Use of AI

[JulieJubz]

I’m not going to lie, I’m just flat out against it. Back in the day when artists were first courteously asked to try out the apps (before being ungraciously kicked out with their names and work taken) the idea was that you could build it up with your own art and have it help you build things for yourself, which seemed like the most ethical way to use it.

But that’s definitely not how it was planned to be used from the beginning so it’s sad so many people fell for it.

I’m not trying to be mean and I’m not trying to call anyone out on any of this, but there’s just so many bad sides to it that people are completely overlooking, like the amount of energy it wastes and the impact it takes in the world. Not even mentioning having to watch so many of my art colleagues that have died over the past few years, having all their art fed into it instantly so other people could “keep it going” for them…

I know that in maps/cartography it seems like a much cleaner space and there’s less drama? But if the discussion is true, I guess it’s supposed to hit all the different aspects of what machine learning really does.

There’s so much that could be said about it, but I think it also always comes down to the fact that I always wanna be the one drawing things… if machine learning were to draw for me, I’d just flat out quit. It kills any and all joy for me, so I’ve never touched it.

[Thebassist95]

Personally, I view current AI as a brainstorming partner. Its been a very good sounding board for world building ideas. It can bring up topics I hadn't considered, and help me flesh out topics by asking me questions. Now, when it comes to mapmaking I just don't think it is good enough. Image generation frequently has weird artifacts or nonsensical parts. I've experimented with generating floor plans for buildings and to say I wasn't impressed would be a large understatement.

[AtesComp]

...and that's all it will ever be. As a Computer Scientist with a PhD and having written a reinforcing machine learner, I can say that with some confidence. It may be able to do some "cool things" and help you consider some esoteric ideas. They can all be summed up as predefined category selectors (via the machine learning process) with a value scoring algorithm they attempt to "maximize" by the feedback it receives. As such, they will never replace you. Don't let the Hollywood ideology supplant actual reality.

The AI biases are very real, but are not actual human biases. They are based on the data and failures of the data scientist to understand the underlying algorithm the AI uses along with failing to understand how a feature set will produce responses and the very human bias in the training sets. This is truly a traditional Garbage In, Garbage Out issue.

So use it to help you do your work just like any tool in your tool chest, but keep in mind that so called "smart" technology doesn't have the wherewithal to even "know" what smart really means. The first rule of AI: There is no actual I in AI (but you may be fooled by it).