> I think most artists are only seeing the surface layer here and have little insight on its derivative (…)

> Generative technology has already made artists begin to question and radically redefine the nature of art (…)

So which is it? Are artist not understanding the potential of the technology, or are they so flabbergasted they are redefining the nature of art? It can’t be both.

> There is an insane amount of low-hanging fruit right now

Precisely. What I’m criticising is the generic low-effort response of assuming that being able to pick low-hanging fruit now indicates with certainty that the high-hanging fruit will be picked soon. It doesn’t. As an exaggerated analogy, building the first paper airplane or boat might’ve been fun and impressive, but it was in no way an indication we’d be able to construct rockets or submarines. We eventually did, but it took a very long time and completely different technology.

To really drive the point home, my comment wasn’t specifically about art or LLMs or the user I replied to. What I am against is the lazy hand-wavy extrapolation which is used to justify anything. As long as you say it’s five years away, you can shut down any interesting discussion.

> These technologies, even in current form, were considered science fiction or literal magic up until very recently.

I don’t recall science fiction or magical stories—not any that weren’t written as cautionary tales or about revolution, anyway—which had talking robots which were wrong most of the time yet spoke authoritatively; convinced people to inadvertently poison or kill themselves and others; were used for spam and disinformation on a large scale; and accelerated the concentration of power for the very few at the top. Not every science fiction is good. In fact, plenty of it is very very bad. There’s a reason the Torment Nexus is a meme.

> So which is it? Are artist not understanding the potential of the technology, or are they so flabbergasted they are redefining the nature of art? It can’t be both.

Different people have different relationships with generative technologies and have different experiences. It can be the same at both times, because there are a lot of people out there, and there are many artists with both technical and artistic interests.

> What I’m criticising is the generic low-effort response of assuming that being able to pick low-hanging fruit now indicates with certainty that the high-hanging fruit will be picked soon.

I mean if we can have both more compute and more efficient compute due to those low-hanging fruits and Moore's law, it's reasonable to assume that things can get much better to the point of being economical, useful or even essential for a new generation of people, even if we don't see any massive shifts in the current paradigm.

> I don’t recall science fiction or magical stories—not any that weren’t written as cautionary tales or about revolution, anyway—which had talking robots which were wrong most of the time yet spoke authoritatively

Because people had an understandably naive understanding of what AI progress might look like, or the timescales involved.

> Not every science fiction is good. In fact, plenty of it is very very bad

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. In general, I don't understand or appreciate your hostile tone and would like for this conversation to take a more positive tone or for us to just drop it.