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Boosted by jonny@neuromatch.social ("jonny (nonvenomous)"):
lina@neuromatch.social ("Lina") wrote:
@jonny
the idea that art/writing/code/etc is capable of being quantitatively reduced to a single value (or even a finite/consistent set of values) that can then be used to objectively compare the "quality" of different works, is such a disgusting flavor of positivist brainrot. the kind of shit embodied in guys who smugly tell fans of pop music that their favorite artists are "objectively bad" because their compositions aren't "complex enough"... and definitely a red flag that they probably hold other shitty views.take coding, which some people (mistakenly) believe is more science/engineering than art/craft. even with some actually-quantifiable metrics (e.g. execution time) that may be relevant to an honest assessment, there will always be even more qualitative aspects (e.g. readability, maintainability, etc) that are both subjective and highly contextual. coding always involves tensions (e.g. efficiency vs redundancy/robustness), and the negotiations and decisions that inform the implementation in code reflect the commitments of the authors and the perceived requirements of the software for its intended use cases. in other words, it doesn't fucking exist in a vacuum. it's impossible to understand a piece of art or code out of context, and gen"ai" can never produce anything with intentionality or that is contextually situated. the ways that we metricize and evaluate creative works often say more about us than they do about the work itself. what is considered and what is ignored reveals the values we hold. of course, nobody saying this is actually performing any analysis to supportt their belief. they're just going off of vibes based on a worldview that devalues human creativity in favor of some capitalist/technocratic ideal of efficiency.