“Why read another human’s writing if an AI’s is better?”

I think that was the whole point, this is "the hidden cost of AI Art". AI (or LLMs) might be able to compete (or supersede us) on the end-product level, but it can't create "art". If you don't care about art, then the whole discussion doesn't matter, but then it will cost us our growth as humans.

CC: @riskable@programming.dev

but the questions "Why read another human's writing if an AI's is better?" still has no answer.

Of course it does. Because the human creator was affected while creating it. What you quoted explains the whole thing.

Well, remember, art is not just the story. It is not just the painting or the sculpture or whatever else you love to create. It’s also the process of creation and what that process does to you. We make art because we can’t help it. It’s part of us.

I added bold because that’s the core point. Of course I would rather read something where a human was affected by the process of creating. That’s relatable, and the entire purpose of art.

You read another human’s writing because they’re human, and a human who experienced something while creating is unquestionably superior to what amounts to randomness. An LLM can’t think, learn, or have human-like experiences. It can only copy. Expression is the important thing, and an LLM can’t express.

AI can’t compete with a human’s passion or interest, and doing something with passion or interest is what makes something art.

The act of creation by a human literally makes all the difference.

Damn, you completely missed the point, didn't ya? Art is made by artists which are in turn shaped by their art. It's a conversation with themselves with us. Art has value because each step of that process shapes artist shapes audience shapes artist. AI art has no value because there's no conversation. Art has no intrinsic value because it is, at its core, a conversation. Yes, we've proven that AI can parrot this conversation, but it isn't adding anything to it. Conversations teach you about yourself and the person who you're conversing with, which can then change the trajectory of the conversation. When you converse with AI, it's just a shitty mirror that poorly reflects who are in relation to the collective human output. You can't learn anything about the AI by talking to it and the AI can't fundamentally change the trajectory of the conversation without the person it's speaking to doing so first. Which is why AI art is worthless.

Put another way, Brandon Sanderson's work is a conversation with novels of the past. It's a conversation with Herbert and Tolkien, but also with the cultural zeitgeist and the changing human experience. If you were to create an LLM using only what was published before the publishing of any of Brandon's work, you couldn't get that LLM to recreate the works of Brandon Sanderson because his works are fundamentally outside the parameters that the LLM knows and is therefore able to create. It can only recreate works within the bounds of its parrot material, not anything new.