chat

Fascists have always hated art and artists. Art is open to interpretation; fascists can't tolerate ambiguity. Art invites uncomfortable questions; fascists demand easy answers that justify their worst impulses. Art captures the messy and complicated nature of life; fascists insist on a black-and-white world where they're ontologically good and their enemies are ontologically evil. Art involves the artist baring their soul to the world; fascists view vulnerability as a cardinal sin.

To the fascist, the dull and shallow nature of AI art isn't a bug, but a feature. Image generators produce exactly what is demanded of them without any deeper meaning or nuance, which is what fascism demands of art and artists to the extent that it permits them to exist at all. If you look at the actual art fascists have produced - from the sentimental pablum of the Third Reich to modern trash like Pureflix films - it's eerily similar to the dead-eyed, lifeless nature of AI content.

They simply lack creativity, which requires some level of empathy, and empathy generally leads people to... not be chuds.

They see comedy, and try and do comedy. However, they're not really funny, and their idea of what is "funny" is to attack a group that isn't themselves. What happens is they just say some offensive shit, someone objects, they claim they're being silenced and/or cancelled or are too controversial despite the fact that 90% of people wouldn't have laughed even if they didn't find it offensive.

They see fine art, and try and do fine art. However, they're not really creative, and their idea of what "good art" is is just photorealistic paintings or sculptures of pretty women or masculine men or whatever. They like surface level stuff because they can only observe surface level stuff. Art is a tool to show off a message, be it how dumb [insert minority] is or how good "western civilization" is.

They see entertainment, and try to do entertainment. However, they have no idea how to entertain, and their idea of what's "entertaining" is just some self insert protagonist who is very funny and/or strong and/or smart and/or cool who overcomes obstacles, gets whatever they want and credits roll. They try and create adult animation and come up with Mr Birchum, just stereotype characters with 0 depth where the protagonist learns nothing and defeats a strawman version of "wokeness" that doesn't exist in real life and everyone cheers. They try and create drama and it's the same shit except with fewer jokes.

In all these examples, they simply use art as a tool to get to the important part: a vessel for themselves and their personal beliefs to be broadcast to a wider audience. It's the Freudian Id wanting to come out to play and they're upset other people aren't lapping up their every word. They can only co-opt, corrupt or cry foul.

• It's cheap. One hour of artist time will pay for a lot of midjourney
• Artists are left leaning generally. While there are famous right wing artists and "artist" is a broad category with as much political incoherence as genpop, as a general rule artists are broke weirdos whom the right enjoys humiliating/rejecting. Artists, for the most part, are not going to make pro-landlord propaganda for $20, and dislike being told they don't have "real jobs".
• The value that fascists get from "good art" is the prestige that is lended to them from it. They know that other rich people consider a particular style or a particular artist in high regard. Their back-justifications don't really make sense. This lends itself to art that is difficult to do from a technical perspective but is otherwise vapid.
• On the left, there is a substantial portion of people who say not to use AI. This does not exist on the right (I don't think, not to the same degree)

I don't think this accounts for all of it (I think the other posts here have a lot of valuable insight) but one little note I'd make is that I think right-wingers tend to be very uncritical in their consumption of art and often have a very poorly developed ability to evaluate something as art. Art is often 'good' if it has a surface-level moral that is good, or if it is 'pretty' in a nondescript way. The point of art is to be didactic and AI can achieve that very low standard, so there's nothing to sound any alarms about how ugly or ridiculous the imagery actually is; that would require paying attention to the image longer than they are willing to think about it.

I think it's the logical conclusion of the same phenomenon someone like Big Joel is always observing in the media right-wingers produce. Art is shackled to their messaging and their messaging sucks. With rare exceptions this is the obvious result of that process. AI generated images take the amount of effort they would willingly put into their messaging to create.

It's the official art style of fascism for a reason. It doesn't require empathy or creativity, and perfectly encapsulates the barely-there veneer of reality in the uncanny valley.

There's an article about that: AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism

Art ingratiates the proletariat to society, it is a ready means by which someone with nothing can impress themself upon the world in an unpredictable and humanizing way. This actively works against the fascist pillar of dehumanization.

Art helps us to understand eachother. This works against the fascist pillar of fear.

Art is the fundamental means by which human experience is expressed and explored. This works against the fascist pillar of suppression.

Fascists love AI art because it is fundamentally incapable of integrity or empathy, creative or otherwise.

These people are full of Hitler particles.

Hitler was rejected by art school, so Hitler rejected art.

Therefore people full of Hitler particles reject art. QED

The gish gallop is their primary method of argument, so having a shitty image generator that can keep pace with their shitty arguments is a match made in heaven

Definitely the hatred of artists. It’s telling that automating art is their top priority, but if I were to get in their heads it would be something else.

For once, THEY’RE the ones embracing the future. Tech companies ripped off the mask and are unambiguously on their side. Anyone who opposes this must be a rube not worth considering. In short, they got one of the few things they envy about anyone to the left of them. So they’ll gleefully lord it over.

It's instant gratification from a glorified gacha machine. Since the heart of American reaction is libertine treat lust a magic addictive treatbox that gives them pictures on demand with the cost of a brief delay and a likely need to keep hitting the treat button several times is something they become addicted to and start trying to use for everything.

Dropping an obligatory "blue curtains" in honor of UlyssesT

I think a considerable part of it is owning the libs at this point

Speed of output. Some chuds might be able to draw well, but why would you waste your valuable time on producing garbage?

Beyond the practical reasons, I think the default AI art look shares an aesthetic value with stuff like Ben Garrison drawings and Facebook Minion memes, a sort of maximalist ugliness that feels like a subversive rejection of some common aesthetic value I am too close to to be able to name. That kind of thing works well with the current right-wing populist ideology.