I've been using DuckDuckGo for years now, but their search results have now become so terrible, it's nearly unusable. And I have to "quote" every word, otherwise it just randomly omits it from search for no reason. Honestly it's so bad I wonder if all the developers left, and the site is just coasting along.
Maybe I'll try Kagi, but it's not something I can pitch to normies.
I have used Kagi, it's not a suitable replacement. It still struggles with relevance even compared to the garbage that is current-day Google, and is particularly bad at finding recent (less than a month or two old) information.
Likewise. Every query returns dozens and dozens of AI generated domains and blog posts like this. It’s MUCH better than google with filters and small web but still sad.
I heard that they might have fixed the problem, but I initially dropped it when they stopped respecting quotes, even in verbatim mode. Like, if I’m looking for an obscure product number, I don’t want a bunch of shit with a few digits off if there are no actual hits. I want no hits if the settings and query demand it.
Spotify 100% rather buy/produce AI music than pay artists. Also they demonetized most of their artists so if they can pump AI songs that sound enough like what you listen to and then stop promoting them they don’t have to pay anyone.
Software engineers should be asking themselves that same question day in and out. All know workers actually. The cost to produce art has dropped to zero. The cost to get knowledge on a topic - effectively zero. The cost to write basic software - effectively zero. The cost to produce today’s software will never be higher than today. In six months the chances that it’s significantly cheaper to do so are very high.
The cost to produce an image has dropped to pretty much zero, but whether an image is 'art' is a question people have been struggling with for a long, long time. Art is usually considered to be the expression of something more meaningful than just making a picture, and in order to express something as a work of art you need to live, feel, and experience that thing (or a proxy of that thing.) There's a reason why we have entire art movements called things like "impressionism"; that's the artist creating what they believe impressed something on themselves, and trying to transfer some of that feeling on to the viewer of their artwork.
That is entirely missing in AI generated artwork.
The problem for artists is that very few people care about that aspect of art, and just want something nice to hang on a wall.
I am on the side of humanity here, but people don't pay for art. People pay for status, consumption, image and authenticity. But commercial art consumers, where most artists make a living, ie ad agencies, game studios etc, they actually don't give a shit about any of that. Some do, you can probably think of some, but they are the notable minority. Most don't, most are just out here to make money. They begrudgingly pay artists, and will love the day they can stop (some already have stopped)
Can we see that in their output? Absolutely, but if it doesn't affect their bottom line they will not care.
Anyway, to the GPs point, that is true for software in a much larger way. Nobody ever cared about the soul and craft of software except the developers. The moment we can be replaced for cheaper, it will be nothing but business.
>I am on the side of humanity here, but people don't pay for art.
Man, maybe you don't hang out with enough artists. It's true, people typically don't make the equivalent of a tech salary for art, but people absolutely pay for art, and artists are able to not only survive, but have the capacity to thrive.
I get what you're saying, and for ad agencies, game studios, etc. that's always been the case (I remember when office supply stores sold CD-ROMs full of Clip Art) All of the sound effects in Doom were from commercially available sample libraries. And this isn't even touching on "gallery scene and art auctions as money laundering facilities" side of things.
I get the impression that most of the people who post about this topic in tech circles are general consumers, already primed for slop by mass manufacture and pop culture. But even through that lens, "people don't pay for art" falls flat - looking at what people pay for Star Trek prop replicas, or buying into the now very diverse Disney ecosystem. Now, a lot of those kinds of folks might be more prone to slurping AI slop (Hey Gemini turn me into a Funko Pop!) but there are still tons of people who value artists and their artistry. I suspect you're just not among those people.
Hey fair criticism, I am not in the typical tech circle but I am not surrounded by artists making money either.
Maybe a better way to phrase my point would be "(companies) pay for output, not artistry" which is to say you can remove the artistry, and still sell it to (companies).
People making a living from music or commissioned art in their style and under there name are pretty lucky in my experience.
Sure i think i meant more consumer art. Mass produced art. The cost to take a professional level photograph from before 2010 is effectively zero now as well.
But photography as art still obviously exists. It’s just much harder to get paid for it.
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