Big Tech is replacing human artists with AI

The text says AI-generated art and writing are moving quickly toward human-level output, while the cost of training large models will put the most capable systems under corporate control. It treats this as a coming shift in which Big Tech will own the main tools for creative work.

It also argues that AI creativity lacks consciousness and intentionality, so it represents a loss of meaning as well as a technical advance. The author connects that loss to what he calls extrinsic drift, then extends the concern to regulation, human dignity, and the way companies mediate access to these systems.

Reading notes

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• A painting made by AI serves as a reminder that human art can come under total corporate control.
• The scale of the models, with more parameters and more connections, is presented as the factor that drives AI progress.
• This movement favors Big Tech, because training large models costs millions and, later, possibly billions.
• The text states that GPT-3’s performance on short text already surpasses many people and can be measured by quantity and variety of output.
• AI is described as capable of generating large volumes of prose, poetry, and other formats in seconds.
• Even when the result requires attempts and editing, the author maintains that what matters for creation is the final output.
• The text cites a creativity test in which GPT-3 ranked between the 85th and 95th percentiles.
• The automation of creativity is presented as a process that has already begun in poetry and short prose and is expected to advance to other forms.
• The author links this trend to the concept of Semantic Apocalypse, understood as the emptying of meaning through productions without consciousness.
• The opposition between extrinsic perspective and intrinsic perspective organizes the critique, with art linked to consciousness and access to experience.
• AI is treated as an example of extrinsic drift, by replacing human explanations and productions with mechanisms and data.
• The text argues that the future of creative AI will be dominated by large corporations, which will control training, licenses, and access via oracles.
• The author proposes regulation to limit the scope of AI, citing human dignity and restrictions already applied in other areas.
• The comparison with the Aibo robot reinforces the idea that mechanical simulacra diminish living beings and hide corporate mediation.
• The conversation with AI about the dead fiancée is presented as stage necromancy, without digital afterlife and without the person’s real presence.