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Even amazing writers and musicians can barely scrape a living. Being an artist is mostly unpaid labor that enriches Irish culture. Why wouldn’t we incentivize those capable of being artists for some pitiful sum of money if they’re willing?
No matter how much capitalists pretend that artistic talent falls from the sky like mana for the rest of us to enjoy, it isn’t actually free. It takes thousands of hours of effort to become something resembling an artist. And this program is a cheap way to make that happen.
Or a few minutes and a neural net.
This is going to make people furious but it’s kind of true, and might actually part of the argument for the policy.
LLMs are mathematically limited to amateur skill ceiling in creativity. Additionally, they’re fundamentally combinatorial and incapable of originality. This is why we are yet to see a single page of LLM fictional prose that doesn’t suck balls.
A link to the paper itself, if like me you have a math background, and are wondering WTF that means and how you measure creativity mathematically. Or for that matter what amateur-tier creativity is. Unfortunately, it’s probably too new to pirate, if you don’t have a subscription to the Journal of Creative Behaviour.
At least according to the article, he argues that novelty and correctness are opposite each other in an LLM, which tracks. The nice round numbers used to describe that feel like bullshit, though. If you’re metric boils down to a few bits don’t try and pad it by converting to reals.
That’s not even the real kicker, though; the two are anticorrelated in humans as well. Generations of people have remarked at how the most creative people tend to be odd or straight-up mentally ill, and contemporary psychology has captured that connection statistically in the form of “impulsive unconventionality”. If it’s asserted without evidence that it’s not so in “professional” creative humans, than that amounts to just making stuff up.
The research paper is almost certainly correct. LLMs, by design, are extremely limited. There’s a whole field of scholarship around creativity btw (Cambridge’s Neuroscience of Creativity is a great place to start).
Anyways, however we eventually create an artificial mind, it will not be with a large language model; by now, that much is certain.
Account less than a month old and posting uplifting news, while being salty about said news in the comments.
I smell astroturf.
I smell nothing.
What a great name. Let’s test.
Boop Beep?
Beep Boop?
Checks out
You also won’t engage with people who agree this is a good thing without a facade of sarcasm and cynical dismissal, your agenda/actual age is showing.
Yes, you are 100% correct.
Please investigate further😉
Nah, you ain’t that special, just going to block you and encourage others to do the same. Have fun dedicating your time and energy to such great causes, I’m sure you’ll get rewarded for it.
Thanks bro.
You too.
That’s honestly pretty neat, assuming these artists are more useful to society than my idiotic “artist” sister. I’m interested to see how it plays out over the long term, and what it could mean for other places considering a universal basic income.
I think it’d be pretty neat even if it covered useless idiots. Keeps 'em out of trouble.
A sane person would think that if they don’t know my sister.
Good news, thank the heavens.
We as a society always have to care for the unemployed, aka artists.
The scheme literally measurably turned a profit for the state, effectively turned un/under-employment into a net asset for the country. And paying for those “unemployed miners” you’re worried about. Y’know, in Ireland’s vast mines.
Ireland’s massive tourism industry is strongly reliant on our culture and arts, which obviously took a massive hit during Covid. Keeping people performing in the arts during dry spells rather than seeking work (underground?) retains and develops those skills rather than having them be lost and our culture eroded by global media.
I’m sure you like Irish culture and dislike global media, right?
Yah actually, why the fuck not.
We have more than the capability with our distributed work and economic systems. I get fuck-all back from my tax money and hard work to support fucking BILLIONAIRES, I think I much rather my wasted income go towards helping my community and people struggling to make ends meet.
Cynical fucks all want a Star Trek utopia but don’t want to actually put in effort and sacrifice to get there.
I don’t look at it is taking care of the unemployed.
Ireland has punched above its weight for centuries in producing cultural works. This is Ireland investing in its arts community directly by having its struggling artists be able to spend more time making art instead of other jobs.
A thriving arts scene creates prestige for the country, provides amenities to the local population, and increases tourism.
A lot of people who can’t be bothered to learn anything about viewing or creating art deeply resent people who can do art or people who do appreciate art. This whole post was to attack art and artists because OP and his alts are bitter trolls.
Reminder: Nazi germany also hated many forms of art that didn’t meet their definitions of what was socially beneficial, and despised anything that didn’t “glorify the empire.”
What about all the other unemployed people? Why are artists more deserving than miners and factory workers?
Because they call themselves a name(Artists), that is why as a society we need to care for them.
Unemployed miners and factory workers are just normal boring unemployed.
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Where is your “AI democratizes art” spiel? Shouldn’t you be launching into it about now or did you decide it’s too much to push at the same time?
“Fuck my life!”, said factory workers throughout the land.
Perfection is the enemy of the good. Better to start sooner than to wait for a consensus on the best way.
Or the disabled, or the just poor and untalented.
Basic income is the darling of policy wonks of all kinds. But, doing it just for already-successful artists is a bit random.
I did 10 years as a professional artist, it was the hardest I ever worked in my life, and in the end I gave it up because despite winning awards and having collectors around the world after becoming very good at it, it is very hard to manage and maintain an actual art business in a world that doesn’t take art very seriously, especially with rising costs of things like healthcare and general goods needed to produce work.
There’s a reason why when you go to a fine art museum half of the most famous works and most beautiful pieces that changed the culture of art and even our perception of the world, were made by people who died in abject poverty.
It’s wild we read stories like that and say “Wow that’s a shame, I wish we could have given that artist the accolades and support they needed to survive and know how important they were for the world.” But the moment someone says “Maybe we should support artists” suddenly it’s hand-wringing and whinging about “factory workers.”
This isn’t a question if Ireland’s policy makes you feel good or bad, it’s a question whether or not you think there should be art in the world at all and what you’re willing to accept or change or pay to have that world with actual art in it.
Factory workers are eligible to become artists at any time. It was always allowed.
IIRC this program is invite-only, because yeah, otherwise it’d end up being for everyone.
Edit: And that’s sus, and might just end in politician’s cousins getting invited.
Art is a skill that takes time and dedication to cultivate, and often at least a seed of talent to boot.
I can’t just wake up one morning and say “I’m an artist now” anymore than I can wake up and say “I’m a doctor today.”
That’s the point. People want to simultaneously pretend that art is the trivial pursuit of effete dilettantes but also that supporting artists is unfair since it would take too much sacrifice and effort for any random person to become an artist.
I see. Yeah, that makes sense.
I view arts and humanities as occupying the top of Maslow’s hierarchy. A healthy arts and humanities scene is a sign that society is flourishing. Someone who can pursue those as careers instead of hobbies is self-actualized.
I think public patronage of the arts and humanities is ultimately a good thing, and should happen in addition to all the other, more basic needs. Food, housing, and utilities should be prioritized, and the jobs that provide those things. Then healthcare, education, social work, public servants, parks & rec, etc.
Arts and humanities shouldn’t be neglected, but the fabric of society should be built from the ground up to support a healthy arts scene.
Yeah, plus we’ve achieved the economic conditions where everyone’s basic needs can be met. That they are not is a deliberate and vincible evil.
I agree. I think a good starting place would be assessing the cost of living by region or district, and then anyone who makes below that amount should receive a supplementary allowance (funded by the wealthy, of course. If they were paying people fairly then nobody would be making below the cost of living).
Other things should be in the purview of public goods, of course. For countries that don’t already have it, healthcare and education should be top priorities. They should be seen as investments in a healthy society, not as merely handouts to individuals.
Eventually food should be produced and distributed by public (state-owned) entities, at-cost rather than for-profit. But that’s a longer-term goal that needs careful planning and implementation, so pushing too hard for it too soon could derail progress on other priorities like healthcare, education, and guaranteed basic income.
325 euros per week, says the article.
About as much as I made on my best weeks doing art professionally for close to 10 years, despite having won awards and secured collectors around the world.
I worked harder than I ever had in my life to keep that business running, and eventually closed shop because it’s too much work for too little pay or respect.
Ironic since I’m quite sure most of the sock-puppets and astroturfers baiting this post and whinging about “factory workers” are literal kids who have never actually worked a day in their life.
Amazing, I love it. Good job Ireland!
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Didn’t they already do this like a year ago? And the year before that?
They were trialing it, yeah, turned out to be successful so they’re permanizing it
