@Gargron This reminds me a little bit about the discussion when electronic music started to become a thing. For me personally it's exciting to see what Artists will do with AI as it's basically just another tool at their disposal.

@Gargron

This makes me wonder - how do we determine "substance"?

Imagine a turing test for art, can you distinguish between the machine generated and human generated pieces?

@Gargron Fingerpainting is #art made without tools. Artists created tools, such as brushes, to help them express ideas. Why is generative #AI different than any other artistic tool?

@Gargron Does using Lightroom to de-noise your photos count as machine generated? Where do you draw the line?

@Gargron Spot on, Art is about Humanity, no Humanity, no Art.
There's no thought behind it, so who cares?

@Gargron people said the same of photoshop and I think this may age the same way, FWIW, and I am blown away by Burt Monroy's artwork (I ran the computer labs for his photoshop classes, and he is amazing): https://www.bertmonroy.com/

@Gargron Agree. Of course if capitalism with efficient creation and consumption is all one cares about then I guess this is their good enough “art” for some? Sad and completely missing the point of actual art, but for some this may be satisfying just as Taco Bell might be satisfying to someone not in the know craving authentic Mexican food.

@Gargron What if a writer uses speech to text AI to transcribe their words? What if they use it to suggest changes to grammar, or identify cliches in their writing so they can change it?

Can a photographer not use any smart phones made after 2022 because of AI built into the exposure process?

If a photographer uses AI with in painting to remove something from the background of an image is it not art?

If a video editor uses AI to remove a safety wire from a video is that not art?

@Gargron … and now, essays, art or not? 😉

@Gargron - or a cake that's convincingly cake-like, but only on a single random parameter. Looks perfect but is made of plaster. Tastes good but smells of rancid dog poo and/or is poisonous. Has the right weight. Or colors.

@Gargron Wait........... is AI...... CAKE??

@Gargron perhaps generative art is a better description, as non-generative-machine-generated art will most likely become a thing in the not-so-distant future

@Gargron I think if working people owned the means of production, artists could use AI as a tool instead of being used like tools by its capitalist owners

@Gargron you remind me very much of Walter Benjamin and his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - he might have been speaking with photography in mind, but many of his ideas seem truly prescient...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction

@Gargron AI will continue to be integrated into artist tools and it’ll be up to the artist to use the tool “correctly” or not.

Full AI art pieces? Usually trash. Generative fill to fix product photos after a hiring a photographer? Gold. Auto generated subtitles from video to save an editor hours of time? Fantastic.

It’s all about how you use the tool. I’m sure people looked at the photo copy machine and digital art the same way they do AI now.

@Gargron

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” - Paul Cezanne

I feel for the myriad folks who's main exposure to "art" is going to be low-effort mass-marketed "content", not ever meant to truly connect with anyone, but simply out to make a buck.

Without knowing what real art feels like, it's harder to make the connection that maybe the reason your soul hasn't effused the sublime lately is because you're consuming nothing but refined mental calories.

@Gargron If the people enjoying the art get the same enjoyment and aesthetic experience from AI art as from human-generated art, then the difference is solely the experience of the creator.

Which means "art" would be more about the act of creating rather than experiencing the end product. This is fine -- all the art I create is of value to me because I created it, regardless of whether someone else enjoys it or not.

This is a hard pill for many artists to swallow. And a blow to the biz model.

@Gargron Behold the Dutch cuisine art that can be compared to AI 'art'.

https://static.ah.nl/static/recepten/img_RAM_PRD183463_440x324_JPG.jpg

@Gargron All the form, none of the relationships involved.

@Gargron Well, it is actually the guy in front of the device, who defines and refines the prompt. I think it is more like variations of notes what the AI does. That is why my verdict is not that absolute.

@Gargron isn't this the same argument as photography, or electronic music?

@Gargron You appear to assume that you can distinguish human from machine made creations. That might mostly be true right now, but increasingly it will become false.

@Gargron
I did not come to a conclusion yet.
Question: Would you differentiate between art and design?

Think of „Design a new record player inspired by Bauhaus and Dieter Rams.“
I think that would be fine, no? But then again, if this is okay, why not in art?

@Gargron Same sort of argument could be made against photography as an art form (as opposed to painting), especially with modern cameras where you just have to press a button.
At the least, AI is good for memes, which might not be high art, but as long as people get enjoyment or meaning out of it, it's a form of art.

@Gargron AI art, especially when compared to original human art, is fairly easy to spot—it lacks a certain mood or vibe—it conveys no emotion and lacks a point of view. It’s something about the way it attempts to use “light”—it’s directionless and without vision. Even a Thomas Kincaid painting conveys more emotion and artistic perspective than an AI generated image.

@Gargron Unfortunately, for most people the appearance is what they care about, not the substance.

In some cases the situation is even worse -- they don't care about the appearance or the substance of the art itself, they just care that they're seen consuming the kind of art that presents them in the best light.

@Gargron

Fondant looks so good but tastes so questionable. Fondant is always such a let-down.

@Gargron seems a bit extreme to rule out e.g. the crowd scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies, or the procedurally generated terrain and creatures of No Man's Sky, from consideration as art

@Gargron I would say it has a place, but only as a tool for human artists.

@Gargron AI is the antithesis of art to me.

@Gargron –

That's a fair characterization at least of the *current* forms of AI we've seen, but it sounds like you're only considering AI in the role of an artist – that's far from "no place." The whole sentiment sounds a little to me like: "paintbrushes don't even emulate anything – they're inanimate objects that just sit there. They have no place in the arts."

@Gargron Sadly perhaps there is no choice. It may well routinely outsell any direct human product. But it is also a human product if that offers any comfort. A very few humans may find a bigger audience.

@Gargron But cakes made entirely of fondant and cardboard both are used within the arts, aren't they?

I don't mean this from a mean spirited place: don't garbage media have things to say?

@Gargron In my opinion, AI can become an artist when it's sentient and has its own opinions and feelings.

@Gargron I only read hand-written books, the printed word lacks humanity just saying lol

@Gargron
Also even if it could, like why would you automate one of the most entertaining part of being a human?
Why not automate jobs so we work less and do more art?

@Gargron sounds a lot like a Thomas Kinkade painting, really.

@Gargron Agree. What gives art its meaning and impact is not just how it looks or sounds. It’s also the context of how it was made, what it’s trying to say, and what it says about the people who created it.

E.g., the stunts in a Buster Keaton or Tom Cruise movie—What makes those exciting is knowing how dangerous and difficult they were to pull off, it’s not just how they look.

Art that originates from effortless automation is soulless. Its only value comes through imitiation and deception.

@Gargron @bamboombibbitybop People used to make this same argument about cameras and synthesizers

@Gargron I agree it has no place in art. Or at least not in it's current form. But i disagree on it not having substance.

It does. It's just that the substance comes directly from human beings. All it does it use human art and slightly modifies it.

@Gargron And by definition, entirely derivative. Parasitically drawing from other people's achievements.

@Gargron

The worst part about this is that, in moderation, in certain cases, it is actually quite useful, but the nature of capitalism means it will grind every single bit of creativity to dust until we are producing the same thing over and over and the human element is completely eliminated.

@Gargron

Difficult coming to terms with recognizing you're an organic computer? Because you are, and AI becoming as skilled, if not more so, than us, can be terrifying.

But please don't delude yourself, or try to do the same to others, thinking that you're somehow intrinsically special. Magical thinking is FUCKING DANGEROUS. Magical Thinking has driven every genocide, every war, every crusade.

AI is here to stay, and it makes damn good pictures. Don't discredit it, adapt to the new reality.

@Gargron perfect for advertising then?

What I am perceiving here is a bit different, esteemed
@Gargron.

It is surrealist artists hacking image generator LLMs & feeding the outpout into Photoshop et al as a base for collective art projects.
They use image generator LLMs as
fuqing tools to sketch out a project.

@Gargron it seems to me, AI is unable to make conceptual art.

@Gargron Doctorow said llms are blurry jpegs of the web, and I agree.

@Gargron a cake made entirely of fondant sounds like quite a commentary piece.

@Gargron
This is a non-problem.
If it has no substance, it will be ignored.

@Gargron Art is relative, and often part of a larger process (filmmaking, game design...). For throwing up quick mood boards / pre-concept art ideas, general directions, it's probably useful. Then the actual creation can begin.

@Gargron I remember film photographers saying the same thing about digital.

Then when digital became the preferred art form of photography, they all said the same thing about photoshop and digital manipulation.

It’s interesting to behold this cycle of fear about new technology somehow invalidating the status quo, but it doesn’t. Film is still art. Digital is still art. Photoshopping and digital tweaking is the gold standard now.

AI has a place in the arts, it just makes you uncomfortable.

@gargron it's ok, people hated Photoshop when it first started treating real pictures. generative SALAMI is integrated into Photoshop and Gimp as we speak and will be used for in-painting and out-painting in so many places it will just become seamless.

@Gargron I cannot possibly agree. This is a luddite argument about a new way to create digital images.
I see lots of artists who have turned to AI to generate art because it does it quicker & easier & they generate wonderful art that's imaginative - in bulk.
This 'but AI has copied other people's style or method' argument is BS. People do that without AI. Copyright is about what you produce, not how you do it. If 'style' or what went before was an issue, lots of songwriters would be in trouble.

@Gargron Good to see this, and not entirely surprising to see so many of the responses here are asking questions already answered in the toot.

@Gargron It’s like art without a soul.

@Gargron while I think the current AI wave is >95% BS, I can imagine use of AI in art. Along the lines of Duchamp's ready mades, surrealism's approaches to art by using odd processes, and Bill Burrough's cut up method.

Those are all ways of using tools to pervert automation and create mind bending art.

To do it well would require true genius.