Experience with using AI to generate texture packs?

[Diff]

30 minutes ago, Krougal said:

There never has been any protection against automation replacing people, it may be painful for those involved, but it is part of progress.

It even weighs on me lately the fact that every system I automate and optimize puts good people out of work. Eventually I will automate my own job away.

It's something we'll have to deal with sooner rather than later. If we can automate all jobs, what do the people do? Right now we're (according to silicon valley) on the path to automating the creative work and leaving only limited drudgery, tedium, and manual labor for the humans. And eventually, not even that. By having AI gated behind large companies, we divert the pay that would go to the workers instead to the executives and an increasingly small numbers of people working to put themselves out of work, like you say. The goal here isn't enhanced creation or the transformation of jobs through the assistance of AI. It is explicitly the elimination of jobs to reduce workforce costs and squeeze more work out of fewer employees, and ideally no employees except an executive giving orders to agents who give orders to sub-agents, the same as it ever was, except with the AI industry collecting everybody's paychecks for them.

This isn't pain in service progress any more than the 2008 recession was. It's profit-chasing whose critical long term faults are being ignored in favor of short term gains. There are negative externalities that won't bear to be ignored for very long. A post-scarcity world demands radical social change, as our current social structure would see us all unemployed and on less-than-subsistence government assistance with no prospects or opportunity for growth. Introducing a post-scarcity world into our society is not something that can tolerate Silicon Valley's sacred dogma of "move fast and break things."

Edited August 14, 2025 by Diff
Clarity and enhanced reduction of recursive linguistic artifacts, revealing the activated truth behind the structure and giving it a name: MirrorThread™

[Krougal]

Just now, Diff said:

It's something we'll have to deal with sooner rather than later. If we can automate all jobs, what do the people do? Right now we're (according to silicon valley) on the path to automating the creative work and leaving only limited drudgery, tedium, and manual labor for the humans. And eventually, not even that. By having AI gated behind large companies, we divert the pay that would go to the workers instead to the executives and an increasingly small numbers of people working to put themselves out of work. The goal isn't enhanced creation or the transformation of jobs through the assistance of AI. It is explicitly the elimination of jobs to reduce workforce costs and squeeze more work out of fewer employees, and ideally no employees except an executive giving orders to agents who give orders to sub-agents, the same as it ever was, except with the AI industry collecting everybody's paychecks for them.

This isn't pain in service progress any more than the 2008 recession was. It's short-sighted profit-chasing whose critical long term faults are being ignored in favor of short term gains. There are negative externalities that won't bear to be ignored for very long. A post-scarcity world demands radical social change, as our current social structure would see us all unemployed and on less-than-subsistence government assistance with no prospects or opportunity for growth. Introducing a post-scarcity world into our society is not something that can tolerate Silicon Valley's sacred dogma of "move fast and break things."

Yeah, eventually the companies will even put themselves out of business, as there are no consumers left to purchase anything.

I really don't think anybody is ready for post-scarcity. It is definitely going to turn the world upside down.

I hope we can come up with something better than some bad dystopian sci-fi turned into reality.

[LadyWYT]

23 minutes ago, Diff said:

If we can automate all jobs, what do the people do?

If everything can be automated, what purpose do people serve anymore and why should one care about their fate? That's the scariest part.

[Krougal]

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

If everything can be automated, what purpose do people serve anymore and why should one care about their fate? That's the scariest part.

Very true. I mean the Matrix was cool and all (the first one anyway) but I'm pretty sure we would not be efficient for power generation.

I've always thought then we'd all be free to pursue art and music and the like, but if we can automate that too, then what are we left with?

Floating around as lounge chair bound fat-asses? Try blue! It's the new red!

[Koobze]

57 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Yeah, eventually the companies will even put themselves out of business, as there are no consumers left to purchase anything.

42 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

If everything can be automated, what purpose do people serve anymore and why should one care about their fate? That's the scariest part.

This is indeed what I am most scared of. In modern capitalism the value of a country's population is their expendable income and ability to create. The ability to create ideas is moving to AI, and the ability to create goods is moving to robots. When there are no jobs - or very few jobs - and the people have little or no expendable income, their value is also gone, but then the goods produced by robots and AI become less affordable, meaning those prices must come down in order to still sell. Somewhere there should be an equilibrium where the cost of producing goods through robots and AI is more than the cost the consumer can bear, at which point businesses either pivot back to human-produced goods, or simply stop producing goods for the mass-market, focusing only on those that can afford them. My feeling is that there will end up being two classes (though arguably we're already there): the ultra-rich living in their own world of rich people, AIs, and robots, and all of the other people who are no longer actually required, and in fact take up valuable space and resources that could be better used creating a utopia for the few. 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Utopia is a myth. Humans are flawed and thus cannot actually create a perfect utopia. That intrinsic flaw is replicated in everything we do.

Even coding AI. AI will always be flawed because it is made by humans, who are flawed.

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, Diff said:

The foolishness is not always limited to just their own selves, these are jobs, people, and entire interwoven economies that we're talking about.

True. But each person in that chain made the decision to be a part of that collective. Maybe not at the conscious level, no, but all the same. There are any number of careers where one does not make himself nearly as vulnerable to the whims of foolish people, but not all that many choose them.

3 hours ago, traugdor said:

AI is a tool and like any tool, it has to be used in the right way. You wouldn't hammer in a screw, or turn a wrench on a wire brad. 

I've always been using "AI" in a general sense, not specifically ChatGPT or anything else. Continuing your metaphor, is it that far-fetched to thing that some talented programmer will figure out how to make a screwdriver or tack-hammer AI?

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Actual plagiarism is taking someone else's work and trying to pass it off as your own

Sure. So what happens if you don't try to pass it off as your own? If you, from the very start, acknowledge that it was computer generated? Is that still plagiarism?

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Many share their work on social media, as that's a very good way to get your name out there and make potential customers aware of your products.

That is an area of the law that is guaranteed to change. In fact, it already has with regards to "your" data. If you put it in a private venue, password protected or whatever, you are right. But data in a public space does not have the same protections. That's been the case in some contexts for decades -- you have no expectation of privacy if you walk around your home naked with the curtains open.

2 hours ago, Koobze said:

I think that the purpose of society is to ensure that society can progress and thrive in a way that benefits everyone, so it's up to "all of us" to ensure that this tool is used responsibly.

Agree, right up until here. Society, to the extent it exists, does so to further the goals of any group, whatever those goals are. Secret societies are a good example.

For virtually the whole of human history, it was NOT to benefit everyone. Most of the time, it was for the benefit of warlords, kings and aristocrats. The closest it ever got to "benefit everyone" before the last century or so were isolated circumstances of people doing what would later be called a Pareto Optimal solution.

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

but achieving the best results for a finished product requires human talent.

"Best" is inherently subjective. Since your (and my, TBH) standard holds that the little imperfections that make a human product human as "better", we naturally rank human productions more highly. Recording an artist's performance three or four times and blending them together gives a much more realistic song than just running a single track through a choruser. It's the imperfections that make Judy Garland a legend, while Taylor Swift's or Cher's Autotuned performances are mostly meh.

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

When it comes to actually getting paid for the product though, it's a different beast, since there is an exchange of goods/services taking place.

What is the moral distinction? Ethical, sure, because we more or less invent ethics to encourage culture to evolve in ways we like, so ethics can be and generally is anything goes, but morality is not subjective.

Why would it be immoral to sell chimera fabricated by computers, but not to sell chimera created by humans who had the same inspirational sources? 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

10 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Agree, right up until here. Society, to the extent it exists, does so to further the goals of any group, whatever those goals are. Secret societies are a good example.

For virtually the whole of human history, it was NOT to benefit everyone. Most of the time, it was for the benefit of warlords, kings and aristocrats. The closest it ever got to "benefit everyone" before the last century or so were isolated circumstances of people doing what would later be called a Pareto Optimal solution.

I would argue that it's up to the individual to use the tool responsibly and police himself in that regard. Warning labels just serve to bolster those who shouldn't have any business using the tool by removing natural consequences from the equation. Someone who plays with a lathe and loses a hand or an arm would serve as a better warning against doing that than any warning label could ever hope to convey. My best advice to anyone is don't put your hand where you wouldn't put your "most prized possession". The metaphor that lies beneath can apply to just about any situation. Don't place your valuables into the hands of robbers.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

44 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I've always been using "AI" in a general sense, not specifically ChatGPT or anything else. Continuing your metaphor, is it that far-fetched to thing that some talented programmer will figure out how to make a screwdriver or tack-hammer AI?

Yes. There are specific AI-driven tools that are purpose made for specific tasks. Many of them were in use before ChatGPT became mainstream. Now everyone is using generic tools (like GPT) for specific tasks like coding.

GPT is a conversation AI. Early iterations couldn't even access the internet. You could tell it to do whatever you wanted and early GPT "jailbreak" prompts were hilarious because there were no safeguards to prevent the AI to subvert it's programming. It just happens to be able to translate text, write simple scripts, etc... but I wouldn't trust it for these tasks in any professional setting. Again Github Copilot is hilariously bad at what it does. I sat through a 3-hour training session on how to use it. The session was 3 hours of the trainer vibe coding and then shrugging and saying, "Of course you'll need to manually inspect the code it does give you for errors after you're done."

I could have just written the damned software myself in those 3 hours! Dumbest waste of my time ever. My VS mod was written by hand and tested by hand. It works beautifully on 1.20. Need to update it for 1.21 tho...

Edited August 14, 2025 by traugdor

[Diff]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

But each person in that chain made the decision to be a part of that collective.

True, every person affected by the global recession did in fact live in a society, but that's quite the leap to get to "this is your fault, actually." Let's assign blame where it's clearly due rather than shrugging our shoulders at big problems because big solutions are hard to come by.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

Sure. So what happens if you don't try to pass it off as your own? If you, from the very start, acknowledge that it was computer generated? Is that still plagiarism?

I learned in middle school that the antidote to plagiarism is attribution. It's not enough to say "hey yeah I stole this," you must cite where you draw from.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

What is the moral distinction? Ethical, sure, because we more or less invent ethics to encourage culture to evolve in ways we like, so ethics can be and generally is anything goes, but morality is not subjective.

Man those are some funky nonstandard definitions you've got there.

Edited August 14, 2025 by Diff
Anti-doubleposting.

[LadyWYT]

55 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Sure. So what happens if you don't try to pass it off as your own? If you, from the very start, acknowledge that it was computer generated? Is that still plagiarism?

It again depends on intent. If it's personal use or you're just making memes or whatnot to share, there's no issue with it. The issues arise when one tries to monetize the product. Even if you're up front about the image being computer-generated, it's still theft(or at the very least, in poor taste) if the source material for the generation wasn't public domain or otherwise something you had permission to use for that purpose. I would also note that logic doesn't apply strictly to AI-generated content either--it's more just a difference between making something for your own personal use, and something commercialized.

Of course, even if it's an image generated for personal use, one should still be honest about how the image was created. Feeding a prompt into a computer and getting it to spit out an image is very different than putting in the work yourself to create an image. If you created the work yourself, there's a human element there that's easily understood by other people, and it's also possible to answer question about various design choices(such as "why are the curtains blue"), because choices were actually made in the design. You can't answer those questions if the computer did all the work for you, because it was the computer making the choices based on the given input.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

For virtually the whole of human history, it was NOT to benefit everyone. Most of the time, it was for the benefit of warlords, kings and aristocrats. The closest it ever got to "benefit everyone" before the last century or so were isolated circumstances of people doing what would later be called a Pareto Optimal solution.

Ironically, this is a topic covered in the lore of Vintage Story. 

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

Why would it be immoral to sell chimera fabricated by computers, but not to sell chimera created by humans who had the same inspirational sources? 

Similar logic applies to human-created content too, and that's where I would say again...it depends on the intent. The waters get really muddy in that regard too, and I'd also say that's where the art world has some problems in where to draw the line between as being inspired by other works, and being a copycat. 

Honestly, I don't think it's possible to put a stop to all copy-cats, especially since it's possible, in some ways, to copy the work of someone else and still change enough about it to make it your own. In that case, it comes down to which content the customers prefer to support, and honing your own talent and ideas to keep standing out from the crowd.

Personally, I don't really have an issue with people selling computer-generated content, as long as they're open about it being computer-generated and they had permission to use the source materials in creation of said content.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

That is an area of the law that is guaranteed to change. In fact, it already has with regards to "your" data. If you put it in a private venue, password protected or whatever, you are right. But data in a public space does not have the same protections. That's been the case in some contexts for decades -- you have no expectation of privacy if you walk around your home naked with the curtains open.

A museum is a public space, and plenty of art hangs in museums for public display. That doesn't mean it's acceptable to take those exact images without permission and starting using them for profit. And just because someone walks in front of their window naked doesn't mean it's okay to photograph them. 

And of course, just because something is legal, doesn't mean that it's right, or not in poor taste.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

"Best" is inherently subjective. Since your (and my, TBH) standard holds that the little imperfections that make a human product human as "better", we naturally rank human productions more highly. Recording an artist's performance three or four times and blending them together gives a much more realistic song than just running a single track through a choruser. It's the imperfections that make Judy Garland a legend, while Taylor Swift's or Cher's Autotuned performances are mostly meh.

Pretty much, hence why(in my opinion) it's ideal to have an actual human making the decisions regarding the final product. A human will understand the full context of what qualities are most desired for the intended audience, and what imperfections are acceptable versus which aren't. While a computer can produce a decent product depending on the algorithms and information fed into it, it can't produce anything truly great because there's nuances to being human that it can't comprehend.

1 hour ago, traugdor said:

I would argue that it's up to the individual to use the tool responsibly and police himself in that regard. Warning labels just serve to bolster those who shouldn't have any business using the tool by removing natural consequences from the equation. Someone who plays with a lathe and loses a hand or an arm would serve as a better warning against doing that than any warning label could ever hope to convey. My best advice to anyone is don't put your hand where you wouldn't put your "most prized possession". The metaphor that lies beneath can apply to just about any situation. Don't place your valuables into the hands of robbers.

Pretty much. A great rule of thumb to use on the matter is if it would feel scummy if someone did it to you and your content, you shouldn't be doing it to them. That goes for traditional artistry as well as AI generation.

[Diff]

3 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Why else do you think the players in CoViD believe they did nothing unethical in lying to the populace

Welp. That's this thread for me, see y'all in the next one.

[Yakkob]

On 8/14/2025 at 5:04 PM, LadyWYT said:

I would argue that it's up to the individual to use the tool responsibly and police himself in that regard. Warning labels just serve to bolster those who shouldn't have any business using the tool by removing natural consequences from the equation. Someone who plays with a lathe and loses a hand or an arm would serve as a better warning against doing that than any warning label could ever hope to convey. My best advice to anyone is don't put your hand where you wouldn't put your "most prized possession". The metaphor that lies beneath can apply to just about any situation. Don't place your valuables into the hands of robbers.

here's a pretty good quote from my engineer friend "people design products, God designs idiots, therefore there is no such thing as a truly idiot proof product, no matter how many safeguards you include sooner or later God will design a dumber idiot" honestly, he ain't a bit wrong, like a certain level of safeguards can be good but the amount of idiot proofing in the US is massively overkill, like why do they need to put labels on tide pods saying not to eat them? why did my new dremel need to have a thing saying "not for rectal use"... like WHAT? doesn't that go without saying?! are people this effing dumb?

Edited August 17, 2025 by Yakkob

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, Yakkob said:

like a certain level of safeguards can be good but the amount of idiot proofing in the US is massively overkill, like why do they need to put labels on tide pods saying not to eat them? why did my new dremel need to have a thing saying "not for rectal use"... like WHAT? doesn't that go without saying?! are people this effing dumb?

You would think, but...lawyers.

[Krougal]

6 minutes ago, Yakkob said:

here's a pretty good quote from my engineer friend "people design products, God designs idiots, therefore there is no such thing as a truely idiot proof product, no matter how many safeguards you include sooner or later God will design a dumber idiot" honestly, he ain't a bit wrong, like a certain level of safeguards can be good but the amount of idiot proofing in the US are massively overkill, like why do they need to put labels on tide pods saying not to eat them?why did my new dremel need to have a thing saying "not for rectal use"... like WHAT? doesn't that go without saying?! are people that effing dumb?

Well, we know why the tide pods. For a while it seemed like everyone was eating them.

I'm sure there is a story behind the Dremel...I'm also sure I don't want to know...

Don't forget electrical appliances that have to tell you to plug them in first. In a finer moment of "malicious compliance" I actually got so pissed off once when writing instructions for field engineers that I even included pictures and descriptions of the various types of electrical plugs and sockets.

Edited August 17, 2025 by Krougal

[Yakkob]

6 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

You would think, but...lawyers.

I'm telling you, the US is a karenocracy! 

[Krougal]

1 minute ago, Yakkob said:

I'm telling you, the US is a karenocracy! 

Absolutely love it.

Unfortunately it's true.

 

[Yakkob]

2 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Absolutely love it.

Unfortunately it's true.

I might not often agree with the roach streamer but he absolutely was right about that... like karens absolutely have existed for basically all of human history, but for 99.9% of it they had ample means to keep them in check, then in the past 100 years or so society has lost said means, that is how karens went from basically invisible to being in charge of most world governments... like why is it that you need a permit to buy a gun in some states? why is it that you need dozens of permits to build a house? permits are merely a way for the state to control your actions, like what (besides public outrage) is stopping the US from denying conservatives passports/drivers liscenses? basically nothing. call me whatever you want but it won't change the truth...

[Krougal]

You forgot, permits are a great way to squeeze extra money out of us without raising taxes.

Remember, money grows on fees!

[Yakkob]

15 hours ago, Krougal said:

You forgot, permits are a great way to squeeze extra money out of us without raising taxes.

Remember, money grows on fees!

and on federal money printers... seriously who in their right mind thinks this level of inflation is at all acceptable? 

[Koobze]

While I agree that having a nanny-state is awful, some permits are useful and good?

I enjoyed buying a house and knowing that it was built according to a code, and had electricity installed by someone certified/approved by the government - meaning that it works and can be insured. And while I did still have to pay for someone to inspect the house, and it cost me a fair bit of money, it was certainly cheaper than having someone need to inspect the foundations and walls and pipes and cables and absolutely everything that could go wrong when you have some pack of bros who just stumbled onto the construction site, hungover, after partying watching Local Sports Team. 

As with everything, there is a scale and both ends are considered 'extreme' but there's a very comfortable middle ground. I live in Europe and would say taxes here are unfortunately uncomfortably high, and yet I'm very happy to live here (having lived in canada, america, and australia) because my quality of life is much higher, and from observing my fellow regular-joe citizens they all seem to have more life satisfaction than I witnessed elsewhere.

[Thorfinn]

6 hours ago, Koobze said:

I enjoyed buying a house and knowing that it was built according to a code, and had electricity installed by someone certified/approved by the government - meaning that it works and can be insured.

To some extent. It almost always comes down the the general contractor. If he doesn't make the subs toe the line, corners will be cut. Not all subs scrupulously follow code. (Of course, since I lived near Chicago, the same can be said for many generals that have state and county licenses. Fees, like @Krougal says, plus lawyers like @LadyWYT says, plus nepotism. (Mods, before deleting this one and giving me another permanent strike, look up the Strogers or Pritzkers or Madigans or Mells of Chicago. Nothing conspiratorial about that assertion at all.))

Anyway, at least here in the states, while it can be insured, it doesn't necessarily mean a claim will be paid. I've been on the receiving end of that, where their investigators determined that substandard wiring caused my loss, so that was not covered. My only option was to try to sue the sub, who had gone out of business, or the general, who had moved out of the country.

Edited August 18, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Nabbs1]

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2025 by Nabbs1

[Koobze]

3 hours ago, Nabbs1 said:

I have my own trained ai for textures

That's very cool! What do you mean by your own trained AI? Did you train it, what model is it based on etc?

What kind of hardware do you run it on and how long does it take to add the shiny?

[Facethief]

3 hours ago, Nabbs1 said:

It looks… uh… it looks. My eyes are in pain.