#and before anyone gets cute this certainly does not apply to AI bullshit #cause lots of AI techbros have been using this exactly thing #that ''AI makes art accessible to disabled people'' #as if disabled people havent been creating through the most varied ways #from painting using their mouth or feet #or painting while laying down like Frida Kahlo used to #and including the stuff listed above
hey, uh, this post is very explicitly about "AI" art. "AI" is a vague and commonly misused term that could mean a lot of things, but using a "neural network" to create an art piece very much falls under the concept of "AI art" according to how most people use the term afaik. you can't say that my post "doesn't apply" to the thing that it is explicitly about, lmfao.
to the point, though--it's disrespectful to hold up the example of disabled artists who create in "alternative" ways (with their mouths, with their feet, while lying down, &c.) in order to chastise other disabled artists who are unable to do those things. there is no one way to be disabled. one person who is disabled may be unable or largely unable to use their hands, but able to use their feet for a wide variety of tasks. another may be able to use their hands for a wide variety of tasks, but unable to sit upright. another still may be entirely or almost entirely unable to move, unable to use their hands for almost any task, unable to use their feet, unable to use their mouth--do these people not exist to you?
there are as many different ways of being disabled as there are disabled people. it is incredibly callous, ignorant, and, yes, ableist, to say "well, a completely different disabled person with a completely different life and a different set of abilities and limitations did this, so you should be able to do something similar!" that's not how disability works. "try harder," "work harder," "push yourself," "find another way to do it" (as though disabled people are not the experts on their own abilities and have not exhausted all methods trying to find a way to do something important to them) are common ableist refrains. holding up one disabled person as an example to others because you believe that they have excelled, while ignoring that other disabled people have different or more severe limitations (some might call it "inspiration p*rn") is a common ableist trope.
you can't claim to be on the side of disabled people, and then chastise disabled people for creating art using whatever means are available to them, solely on the basis that you believe they are not putting enough "effort" into their work--which "effort" you interpret to mean physical effort (as my OP said, "physical manipulation of tools").
again: my argument is that claiming that something has 'value' to the extent that it has required 'effort', and that it has required 'effort' to the extent that it has required physical manipulation of objects, is ableist. to be clear there are serious reasons to push against the use of "AI" in our current timeline, but this reactionary, ableist, Protestantism-flavoured idea of "effort" is not one of them.
