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Comment by Planktonne | Hacker News Reader

> it’ll get most of the job done in most of the cases

This is not a very high standard for art.

Particularly not in this case, when the current art is a reference to, and for fans of, art that was all about authenticity. It's also art on a product that is very much not aiming for the 'just get it done' market.

If all I care about is the destination, then sure: use the most resource-efficient method. In this and in every other situation where there are other considerations, reducing everything to efficiency is absurdly reductionist.

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How many people have a print of “Starry Night” or “Girl with a Pearl Earring” in their house vs how many have a hand-painted on canvas edition (original or copy)?

At some point, a significant increase in resource efficiency improves certain aspects of many things, even art.

> At some point, a significant increase in resource efficiency improves certain aspects of many things, even art.

I'll agree with that incredibly-hedged claim, sure. I'm not against efficiency at all.

As before though, it's not the only consideration. It would have been even more efficient to give all the people with a copy of Girl with a Pearl Earring a blank canvas, or even nothing at all, but that would be missing the point.

Thinking that an AI generated image is somehow more efficient to make than a high res photo followed by a print is a bit odd to me.

People watch The Simpsons despite it being farmed out to animators in Korea and using digital tools for the composition of the frames. Nobody is complaining that Matt Groening isn’t hand animating every frame.

I used ChatGPT to make myself a picture based on a concept of a story I’ve been kicking around in my head for awhile. That picture made me so happy. It just wouldn’t exist twenty years ago.

The efficiency we’re seeing now is in moving from idea to execution. I think that’s a good thing. The thing we’ll see now is curation of taste. People with good taste are going to be the ones to succeed in a market where there are no barriers to entry. I can understand why that would upset people who spent years cultivating a skill.

> when the current art is a reference to, and for fans of, art that was all about authenticity

Was it? Was the reason you enjoyed it because a human wrote it? Highly doubtful

I think you've misunderstood me. The Lord of the Rings has authenticity as one of its main themes. This is part of the work itself, not to do with its provenance.

But an AI can create that same authenticity, if it doesn't matter about the actual provenance then

We're still not talking about provenance. Where something comes from is not the same as what it is.

The people who want LotR merchandise do so because they care about LotR.

> We're still not talking about provenance. Where something comes from is not the same as what it is.

Either define what you mean by authentic, or let us assume that it's a synonym for "something I like"

I'm honestly not sure how much more I can break this down for you. I'm not trying to be difficult here, but you keep on misreading and objecting to things I have not said.

The Lord of the Rings is about lots of things. Some of those things are orcs. When I say that The Lord of the Rings is about orcs, I'm not saying it's made by orcs, or that orcs were used to distribute it, but that orcs are something discussed within the text.

Similarly, when I say that The Lord of the Rings is partially about authenticity, I'm not talking about the way in which it was written, but the contents of the work. Authenticity is a theme in the books, discussed within the text.

Then I don't understand the point you're making.... Are you saying it's simply ironic that theres an inauthentic version of a book about authenticity?

What does it mean for a thing to be “authentic”? Tolkien hasn’t created anything since he passed away. I hear they used computers to some extent when making the lord of the rings movies, something Tolkien certainly would not have done. Should we thus criticize the movies on the basis of their authenticity?

Again, I think you've misread the parent comment here. The Lord of the Rings--the actual books, the content of the work--is partially about authenticity, in the same way that Spiderman is about power and responsibility.

I'm not talking about the provenance of the work, but the content of it.

I have not misread anything, my comment still stands.

Sure, but it's not relevant to the discussion or as a reply to me.

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