Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 102.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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[1] From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.101: an exam question (245)
[2] From: <mail@gabrielegan.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.99: an exam question (47)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-08-17 10:51:19+00:00
From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.101: an exam question
Brilliant, Bill!
Please slack off being useful more. It's seriously useful,
for me at least.
In several ways, but in this way in particular.
Your summing up -- not summarising! (That's what people tell
me they use ChatGPT for, but, from seeing some examples of
this use, I would say it doesn't summarise, not well, at
least.) -- of Kant's many difficult pages as saying ...
we should treat others as ends in themselves, not as
something that can be used to some other end
... gives me a way to understand something that's been
bugging me as I worked on some notes I've been preparing on
Generative AI, under the title "Useful Tools or Expensive
Toys?"; notes intended for people working in professional
settings who don't have a background or experience in AI.
A 'useful tool' is useful, if it is useful, to the tool user.
That seems plain to me, and I imagine (and hope) to others
too. But when it comes to things like ChatGPT, and other so
called Generative AI systems, who is the tool user here? It
would seem like we are the user when we use ChatGPT, or one of
the other Generative AI system we now have, to do something,
or at least to try to do something. And this would be right,
I think. But, hidden from view, I have come to feel, are
other users; users who are only users when we use these
systems to [try to] do something we want to do, or need to do;
hidden users who are using us and our use for their own ends;
hidden users who are therefore abusing us.
I am, of course, talking about the builders and suppliers of
these so called Generative AI systems. Unlike most other
software systems we've ever had, and been supplied with, these
Generative AI systems have not been designed and built to be
useful tools for people who have a need or desire to do
particular jobs and tasks, and for which a well designed and
built tool would be useful. It looks like these Generative AI
systems are designed and built to be useful tools because we
can, at least try, do things with them; quite a lot of
different things, we think. But, what we can really usefully
do with these systems is only becoming evident from people
trying to do different things with them. I don't want to say
they cannot be used to do seriously useful things. I think
they can be! But these seriously useful uses were not the
subject of the designing and building of these systems. So,
the builders and suppliers of Generative AI systems are using
us to find out if, and for what, their systems are useful,
and they are mostly doing this by making wild and false
claims, I would say, about the intelligence of these systems,
to tempt us into using them.
This, according to your summing up of Kant, Bill, is immoral,
I think, and is what I have been suspecting, but not having a
way to understand. Thank you.
-- Tim
PS: With some reservations about how appropriate doing this is
here, but in case anybody might be interested in these notes,
they can be accessed here
Generative AI: Useful Tools or Expensive Toys?
Notes for people working in professional settings
<https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0vfmof9j8slbuwucec1h2/GenAI-
DIPCv3.pdf?rlkey=ok1tw2efwez36qym4co6i8a9y&dl=0>
5.5MB PDF file
If any of you do look at these, I would be happy to receive
any thoughts, comments, criticisms, corrections, on anything
in them, here or to me directly.
> On 17 Aug 2024, at 09:00, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 101.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2024-08-16 05:33:57+00:00
> From: Bill Pascoe <bill.pascoe@unimelb.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.99: an exam question
>
> 'they have become a collective creation, a corpus so vast it can be
assimilated
> only through miniaturization' -> youtube, instagram and tictoc scrolling on
> phones
> 'a technique of diminution that helps people to achieve a degree of mastery
over
> works of art' -> influencers and others who not only make 'content' but make
> critique of 'content'.
> 'mastery without which the works could no longer be put to use' -> we watch
> reviews and reaction videos.
>
> What 'use' is art is a big question. Kant reckons (To sum up a few thousand
very
> difficult pages) that the only inarguable moral imperative is to treat others
as
> ends in themselves, not as something that can be used to some other end. He
then
> describes aesthetics as appreciating things in the world as inherently
valuable,
> rather than valued as a means to some other end. Eg: enjoying a beautiful
sunset
> because it's beautiful, not because it's going to get us a better house. So
> aesthetics is a bit like an ethical relationship with the world - and you
could
> get spiritual about that. Hence 'useful art' is a contradiction. We just
> confused because sometimes useful things are also beautiful - the point is our
> attitude towards aspects of them - in so far as I use it, it's useful, in so
far
> as I appreciate it in its own sake its art. There's another level to puzzle
over
> that was brought up on this mailing list a few years ago - about the
aesthetics
> of code. Code is primarily meant to be useful, but sometimes people describe
> well written code as 'elegant' or even beautiful. So it is with any
> functionality or skill - it can be raised to the level of 'art', where it is
> done so well, performs its function so well, is so excellent in its
usefulness,
> that we appreciate that in its own right - it's a pleasure to watch someone
good
> at what they do, or to see code or tools so well designed for their function.
>
> Political systems use art, and that's called propaganda - like fascism,
> communism, capitalism (advertising). Maybe the reason we find propaganda so
> distasteful is because it is doubly unethical. It 'uses' something which is
> meant to be appreciated for it's own sake 'art', which is a kind of corruption
> or violation of something we love, in order to manipulate or 'use' us when we
> are supposed to be treated as an end in ourselves.
>
> On the other hand someone might argue a functional view of meaning, that all
> meaning is a causal, anything that means something does so only because it has
> some effect on use, creates some reaction. A beautiful sunset, or a picture of
> one, causes the effect of our pleasure. The use of a painting is to create
that
> reaction. Some of it is politically provocative. Some is just meant to please
> us, or make our living space enjoyable. Either way it is serving some use and
so
> perhaps we could extend this to saying all art is political, because it is
> always meant to manipulate, benevolently, or malevolently. Maybe the
difference
> goes back to its ethical aspect. Like if someone is intending to manipulate us
> with this art in order to use us as a means to their ends (such as to get
voted
> in, to make a lot of money, etc) or whether they want to give us this
experience
> because they care about us as inherantly valuable, and end in ourselves. Of
> course we get confused when these two are mixed up - like when an artist needs
> to make money, but that's not what they are doing it for, and they agonise
over
> selling out. And some say that it's neither one or the other, but that angst
> itself, over what way to go, what to do, the moral dilemma, the struggle to
make
> meaning that is the whole point about being human.
>
> Here I am slacking off being useful to have fun waffling on about aesthetics
and
> ethics. Every morning it's the same - to work or not to work?
>
> Oh wait, I forgot about Heidegger, nothing even exists unless we're using
it...
> Shut up and get back to work!
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
> Sent: Friday, 16 August 2024 2:54 PM
> To: Bill Pascoe <bill.pascoe@unimelb.edu.au>
> Subject: [Humanist] 38.99: an exam question
>
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 99.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> http://www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2024-08-15 23:47:30+00:00
> From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.98: an exam question
>
> I've always enjoyed Benjamin's essay, but I've read too much Adorno lately
> to keep from asking, "What kind of a degenerate talks about the use
> value of art?" Even reproduced, what use value does it have? I'd rather
> discuss the artistic value of some useful objects, such as Estwing hammers,
> which I've always thought had a certain sleek beauty, the Aston Martins of
> hammers -- but then a beautiful car is also a useful object with artistic
> value. I would also question the idea that, say, a great painting was
> really being reproduced. A photograph of a painting isn't the painting, and
> a photograph doesn't diminish the value of the original, not even today.
> So, overall, I think Benjamin's essay is his communism running away with
> him a bit much and generally nonsense, though I like his discussion of
> artistic products in which the original has no real value: they're only
> valuable when they are reproduced (such as a film or a recording). The
> original print of the film may have some collector's value, but that's not
> how the film really makes money, while an original Michelangelo is worth
> more, probably, than all of the cheap prints combined, and the cheap prints
> only have their value because of the original. I don't know that prints of
> David would sell if the original didn't ever exist.
>
> At the same time, in a DH context, one can't help but come back to
> Benjamin's essay and reconsider it.
>
> Jim R
>
> On Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 5:12 AM Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>> Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, let me offer the following observation by
>> Walter Benjamin as an exam question for an advanced seminar in digital
>> humanities. This version comes from his "Little history of photography",
>> in The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and
>> Other Writings on Media (Harvard UP, 2008, p .290:
>>
>>> "... one is brought up short by the way the understanding of great
>>> works [of art] was transformed at about the same time the techniques
>>> of reproduction were being developed. Such works can no longer be
>>> regarded as the products of individuals; they have become a
>>> collective creation, a corpus so vast it can be assimilated only
>>> through miniaturization. In the final analysis, methods of mechanical
>>> reproduction are a technique of diminution that helps people to
>>> achieve a degree of mastery over works of art--mastery without which
>>> the works could no longer be put to use."
>>>
>>> Discuss.
>>
>> Yours,
>> WM
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-08-17 08:26:28+00:00
From: <mail@gabrielegan.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.99: an exam question
James Rovira asks
> "What kind of a degenerate talks about
> the use value of art?" Even reproduced,
> what use value does it have?
I think I must be that kind of degenerate
as I don't find the term "use value" to be
pejorative. Nor did Karl Marx. The use value
of an object is the human satisfaction taken
in its consumption. The pleasure I get from
eating an ice-cream is its use value, and
it is destroyed in that act of consumption.
What's degenerate, according to Marx (and
I think according to Walter Benjamin but
I understand him less well), is not
use value itself but the confusion of
use value and exchange value. To take
Rovira's example of Aston Martin cars,
it's fine (with Marx) to fetishize such
an object for the driving pleasure it
gives, but not to fetishize it for its
being exchangeable for a lot of some
other goods.
The peculiar thing about works of art,
surely, is that their use value is not
destroyed in their consumption. Your
enjoyment of, say, 'West Side Story',
doesn't diminish mine. Art is the
gift that keeps giving. That, I would
say, is one of the ways that art
threatens the bourgeois exchange
system. Perhaps the impulse to endow
public art galleries that seems to
affect so many of the rich is a
Freudian 'reaction formation'
(over-compensation) for their prior
commodity fetishism, the fetishing
of exchange value over use value,
that gave them their wealth in the
first place.
Regards
Gabriel Egan
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