the_dunk_tank

I'm not going to do drawing exercises. I did that shit in college. It is my dysgraphia that stops my being able to draw with any proficiency. Theory only gives me knowledge that I cant use. My system lacks the firmware to take theoretical knowledge and turn it into a physical skill. I can't generate motor shortcut commands in my hands so every movement has to be recalculated consciously. I either take a really long time to draw each movement carefully or I do it quickly with a significant margin of error. Practicing won't make me any better at drawing. I can copy line work pretty well but that may as well just be tracing and so it really doesnt factor into a discussion about AI image generation because the AI's main value is being able to generate new images.

My aphantasia stops me from making images to use to create new original artworks. "Stick people" was an exaggeration but it really isn't far off. "Understanding the geometry" is dozens of math equations for anything more complex than Charlie Brown. When you visualize something your brain is doing trigonometry and perspective calculations that are not just "simple geometry." on top of that its doing lighting and shading and coloring and I don't even know what type of math that involves. People who can rotate a 3d image in their minds eye are doing calculations that are as complex as the ones that it took to put people on the moon and their brain is doing it in fractions of a second.

Think about the amount of physics math it would take to predict where a baseball is going to go after a batter hits it. An average 10 year old in little league can catch a pop fly. Their brain is running those calculations in nano seconds. Imagine someone who couldn't do those calculations playing baseball. They could be the most fit human in the history of the universe, run a 3 minute mile and be able to lift 3 times their weight but they couldn't catch or hit a ball so they'd be useless. They might be useful in other sporstball games but only in specialized roles that dot touch the ball. Would you expect them to learn the rules of the game or the proper technique to swing a bat?

Aphantasia makes it so that an artist has to work from a source image even if that image is stored in their motor memory. They practice drawing so that their hands can spit the images out without their brains ever seeing them. They are only ever making images based on things that they have drawn before or are looking at in the moment. Most artists do this to a degree they use stock data in their motor memory to make general shapes and then fill in details that make it unique.

I got an art diploma from college. I had instructors tell me to give up and change my focus from the first week. A painting Instructor once told me "you should never use a brush under 2 inches wide. If you want to be a painter the closest you will get is being a house painter." I stuck with it because I'm stubborn and changing my courses at that point would cost me a whole semester. I only passed most courses because showing up and doing the assignments was half the grade. Most of the reason for this was probably my dysgraphia but the system gatekeeps against all sorts neuro divergent and other conditions. (it also fetishizes others which is fucked in other ways) That prejudice keeps many people from ever trying to become artists.

Just because there are a few examples of aphantasia artists doesn't mean that it isn't a major hinderance. The level of ablist prejudice in art is probably as bad or worse than Politics is prejudiced against people based on race. Just because a black man was elected president doesn't mean that the system isn't built for old white men. If there were a tool to make a person's race not effect their chances in politics would banning it not be a racist act? Language to Image Models can make it so I can have a picture of a thing I lack the ability to see in my minds eye and the capacity to make with my hands. Is depriving me of the same rights to such image that another artist has over their images made using different tools not ableism?

"Just try harder" is puritanical nonsense. Tools were invented so that we don't have to work as hard. All technology right down to use of fire have been used in the pursuit of doing less work. We cook food so that we can expend less energy digesting. Most tech has been used or even completely developed for sole purpose of exploitation and violence. When so many tools make more human suffering the tools that make creation of a product accessible to people who otherwise would be incapable are something to be celebrated. Every tool regardless of what went into its creation has the end goal to make more work happen with less effort. AI images are no different. The technology that puts satellites into orbit was pioneered by Nazis who used slave labor from concentration camps. Do we condemn all satellite tech? The morality of a tools creator shouldn't be passed onto a tool just as the crimes of parents should not taint their children. Tools are inanimate and thus blameless anything that comes from the use of a tool is solely the production of the person using the tool and all morality questions are solved on their intentions and the outcome. A thousand children killed by a bomb is no more or less morally despicable than a thousand killed by a knife.

Feeling jaded because technology has made your hard fought skills obsolete is the "sunk costs" fallacy crossed with jealousy. It is emotional, illogical and reactionary. The Arguments of "plagiarism" or "stolen labor" are founded in liberalism's core tenet "protection of personal property." Communism is not about everyone getting their fair share of the profits of their labor. If no one is entitled to the excess value of labor by owning the means of production workers will get a larger share of the profits of labor but it is a consequence not the goal. Communism is about ending private property so that any excess profits of labor are redirected to everyone including those who cannot produce as much as they require to live instead of the excess profits going to people who do nothing but own things.