical skills/want to stay focused on their main interests. Contracting with someone to make one is expensive considering they don’t make much income, and nobody has time to create a website for free. Unless UBI becomes a thing, people have to be pragmatic when they rely on art as their source of income.
How were they doing it in 2018?
Artist spoiler : art is work and work needs pay. We don’t have any money. Wanna see your favorite artists make human collabs? Pay them, back them or stfu.
Came here to ask who TF is paying for time to make album cover art.
How about an artist cooperative? That way they can collaborate and share profits.
“I’m an artiste, machines shouldn’t do what I do, those other folks have it easy.” repeat for every group thinking of every other group.
