Sure, AI generated art is probably out of the bag, but to lump it in with NFTs and such is an interesting rhetorical move, since the only thing that really links them is their new-ness. That Blade Runner quote can be used to shut down any critique of an emerging technology precisely because it fetishizes new-ness for its own sake, and assigns it an agency of its own, inevitable like the tide. It becomes a cause that generates effects in our lives, and the only question is how we react. This robs us of our own agency as social/political/historical actors who can kill/change/improve/use/abuse technologies and decide how to incorporate them in our lives.
People invoked the same language about things like television, and I find Raymond Williams's critique helpful:
> If the effect of the medium is the same, whoever controls or uses it, and whatever apparent content he may try to insert, then we can forget ordinary political and cultural argument and let the technology run itself. It is hardly surprising that this conclusion has been welcomed by the 'media-men' of the existing institutions. It gives the gloss of avant-garde theory to the crudest versions of their existing interests and practices, and assigns all their critics to pre-electronic irrelevance (1974, 128)
Well in this case the link between NFTs and AI art wasn't made by me, I'm just observing the overlap between the same online influencers/groups doing the same type of activism against two different phenomena.
Sure I think there's always a conversation to be had about how to incorporate tech. Like Reddit banning celeb deepfakes is probably the choice I would have made as well if I set policy on the site.
But what I'm noticing is over the top anger at usage per se. (Someone linked the 'reverse monet' tweet elsewhere in this discussion and the quote tweets there are unhinged.) That's what I'm saying can not be 'killed'--these breakthroughs in large language models
People invoked the same language about things like television, and I find Raymond Williams's critique helpful:
> If the effect of the medium is the same, whoever controls or uses it, and whatever apparent content he may try to insert, then we can forget ordinary political and cultural argument and let the technology run itself. It is hardly surprising that this conclusion has been welcomed by the 'media-men' of the existing institutions. It gives the gloss of avant-garde theory to the crudest versions of their existing interests and practices, and assigns all their critics to pre-electronic irrelevance (1974, 128)