Cuffed would be more like detained. Not free to leave, because they’re actively investigating, but no charges are being presented. Literally just placed in cuffs while the police do their snooping.

There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. And yet, we’re still forced into capitalism, with little choice but to participate or starve. You can object to a system and say that it’s unethical, but also necessarily play into that system.

We all gotta eat. Long as there’s our current form of capitalism, we all gotta pay rent (or mortgage). Until those needs relax, we’re essentially saying “pick between your needs and being a good person.” One of our strongest drives is to survive, and so if the only way for some to survive is off the backs of others, it’s the inevitable outcome.

Of course we should all be striving to change this. Effective change comes from slow, repeated effort though, not just fruitlessly chasing an ethical job. If you just stay where you are, then that’s fine. Do what you can from within, safely. We all do that, and we’ll slowly steer this ship.

AI generated art is fundamentally different from printing a reproduction of something that exists 1:1. I’m not interested in going on depth on a technical discussion on AI, anyway. I’d rather discuss the philosophy.

As far as the role of man versus machine, using AI as a tool is more like being a director or composer. You determine the composition. The setting. The subject. The style. Let the machine do the labor of simply outputting, and then you tell it what you don’t like about this output.back and forth, until you arrive at whatever finished is. It’s as much art as a conductor in a symphony, or a director on a set, simply giving direction to a machine.

The issue that people have, or should have, with AI isn’t with AI art, it’s with it being shoe horned into everything that can make a buck. Open source generative AI running on my own machine has allowed me to express myself in ways I never could before. The point of art is expression, and regardless of the tools used to create, that output is still an expression of me. More people should have access to tools to express themselves, in whatever way they can.

Art has always been limited by access. Either to the tools, or to the ability to learn and practice. AI, at least in its current form, with open source models readily available, is only allowing more people to create who never could before. Getting into any art is expensive, both in money and time. Anyone with a half decent rig can get something set up and add a touch of art to their world, and begin to express themselves in SOME way.