AI, Web3 and Metainformation

Nasty Tweet

The purpose of this article isn't "getting buzzwords bingo", but it's inevitable.

Yesterday, when ChatGPT4 started booming, somebody posted on Twitter that "Instagram will die in 3 years since all images are AI-generated". This tweet is wrong in a few ways, but what really struck me - is that actually, Instagram, or maybe a similar platform, will flourish. And all thanks to AI and Web3.

AI

AI reminds me (not like I remember it myself) of the advent of photography. Back then, there was a strong conviction that "painters are no longer needed". Through many years, painters endeavor for realism. It was both - an art and a craft. But once you can achieve realism with no effort - what's left for painters? Well, Salvador Dali and Malevych demonstrated that there is an art beyond realism. Now, we have much more art currents - impressionism, cubism (and many more), and photography as art itself.

I can easily imagine how AI-generated pictures will become art, but I'm truly wondering how you can come up with something that obviously would differ from AI-generated pictures.

But if an artist publishes one's work - can't it be instantly copy-pasted by AI? Here goes Web3.

Web3

Disclaimer: I have zero (ok, maybe 0.5) understanding of how it's gonna work.

According to a16z vision of the future of the internet, in comparison to web1, which gave you the ability to "read" information, and to web2, which made it possible to "write" information, web3 is supposed to give you the ability to "own" information. This includes all the censorship/moderation rights, as well as data privacy - perhaps a big obstacle for web crawlers. But instead of putting a simple "barrier" for AI, instead web3 will induce monetizing of all of the content, which in its turn will encourage artists to create even more. NFT - is one of the examples of web3, but I guess many more will still be revealed in the future.

Ok, what's the catch with the metainformation?

Metainformation

One of the first and most prominent examples of "metainformation" in the context of art I know - is Notre Dame De Paris. But Notre Dame as a building is an instance of information. And The Hunchback of Notre Dame - is its meta information. It was written precisely to get attention to the underrated cathedral of that time - yes, in other words, it's marketing. But I still call it "metainformation", because this is what you buy or simply imagine together with any object in the universe. There might be billions of stars, but one has a history, and a background, bringing more attention. There might be millions of t-shirts, but the one Steve Jobs once wore is valued disproportionately more. The art created "just for sell" is not likely to be valued as much as "created under unusual circumstances", which applies both to AI- and human-created content. But this is how web3 can help us to mark "the instance".

P.S.: Obviously, the illustration for this article is created via AI. Will make NFT out of it later.

#chatgpt #chatgpt3 #chatgpt4 #web3 #nft #AI #Blockchain