Penny Arcade - Comic - Agrimatrix Zero One

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Penny Arcade - Comic - Agrimatrix Zero One

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

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Golden Yak

I like all the cyber-veggies.

Lttlefoot

The internet isn’t a farmer’s market. You’ve probably always been able to find out-of-place things on Etsy if you were looking for them

Delzhand

I'm less worried about this compared to other, more malignant uses of AI, because I think it's gonna become apparent that nobody wants to spend real money on AI art. It'll shit up search results for a while, but the income can't be worth the effort.

Zilla360

NGL, I would eat one of those borg apples.
Delicious assimilation! 😋🤖🍏

tofurkeyforbigsteve

I want that Borg-fruit stuff.

Seriously though, how does “AI” design consumer goods, let alone stuff for the craft fair? And how will it do for anything involving hands or feet?

dennis

Resistance if fruitile.

Anon von Zilch

dennis wrote: »

Resistance if fruitile.

Resistance is fertile.

Get it? Fertile like soil. For plants.

Handkor

I guess I gotta start selling borg'd up wax or plastic fruit on etsy now for decorative bowls or maybe silicon patches that can be applied to real fruit.

Steel Angel

tofurkeyforbigsteve wrote: »

I want that Borg-fruit stuff.

Seriously though, how does “AI” design consumer goods, let alone stuff for the craft fair? And how will it do for anything involving hands or feet?

I'm guessing it'll mostly end up being digital of physical prints of AI art. Though I could see more niche things like AI generated sewing patterns too. There also could be hybrid uses like a someone using AI to generate a rough design that gets turned into a physical object like a pin but you've still got a person doing the actual crafting there so people might well already be doing that without anyone noticing or caring.

That said, I have no idea how big the market for prints on Etsy is compared to their other stuff. I bought some canvas prints from it over a decade ago but everything that I or friends have bought has been things like jewelry and supplies to make it, clothing, etc. Though in double checking that, I apparently have some metal table legs I bought 4 years back somewhere in storage.

Overkillengine

Delzhand wrote: »

I'm less worried about this compared to other, more malignant uses of AI, because I think it's gonna become apparent that nobody wants to spend real money on AI art. It'll shit up search results for a while, but the income can't be worth the effort.

It's one of those self defeating markets when your consumer base eventually realizes they can just get AI to make them art too instead of buying it on Etsy or anywhere else.

Showsni

After reading the newspost, I've got to say, I'd much rather people spend money buying AI art on Etsy than that 15D Auric Cleansing. "Send us £52.62, and we'll carry out a remote cleansing session, then message you on Etsy when it's done. No need to make an appointment or any preparations, we can do it as you go about your life or even whilst you're asleep!" I guess if someone gets a feeling of wellbeing from sending them money more power to them, but it looks an awful lot like scamming vulnerable people out of their money to me.

Lttlefoot

They banned spellcasting on Etsy at one point. I think people were getting around it by offering physical items along with spells. Not sure whether you can get someone to hex your enemies on fiverr

RatherDashing89

Delzhand wrote: »

I'm less worried about this compared to other, more malignant uses of AI, because I think it's gonna become apparent that nobody wants to spend real money on AI art. It'll shit up search results for a while, but the income can't be worth the effort.

As I've said before, I think the big problem with AI art on searchable platforms like Etsy or DeviantArt (or Google Search for that matter) isn't that it'll edge out real art, because it's garbage and most people can see that. And yeah, the whole point of it is to not pay artists, so very few people will pay for AI Art.

But the problem is that it removes the chokepoint of "a human makes and uploads this" which keeps results from getting instantly flooded. Think Steam was bad when people were flooding the store with asset flips? If you remove human involvement from the upload process entirely, things can get out of hand real quick. The internet version of Gray Goo.

Now I'm not sure what exactly is being sold on Etsy since theoretically you have to offer a physical product, so there might be some kind of chokepoint, and maybe they've got robust captchas, per-listing fees, and other stuff to keep someone from uploading one million items to their page every day. But if not, this could make the site useless very, very quick.

dennis

It's also reminiscent of what's become of places on the internet due to ads and bots. There are popular reddit communities that I've just given up on because they get repost after repost by karma farming bots.

dennis

And I was just reminded of another side-effect of this kind of thing. I recently nuked my reddit account (for reasons) and created a new one. Because of the bots, it's a very unfriendly place for a new account wanting to become part of the community. Many subs just auto-delete your comments/posts because your account has been created too recently, or worse, because you don't have enough karma. That's worse because to get karma, you need to post and comment and have people upvote it. Definitely a catch-22.

MichaelLC

Every farmer's market I've been to has at least one or more people selling crap they obviously bought off Alibaba and the like. There's a guy selling dog treats that I 100% guarantee he did not bake himself.
The cricut stuff is borderline; at least in theory the person you're buying from is the one that made it.

So the farmer's market territory was lost long ago. Let Etsy go to town.

Prisoners of your own butts, etc.

Quid

RatherDashing89 wrote: »

Delzhand wrote: »

I'm less worried about this compared to other, more malignant uses of AI, because I think it's gonna become apparent that nobody wants to spend real money on AI art. It'll shit up search results for a while, but the income can't be worth the effort.

As I've said before, I think the big problem with AI art on searchable platforms like Etsy or DeviantArt (or Google Search for that matter) isn't that it'll edge out real art, because it's garbage and most people can see that. And yeah, the whole point of it is to not pay artists, so very few people will pay for AI Art.

But the problem is that it removes the chokepoint of "a human makes and uploads this" which keeps results from getting instantly flooded. Think Steam was bad when people were flooding the store with asset flips? If you remove human involvement from the upload process entirely, things can get out of hand real quick. The internet version of Gray Goo.

Now I'm not sure what exactly is being sold on Etsy since theoretically you have to offer a physical product, so there might be some kind of chokepoint, and maybe they've got robust captchas, per-listing fees, and other stuff to keep someone from uploading one million items to their page every day. But if not, this could make the site useless very, very quick.

They might do it akin to how marijuana is sold in DC. Buy a postcard for $50 and receive a complimentary gift that isn't allowed to be sold.