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Redditors Vent and Complain When People Mock Their "AI Art"

Setting aside the usual arguments on the anti- and pro-AI art debate and the nature of creativity itself, perhaps the negative reaction that the Redditor encountered is part of a sea change in opinion among many people that think corporate AI platforms are exploitive and extractive in nature because their datasets rely on copyrighted material without the original artists' permission. And that's without getting into AI's negative drag on the environment.

XPost3000 ,

IMO I'd call "AI Artists" a type of Art Director, since they themselves don't make the art but instead direct and dictate what exactly they want, and if the result is different they tweak their wording to direct the art into a different direction

Art Directing, whether for a human or a machine or otherwise, is still a skill itself and still has to be learned to get good results, but it's distinctly different from making the art yourself so I wouldn't call them "Artists" outright

Randomgal ,

If you read this thread closely, the problem isn't AI, it's capitalism and its extractive design.

Gakomi ,

Pretty sure that artists are pissed because they are gonna lose jobs and money. To which I say we'll you chose that career path deal with it or go on another career. I hate the argument that AI is stealing art as it's using existing art to generate other art, oh yeah ? Then what about you, how do you think you get inspired? Oh by looking at other art ? Hmm sounds an awful lot the same to me! Let me put it this way due to AI even I might loose my job in the future but you know what I do to combat that ? I try to learn how to use AI as that's the skill that will be required in the future!

realharo ,

I try to learn how to use AI

And exactly which part of this process could not be done by AI too?

Which part will still require hiring a human?

Gakomi ,

The one where you have to give inputs to it in order to get what you want from it

realharo , (edited )

That will not be a marketable skill, if the intended "customer", who just wants the end product, can do all of that themselves.

There are already improvements being made in understanding the intent better, which will eventually render all "prompt engineering" unnecessary and obsolete.

The necessity to tweak prompts will be a very short-lived thing from these early days. At best it will give you an extra year or so.

Similarly if you picture yourself as an owner of a company - you cannot sell something to people that they can just make themselves with zero effort required. Especially in an environment with a million competitors. At best your moat could be the network effects of a large user base, but that's not an easy place to get to.

Gakomi ,

Really? Are you sure that someone that knows a lot about art can't create better art with AI then your average Joe ? And are you sure that's not marketable ? Cause I'm pretty sure I can make a banner or a poster my self for advertising if I wanted to but I still prefer to pay a professional to make it as it will be better! Everything is marketable so don't give me that. This shit is pretty much the same issue that was created with automatisation when factories started using robots instead of people. It's inevitable, it's the future and just like then people will find other jobs!

realharo ,

You are assuming that progress in AI capabilities will stall somewhere close to its present day state. Because today, a professional-made poster will still be better than one you can make yourself. But that won't be the case forever.

This is more akin to how there used to be elevator operators vs. people just pressing a button themselves, or how people couldn't easily book their own airline tickets without going through a travel agent, and now they just order them through a website.

Gakomi , (edited )

Yes, it's called progress. Some jobs will disappear but others jobs will replace those. The world population is quite bigger then what it was 100 years ago and even thought computers and robots replaced a lot of jobs we still have jobs today as a matter of fact we have more jobs. As someone has to mention and program those robots. Someone has to create programs and games, someone has to mentain the infrastructure. Youtube videos and streaming became a job. Simply put the point I'm trying to make is AI might take away some jobs but it will also open up new jobs opportunities for other people. And no matter how pissed of you are that AI is doing something that you consider wrong and think that only humans should do it you will never be able to stop AI from becoming a thing. There was a lot of push back against automatisation too and that did absolutely nothing and humans got replaced by robots on assembly lines and shit like that.

And no I don't assume that it will stall, it will evolve but humans will still have to give inputs to AI in order to crate those posters, and we will find more creative ways to give better inputs in order to get better art. Simply put using AI at a professional level will become a skill and a new job. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to create better AI art the someone that does that everyday as a job. At best I will give some input like make this picture in the style of Picasso or something while someone that studied art will know more art terms and concepts then just make it like Picasso.

realharo , (edited )

As someone has to mention and program those robots.

Why couldn't an AI do that?

Someone has to create programs and games, someone has to maintain the infrastructure.

Same question.

Youtube videos and streaming became a job.

This will only work because of the parasocial aspect, and there will probably be strong competition from AI there too.

For every thing you imagine, simply ask yourself - will AI be able to do it better?

So far I haven't heard anything convincing where the answer would be "no".

This whole "giving inputs" argument is 100% leaning on today's technological limitations.

With enough advancements, no input you could ever come up with will be able to compete with the automated ones - even if they are working from some very high level goal, like "make something people want" (to give a slightly exaggerated example).

Nobody's going to pay you to utter the phrase "make something people want" (and it's not competitive as a business either).

Gakomi ,

For now it can't, but it will in the future. Still we will always need someone that has to check on it in case something happens. And AI kinda needs to be prompted to do things if the checks say everything is fine the AI will always think it's ok even if it's not doing what it's suppose to do. That's why we still have infrastructure and monitoring teams. If everything would have been automatized for any niche and particular issues that can arise it would have been done a long time ago.

Harbinger01173430 ,

I feel ya. They complain a lot about something being better than them. Aren't humans supposed to adapt and overcome or did we forget that skill a long while ago?

TwilightVulpine ,

Adapt and overcome how? Using AI? By the nature of the matter, less artists will be needed using AI, some will not make it. So, what then? Dropping their artistic career to go carry boxes for Amazon? What a shitty path we are making for humanity if we need to drop careers of passion to do menial jobs.

Harbinger01173430 ,

No, make art for fun and not for money. 😒 Art is for fun and culture, not for profit

TwilightVulpine ,

We can argue that when Disney ceases to be one of the biggest corporations in the world, and most people can live with part-time jobs, that leave them plenty of time to create art. AI is not going to make it so all art is made for fun rather than money, it's just going to make it so media corporations get all of the money, without having to pay any to actual artists.

blind3rdeye ,

I'm pretty sure that artists are pissed because techbros have taken the artists' creations without permission and used them to train computers to mimic the artists. This is bad for a host of reasons. One obvious reason is that the thieves can then use this to make money, using the artists' work but without paying them - ever. Another reason is that since the AI can make work using the 'style' of an artist but without the creative direction of the artist, it devalues the style that the artist has worked to create. The new AI created work looks similar, but is not of consistent quality. Another reason is people generally think of art as a creative outlet; where someone's thoughts and efforts go into creating something. But if the work is done effortlessly, and primarily through the lens of what the AI sees rather than what a person sees - then it just devalues art and artistic creation itself. Art creation is basically the very worst thing to automate; economically, morally, and philosophically.

JigglypuffSeenFromAbove ,
@JigglypuffSeenFromAbove@lemmy.world avatar

Sometimes I think we could get to a point where nothing new is created. Like, if everyone is just using prompts and profiting from other people's work without consent, and this is more lucrative than creating content yourself, what's the point in creating new things?

I don't know how to put this without sounding alarmist, but I fear we might be heading towards a halt in creativity. Trying to come up with something fresh will become less rewarding, so we'll be feeding from the same source material over and over again.

bluewing ,

It's always been that "there is little new under the sun." Whether it's math, science, or the arts, the "new" is all built on what went before. It's all just incremental and very often what was old is now new again.

AI might be good a copying, but the desire to create and destroy is a human drive. It will remain and find a way.

TwilightVulpine ,

People will always want to create, but if they can't make a living creating, that's going to put a roadblock in their artistic development, because they won't be able to dedicate themselves to it full time.

vert3xo ,

Your comparison of taking inspiration and literally generating something from someone elses image is the most braindead take on ai I've read. As a human you can't replicate someone's style to the extent that ai does. And if you are drawing from reference and trying to make something as close to the original as possible then it's normal to give credit (with digital art at least).

Gakomi ,

Yeah, sure, you can't replicate someone style to that extent. It not like people made fakes of famous paintings to sell them as originals just because the originals are expensive. Please tell me how humans can't replicate someone's style some more!!!

vert3xo ,

First of all, you can't make a perfect copy. Second of all, faking paintings and advertising them as original just so happens to be illegal. Can you give me a reason why it should be acceptable when AI does it?

Gakomi ,

My point is humans do it, and not even AI can do a perfect copy as it is impossible due to how old those paintings are. I never said it should be legal for AI to do that but if you ask AI to do some painting you want but to do it the style that Rembrandt did his painting that's not illegal that something that people do too and those kind of request are normal for painters so why should AI not be allowed to do it. ?

CPMSP ,

"Redditors vent and complain"

News at 11.

wirehead ,

Funny, just this morning I woke up to someone commenting on one of my pieces of art that I'd posted on Reddit that if I hadn't put in the comment how I did it, they'd have thought it was an AI generated picture.

It's super-painful to be a technologist and an artist at the same time right now because there are way too many people in tech who have no understanding of what it means to create art. There's people in the art community who don't really get AI either, of course, but since they are trending towards probably the right opinion based on an incomplete understanding of what the things we see as AI actually are, it's much easier to listen to them. If anything, the artists can labor under the misapprehension that the current crop of AI tools are doing more than they actually are.

In the golden age of analog photography, people would do a print and include the raw borders of the image. So you'd see sprocket holes if it's 35mm film or a variety of rough boundaries for other film formats. And it was a known artistic convention that you were showing exactly what you shot, no cropping, no edits, etc. The early first version of Instagram decided that those film borders meant "art" so of course they added the fake film borders and it grated on my nerves because I think it was the edges from a roll of Velvia, which is a brilliant color slide film. And then someone would have the photo with the B&W filter because that also means "art" but you would never see a B&W Velvia shot unless you were working really hard on a thing. So this is far from the first time that a bunch of clueless people on the tech side of the fence did something silly out of ego and ignorance.

The picture I posted is the result of a bunch of work on fabbing, 3D printing, FastLED programming, photographic technique, providing an interesting concept to a person and an existing body of work such that said person would want to show up to some random eccentric's place for a shoot, et al. And, well... captions on art exist for a reason, right? It adds layers to the work to know that the artist was half-mad when they painted it and maybe you can tell by the painting's brushwork or just know your art history really well but maybe you can't and so a caption helps create context for people not skilled in that particular art.

And, there's not really "secrets" in art. Lots of curators and art critics will take great pains to explain why Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko so if you are still wandering around saying "BUT IT LOOKS LIKE GIANT SQUARES" that's intentional ignorance.

Now, I've been exploring my particular weird genre of art for a while now. Before AI, Photoshop was the thing. Much in the same way as I could have thrown a long enough prompt into a spicy-autocomplete image generator, I also could have probably photoshopped it. Then again, the tutorials for the Photoshop version of the technique all refer back to the actual photographic effect.

Describing something as it's not has long been a violation of social norms that people who are stuck in a world of intentional ignorance, ego, and disrespect for the artistic process have engaged in. In the simultaneous heyday of Second Life and Flickr, people wanting to treat their Second Life as their primary life caused Flickr to create features so people could mediate this boundary. So, on one level, this isn't entirely new and posting AI art in the painting reddit is no different from posting filtered Second Life to the portrait group on flickr. It's simple rudeness of the sort that the unglamorous aspects of community moderation are there to solve for.

I have gotten quizzed about how I make my art, but I've never seen anybody go off and then create a replica of my art, they've always gone off and created something new and novel and interesting and you might not even realize that what got them there was tricks I shared with them it's so different. Artists don't see other art in the gallery and autocomplete art that looks like what they saw, they incorporate ideas into their own work with their own flair.

Thus, there's more going on than just mere rudeness. I've been doing this for a long time now and the AI companies have a habit of misrepresenting exactly what content they have stolen to train their image models. So it's entirely likely that the cool AI picture that someone thinks my art looks like is really just autocompleted using parts of my art. Except I can't say "no" and if there was a market for people making art that looks roughly like mine, I'd offer paid workshops or something.

Halcyon ,
@Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Great insightful comment, thanks!

mrbaby ,

Well now I want to see some of your work. It sounds interesting as hell

wirehead ,

Well, the photo in question is: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyberspace/53570370332/

Dkarma ,

Which is funny cuz I've seen better ai art generated in 10 min on my laptop via CPU trained ai. Why is your photo you generated any more valid than the pic I generated? It isn't. We both did the same thing. We used a machine to make art.

You're really just pissed because mines better.

Also only llms are trained on web content and it is not stealing under any definition of the word. Their AI just looked at work presented online for free like any other not or user. None of that is illegal. Using the training data to recreate similar works is also not illegal as of right now.

sploosh ,

Asking a computer to create an image is fundamentally different from constructing a scene and photographing it. One is using a machine, skill, talent and creativity to create art. The other is having a machine generate art for you.

HelloHotel , (edited )

I wrote a small bulk file management tool that I needed for my work. I wrote it in an easy language (javascript+nodejs). It got the job done and took maybe an hour. But I noticed its flaws and imperfections. So i made a new tool in a very hard to learn language (rust) its taken me months and is already moderately better. In ~2 weeks I will have a tool that I am satisfied with enough to post on the internet for anyone to use.

I could've posted my original (crude hammer of a) tool online months ago because, on a basic level they do the same thing regardless of how pleasant it feels to use. Have it posted online to be thrown into a pit full of other tools that do similarly wacky things that are interesting for all of 10 minutes. Tools that slowly break over time. Tools that are silently forgotten.

Theharpyeagle ,

Do you think art is maybe more about the process of creating and physically manifesting your thoughts and emotions? Like maybe art isn't just about the end product but the joy of creation?

Squirrelanna ,
@Squirrelanna@lemmynsfw.com avatar

If you think this debate is about which one is "better" you have fundamentally missed the point. Disregarding the AI aspect entirely, art is subjective. "Better" is completely meaningless in that context. Is it more technically proficient? Better composed? Even if answers match, it could be for entirely different reasons between people. And then there are people who will disagree entirely. There is no objective measure. So then, what is the point of art?

It's different for everyone, and it just so happens that a significant portion find AI generated compositions hollow on top of being unethical.

HelloHotel ,

Not to be off topic... but... Your username... wirehead... its dark and disturbing and absolutely i love it!

wirehead ,

We, the people who all roughly simultaneously chose the same name at roughly the same time only to engage in endless wars over who gets it on a new site, actually exist in a diverse multi-gendered animal-loving book-reading population, of which I am only one example, merely the member of our tribe who happened to nab it here. I've actually talked with other Wireheads and the similarities are interesting.

All I know is that it somehow appeared in my brain before I read the Niven book that introduced it to me. And, also, at this point in history, I find Niven and many people who operated in his orbit deeply disgusting and disturbing examples of humanity, so it's good that I came up with it on my own.

Mastengwe , (edited )

If a computer auto generating music isn’t called a musician, or a robot tossing a football isn’t called an athlete, then a person making a picture with a computer isn’t an artist. No matter how badly that person wants to be called one.

Dud ,
@Dud@lemmy.world avatar

I just call the people in my Discord who generate AI images AI Handlers because to me it's like getting a half trained unruly animal to do what you want. That being said when they take requests for character art for tabletop games they put out some good stuff. It's just a tool to be used and it often takes an experienced handler to get what you want out of it.

Kedly ,

I'd be perfectly fine being called an AI Handler over an artist, its an apt descriptor and I'm not doing this to trick anybody. One of the top posts on all today is about true luxuries, and one of them is the Luxury of being able to fully express ones self, to which this new tool has provided to me faaar more than any tool previous. If I'm sharing my creations its because I'm excited to have a visual representation and I want to share it with those interested, I'm not trying to downplay the skillset of other artists, nor do I care about cred. I'm just excited to finally have an outlet for my creativity that doesnt require me to devote years of my life to learning specific skills before I'm able to start doing what I actually want to do, which is to be creative

NoMoreCocaine ,

I don't really think you're expressing much of yourself with an AI, especially creativity. I mean all the power to you if you think so, but you can't really claim to be anything more than a slightly less cumbersome Google image search bot.

Basically you give "search terms" and then use your judgement to pick and choose. There's very little expression and a whole lot curating of someone else's work. I guess if you think making music playlist is an expression of creativity, sure it'll qualify. But that's some shallow expression of a personality when it comes to art. Might want to phrase that differently.

Kedly ,

Lmao, I could't give less of a shit what you think about my own feelings of creative expression. Have a nice day!

BreadstickNinja , (edited )

Depends on the workflow, in my opinion. There are people who just type "1girl lol" into a text box and there are some people who set up workflows with hundreds of steps including significant manual work done in Photoshop or GIMP.

Similarly nearly all music these days is made with a DAW, which enables you to selectively edit and combine performances that otherwise you wouldn't be able to achieve. Drummer off beat? Quantize it. Want a string section but don't know how to play violin? Use a synth. And certainly there are people who are overly reliant on those tools because their core music abilities aren't very strong.

If you think any amount of computer assistance means that something isn't art, then basically all music made since the 90s would also not be art. It's not a binary. Any tool can be used tastefully or be used to mask an underlying lack of talent.

Mastengwe ,

Computer assisted ≠ computer generated. This is a fundamentally understood distinction.

BreadstickNinja ,

I'd welcome you to offer a rigorous definition of this supposedly well-known distinction. Computers don't generate anything spontaneously. They always require some level of direction.

Are the outputs of VSTs not "computer generated"? You can fumble around on a keyboard just moving up and down until you find the pitch you want, and the software will output an orchestral swell of dozens of instruments that take years and years to master, with none of that effort expended by the one mashing the keyboard.

Is that sound computer-assisted or computer-generated in your estimation? Much the same with AI images. It's not fundamentally different from any other computerized tool.

Mastengwe , (edited )

Again, ASSISTED ≠ CREATED. I don’t know how this is difficult for you.

Assisted requires foreknowledge of skill/talent. Like a guitarist using an effect pedal to enhance his sound.

Created leans entirely on the hardware/software combo to do the heavy lifting.

It take ZERO skill to type a sentence into a computer to generate an image. Period. And of argument. I’m sorry this others you; but this is how I see it.

BreadstickNinja ,

I said in my original post that just typing a prompt isn't an example of skill. I stated that there are people who use both AI and non-AI tools in complex workflows that include a ton of manual work, and in those cases it's disingenuous to write off the process as not being creative.

I'm not sure exactly what you're arguing against, but it isn't the position I took. Seems like a reading comprehension issue.

Mastengwe ,

My point is that AI generated pictures aren’t art. Period.

I’m not arguing nuance. My opinion is across the board- no nuance. No argument… it’s not art.

TheEighthDoctor ,

Would you call a person that creates paintings by cutting images from magazines an artist?

What if the person cuts the images from AI generated content?

Mastengwe , (edited )

I would. Because they came up with the idea in their brain and did the skilled work it took to create it. They didn’t have a computer do it for them.

You’re not going to make a point here. Because ag the end of the day, no matter what example you use, it’ll always be that SOMEONE is actually doing the creative heavy lifting instead of a computer doing it for someone that takes the credit.

AI images aren’t art. And if it absolutely HAS to be called such, than at the bare minimum, the PC used to create it takes ALL the credit for it- not the hack that typed in a descriptive sentence.

ReallyActuallyFrankenstein ,

The issue with your categorical "no nuance" stance is that there is nuance in the world.

Mastengwe ,

Not all things are nuanced. Sometimes some things just are what they are, or aren’t what we want them to be.

AI imagery isn’t art and those that make it aren’t artists.

NoMoreCocaine ,

That's pretty reductive and bad comparison. Your example boils down to saying that you could argue guitarist is a machine assisted.

yogurt ,

You don't usually call the audio engineer a musician though. The fact that you "want a string section" is the important part. Art is communication, if you fuck with the AI until it communicates what you want, that can be art, as long as you're not trying to pass off that the fake brushstrokes contain any meaning. If you learn all the right prompt words to make it "good" and then Photoshop it to fix all the telltale AI glitches but the only idea being communicated comes from 6 random people on Deviantart smashed together, that's not art.

Dkarma ,

Ok so edm and electronic music isn't music...ok buddy. Nice definition.

Mastengwe ,

Correct.

r4indeer ,

AI that generates music and humans producing electronic music / EDM have nothing in common.

glassware ,

How does this argument not also apply to photography? A modern camera is a computer, you fiddle with the settings, press a button and it automatically makes a picture for you. People produce billions of shitty photographs a day which aren't art, but that doesn't mean someone working in photography as a medium can't be an artist.

In my experience it's only non-artists who make this argument, because in their heads they're comparing AI to painting. But for visual artists there are tons of mediums and disciplines where you don't physically make the marks yourself and it's the concept and composition that's important.

There was an exhibition of AI generated art at the big local gallery here last year and I expected artist friends to be against it, but they were just like "oh, that's interesting". They just see AI generation as another way of creating an image and whether a particular image is or isn't art depends on the intention not the process.

Mastengwe ,

In the hands of someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing, a camera is useless. Any one can make a computer create an image. All it takes is being able to complete a descriptive sentence.

It’s an unskilled task. It’s not art.

Ashe ,

Taking medium into account changes everything. A sculpture artist or painter doesn't have the same interest or concern about AI art yet, and may never. They also tend to not have the same comprehensive view of AI generation as well as training data.

That being said, digital photography doesn't remotely compare. If I were to set my DSLR up with a lens, set an F stop and shutter speed, the results would be similar to that of a film camera. A sensor takes in light in the same way film does. A 30 second exposure at a 500 ISO will compare to a 30 second camera on a certain film type, which is comparable to ISO settings.

Artificially bumping up light sensitivity on a DSLR degrades image quality. Analog and digital are largely comparable. So how would it apply to photography? It's not just automatically making a picture, and if it were doing that on auto, it's still not all that different from a film photo with generic catch all sensors and light metering.

Photography is all about catching the moment, personally I captured night landscapes via manual long exposure on a DSLR, but none of that is automatic.

nondescripthandle ,

If you use commands to tell an AI to make a piece of art, you're somewhere between a programmer and a manager I think.

Draedron ,

The anti AI movement is so interesting. Its what I imagine how people would have imagined other progress like the printing press

UNY0N ,

The analogy doesn't work. The difference is that this "printing press" is stealing massive amounts of creative work and calling it its own, and using massive amounts of energy to do so.

Halcyon , (edited )
@Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I say in every art form you'll find more copies than originals. Literature, cinema, paintings, photography, music... Everybody who's creative is copying and reusing and recombining and sampling and synthesizing ideas.

And that's true also for computer generated art.

The difference is that it's hardly possible to claim ownership for a picture or a video that was automatically generated by algorithms.

Drewelite ,

You talking about humans or AI?

UNY0N ,

I'm talking about AI. However, the statement I made wasn't very well informed. Others have shared with me how the printing press did indeed give rise to fears about piracy, and create entirely new discussions & problems related to intellectual property.

Drewelite ,

Kinda off topic, but I love Lemmy. How many more people actually think about what they say here. Refreshing compared to a lot of other social media. Anyway thanks for listening to others point of views.

UNY0N ,

It's also why I love it here. Actual discourse without (much) shouting mindlessly at each other.

ReallyActuallyFrankenstein ,

I mean, apart from the "using massive amounts of energy" part, that is exactly what people said about the printing press.

UNY0N ,

From what I understood, the fears surrounding the printing press (as well as other advancements throughout history related to information, text, & writing) were more about people being overloaded with information both false and/or true, or people becoming less studious/disciplined. (Link as an example)

https://slate.com/technology/2010/02/a-history-of-media-technology-scares-from-the-printing-press-to-facebook.html

ReallyActuallyFrankenstein ,

Further to "stealing massive amounts of creative work and calling it its own," this is what was said about the printing press:

https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/401189.html (see halfway down)

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/1/8697947/elizabethan-book-pirates

UNY0N ,

Thanks for sharing, those are indeed sources that I've never encountered before.

littletranspunk ,

AI doesn't exist, it's all machine learning or LLMs.

They're just self-glorified public domain contributors.

There is no AI art

Feathercrown ,

Despite what people with no knowledge of the field will tell you, Machine Learning and LLMs fall under the category of AI. What you're looking for is a very specific type of AI. If AI art doesn't exist, it would be because the art usually doesn't have meaning or effort, not because AI doesn't exist.

littletranspunk ,

Humans create art, AI generates images based on other's art.

AI art is a contradiction in its own wording.

There is no AI art, just large collections of public domain images labeled as "AI art"

I misread, just woke up.

Esqplorer ,

Intelligence is the misnomer. It's like calling airplanes 'artificial birds' (credit Don Norman).

frezik ,

The field of AI would never develop if everything they made along the way had to be thrown away as "not real AI".

At one point, getting computers to understand the rules of chess at all was part of the AI field. So was Conway's Game of Life, which uses a few simple rules to simulate cellular organisms and create some fascinating patterns. Optimizing compilers and virtual machines also came out of AI research.

The "not real AI" meme has no basis in the history of the field.

TimeSquirrel ,
@TimeSquirrel@kbin.social avatar

General AI doesn't exist. Intelligent systems and agents very much do exist.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I like AI art. It can be fun and interesting, I play around with a couple engines myself. I occasionally use the imagery to kick-start my imagination or as inspiration for things I might be working on or thinking about. It’s useful to give your brain a “starting point.”

What I don’t like is people trying to pass off AI computer generated images as some form of accomplishment for themselves (excluding working out a good prompt or modifiers, that can be a bit of work) or trying to pass off the imagery as real in any way. Real IRL or like “I painted this.”

As far as the corporate models scraping content…yeah, they are definitely playing the usual game that it’s ok for them to fuck over the little guy but heaven help you if you’re a day late with a payment to them or torrent a movie.

Gradually_Adjusting , (edited )
@Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world avatar

Art is a key branch of human endeavour that can be described as "the study of choice". That's what so many people misunderstand in modern art, is that it's often more focused on the choices themselves rather than trying to be a skillful representation or depiction of some kind. "That's just a ___, my kid could do that."

What is missing from every conversation about AI art is what contribution to "the study of choice" can be made here. There are a thousand variables in the choices made along the way, from which AI and training data was used, to the myriad of prompts used. I am certain that if you were thoughtfully making these choices along the way with a clear idea in mind, you'd be able to make incredibly impactful art that actually enriches us in the usual sense that good art can.

My complaint about AI here, if we will set the enormous scale of theft to one side, is simply that it is being used to create art that doesn't mean anything, which is inimical to the pursuit of art itself.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

Fair enough. AI art is often just a highly skilled visual meme generator used in a reactionary manner to whatever is happening at the time, whether it be denim-infused fediverse posts or mocking political figures.

Other than a few drop-down menus that aren’t any better than an iPhone photo filter app, yeah, all the choices have essentially been already made and recombined by the art generation software.

Gradually_Adjusting ,
@Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world avatar

A lot of the more technical art generators seem to have a lot fewer fixed parameters. The failure to put in the effort to learn about them and make those choices is what I'd argue makes most AI art inherently worthless.

kent_eh ,

My complaint about AI here, if we will set the enormous scale of theft to one side, is simply that it is being used to create art that doesn't mean anything, which is inimical to the pursuit of art itself.

Thank you.

The meaninglessness and soulelessness is a big part of the problem with AI art.

It has no more "point of view" than a random number generator.

Drewelite ,

So it won't be popular. But then there is AI art that's popular isn't there? Did a landscape have a point of view when someone took a picture of it? No. But the photographer and everyone that saw something in it afterwards did. The viewer can give the piece meaning. It's well known that art is subjective. That means you, the subject, determine if what you're seeing is evoking emotion.

For what it's worth, I don't think the brain is magic. So someday something synthetic will have a complex opinion and express it metaphorically. Maybe we're already there, just not on a human level. Could a rat make art? Because at some point soon computers are going to be on the spectrum of intelligence of a living thing, if it's not already.

apolo399 ,

I really like that description! The study of choice. I think that under that lens I'll be able to appreciate art in a new way. Thanks.

Gradually_Adjusting ,
@Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world avatar

Someone really smart said it to me a few months ago and it changed my world

Hadriscus ,

This needs to change : there is no AI art. Art is something humans do, and AI is something that does not exist.

There cannot be AI art.

hansl ,

“Art is whatever the artist chooses it to be.” And I’d also call art whatever the beholder chooses it to be. If Dog Art is something that exists, AI Art is something that exists.

Whether you think in the case of AI the artist is the LLM or the prompter, that’s irrelevant.

Hadriscus ,

Wow, looks like I have two wildly different options here, such luxury.

C. There is no art

vert3xo ,

If you consider the prompter to be the artist then do you consider me to be an artist when I make a Google search and click on images? I still get an image I didn't make but I wouldn't say that makes me an artist.

And according to your quote the ai model couldn't be an artist simply because it can't consider anything to be an art, it just gives you the random noise that is the result of putting some text through its network. There are of course other reasons why the model shouldn't be considered an artist but this was the simplest I think.

Anyway, I'd say that ai art shouldn't be called art when there's no artist.

VirtualOdour ,

Agi doesn't exist, saying ai doesn't exist is like saying physics doesn't exist because unified field theory isn't a thing yet.

Hadriscus ,

I'm sorry, I can't follow a reasoning unless it uses a car analogy. Please rephrase

Drewelite ,

Can animals or aliens create art?

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

AI image tools are useful for one thing and one thing only.

Putting Godzilla in the most ridiculous situations possible.

https://forums.mst3k.com/t/dall-e-fun-with-an-ai/24697/7734

Start at the bottom. It doesn't start with Godzilla, but eventually we discovered the true meaning of AI image creation. Also because it's getting close to 8000 posts at this point.

We really like putting Godzilla in ridiculous situations.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/840eaae0-d101-4ddf-b968-e7d6dacaa3a8.png

frezik ,

I like the idea that AI art is for art that wasn't worth having a human create. Does it make sense for a human to create pictures of Godzilla in ridiculous situations? If you're feeling really inspired, then go for it, but nobody should otherwise feel obliged to spend an afternoon on it.

A little while ago, I created a LLM Vogon poetry generator for a Hitchikers themed party. Is it worth having a human create intentionally bad poetry for a party? I would again say no. Even there, though, a lot of people didn't like it. Partially because they were afraid of just how bad Vogon poetry could be, but there was some clear dislike of anything associated to AI, even for this silly use case.

cosmicrookie ,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

Simply put, it requires an artistic sense to pick out the art from the junk that AI generates

barsoap , (edited )

The images.

Not terrible, usable as rough concept art but not nearly good enough to be reference. While the general likeness has consistency there's inconsistencies in the eybrows and ears and don't get me started on the costumes they're all plain different.

The main issue I have here, knowing that it's AI, is whether he's holding his blade by the, well, blade because he's just that kind of vampire or because the AI messed up and the human didn't notice.

cosmicrookie ,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

What your link points me to. Do i need an account to see them?

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a817060c-b588-4d07-9e8e-00b4c3aecf59.jpeg

barsoap ,

I have no idea but yes I didn't delete my account. Here's a link to the thread on old.reddit.com, it's the link in the top comment.

Trollception ,

Something is interfering with your DNS or traffic, loads fine for me.

kzhe ,

Same issue. Does this work?

Nvm. Looks like you have to access it from the thread and not here?

Plastic_Ramses ,

People who are scared of ai art would also be scared of cameras in their inception.

Human art will prevail.

yournamehere ,

let us look at music.

real art = zero to none listeners

popmusic = ppl love it

from what i understand most humans like popular things so they can align with a herd.

while artists will keep making art, ppl will keep ignoring it.

Plastic_Ramses ,

Color cinema was also considered a crutch at its creation.

VirtualOdour ,

You've decided all popular music is bad and only the obscure stuff you listen to is art? And you expect me to take you seriously?

if you had any concept of music history you'd know they said that about all the music you think is worthy, Dylan almost had his show ended by an axe wielding Pete Seeger because he played a new fangled electric guitar and Pete thought that meant it wasn't real music.

Art it's the same, cezanne got endless hate for not doing real art, and literature Shakespeare wasn't a real writer because he didn't know enough Greek..

You're just filling the role of antiquated gate keeper in a drama that's played out a billion times with your side losing every single time. Good luck though I guess?

Plastic_Ramses ,

You have completely misunderstood what i am saying.

AI is not the end of art as many people have decried it. It is simply the beginning of a new era.

bunnyfc ,
@bunnyfc@kbin.social avatar

people forget that what makes art impressive is also the skill of the artist in the respective medium

if someone creates a perfect color gradient fill in Photoshop nobody is going to be impressed but make it with colored pencils and people may regard it as stunning

the beauty is also in the effort it took to create, not only in what the result looks like - i don't need to take time to look at stuff people didn't take time to make

TheFonz ,

Respectfully disagree. There's a plethora of artists with exceptional skills that create photorealistic art in several mediums. While the process takes an inordinate amount of time it is completely devoid of any creative input. These are essentially human xerox machines that match color values from a photo using the naked eye. The skill is impressive, the art: not so much.

metaldream ,

Isn't that what the person you replied just said?

TheFonz ,

No. The person I replied to was exclusively praising skill and emphasizing its relevance to the final product. I pointed out that effort does not by default result in an original or creative product. OP dismisses effort and equates time with quality. Take for instance japanese calligraphy: the master places only a handful of strokes to render something gorgeous. On the other hand, someone could spend 80 hours meticulously recreating a photorealistic portrait in watercolor but it's just a human xerox at that point. The human element is completely missed.

metaldream ,

They didn't say that though? The last paragraph made it clear (to me) that they were saying the end result isn't the only part of at that makes it impressive, but also the effort/skill involved

TheFonz ,

I guess you're right. I suppose this last phrase threw me off:

  • i don't need to take time to look at stuff people didn't take time to make

The way I read it this statement stands apart from the rest of their comment. Skill is nice--I agree--but I stand by my original statement: time or effort does not by default result in an artistic product. I suppose I could have read it wrong in that the comment as a whole is a bit disjointed.

9488fcea02a9 ,

I always hated that the most upvoted art on reddit was just photorealism... Abd then the comments were all like, "Wow! I was 100% sure this was a photo until i zoom in!!!"

TheFonz ,

Yeah I agree, but with large platforms it's inevitable for tastes to converge towards the median. A Rothko wouldn't even register on such a platform.

MBM ,

I think Rothko probably doesn't look as impressive on a phone screen either, compared to real life

Drewelite ,

This is because different people enjoy different things about art. Some people see it as a connection, hearing another person's voice in the piece. Some love to see sacrifice, like spending hundreds of hours on creating something. Some view it almost like a sport and want to see a display of pinnacle skill. Others want the art to connect with them and their past.

barsoap ,

people forget that what makes art impressive is also the skill of the artist in the respective medium

I bet you don't like it when people put urinals on a pedestal.

spiderman ,

the beauty is also in the effort it took to create

While I support your whole statement, I think the beauty of art lies in the message, vision or emotion that the artist wants to convey to the world through a visual medium. You can have a super realistic portrayal of a human and still prefer the art of Van Gogh because he shared his emotions through his art and people could feel that.

bunnyfc ,
@bunnyfc@kbin.social avatar

there was an 'also' in that sentence - and he put it there himself without leveraging other bathroom-installations-on-pedestal works

barsoap , (edited )

He put it there leveraging a whole urinal factory. Transported into today's world, instead of clicking "generate" on a prompt with "urinal" on it he put "urinal" in the amazon search box, picked the first result, and then hit "buy".

The art is in the idea, the message, the thought or impression that's getting transmitted, the effect in the recipient's mind (in this case it was a shitpost to troll conservatives on the one side and have a good chuckle among people who got it on the other). The rest is craft. Craft, on its own, can be fucking impressive but it's not art.

And, of course, yes, not everyone hitting "generate" is putting a urinal on a pedestal. Much of the AI stuff out there is devoid of artistic intent, much of it isn't even crafty, but that doesn't mean that something being AI generated cannot be art, or that it would need craftiness to become art.

In the case of his bicycle wheel thing he went through a gazillion wheels -- hitting generate a million times if you want -- until he found one that was neither beautiful, nor ugly, but one that was profoundly uninteresting, "just a wheel, nothing special". That was work, the actual work of an artist (judging the impression something makes), and with precise artistic intent -- to make a statement about how art should be about engaging the mind, be not about aesthetics.

The people producing profoundly uninteresting works with AI don't do that. Just goes on to show that the author is very much not dead.

bunnyfc ,
@bunnyfc@kbin.social avatar

Until one can produce work that makes an impression with some precision one has to have experience in the medium though - and different media are different regarding to what that means.

With illustration and representative art it starts with something 'reading' correctly, i.e. whether the intended representation even gets to the recipient. And then there are more layers on top of that getting ever more meta.

Someone who can put a urinal on a pedestal and cause an uproar in whichever direction has a lot of experience - but if a picture is just a picture or a urinal is just a urinal, it's not worth looking at much, except for its engineering. Good art doesn't have to be on that level though, entertainment can also be good art (but a lot of it isn't) - there, it's about resonance.

You're right that craftsmanship alone cannot produce good art, there is something else driving the desire to hone craftsmanship, which is maybe to better be able to express what was impressed on the artist through life. Something that resonates with the artist is made with the hope it also resonates with other people, art is a social endeavour.

But I also feel that to a large extent, honing the craft also hones the intuition (and some knowledge as far as it can be distilled) for what makes things resonant with others. I make myself into the diffusion model to resonate with what I'm making while making it, you feel each curve you put to paper or canvas, you feel the tension in a pose, the impact of a composition - the resulting art is what's there when that process is abandoned.

I feel like a vegan about the currently available models - once there is something made from public domain art only I'll experiment. But right now I'm sitting in front of them like a vegan in front of sausage: For others the result is food but for them, they just see the process turning individuals into sausage.

barsoap ,

But I also feel that to a large extent, honing the craft also hones the intuition (and some knowledge as far as it can be distilled) for what makes things resonant with others.

Oh, definitely. I'd also say that if you want to make art, starting out with AI isn't a good idea, do literally anything else until you have developed an artistic eye: If for no other reason that it is developed faster by trying to appease even an underdeveloped one than by using it. Just to make this a bit more concrete, if you can sculpt or paint a smile that doesn't look freaky which is a low bar aesthetically speaking but not trivial for a beginner sculptor or painter, then you can properly judge whether what AI is giving you is something resonant, or forgettable. The untrained eye putting "woman with big tiddies" in the prompt certainly isn't going to notice finer details of a smile, what with eyes being on the tits.

I feel like a vegan about the currently available models - once there is something made from public domain art only I’ll experiment. But right now I’m sitting in front of them like a vegan in front of sausage: For others the result is food but for them, they just see the process turning individuals into sausage.

I don't consider models learning from stuff, as in, the pixels can be accessed without a paywall or they've paid for that wall, as infringement. If it was then every artist who ever used reference should be in prison, and we shouldn't.

Note that this is actually quite a different situation in diffusion models than it is with LLMs which are notorious for returning their training data verbatim: All the NYT needed to do to get their articles back is to put in the first paragraph of the article. Getty, meanwhile, is arguing their court case in the abstract because they can't get models to reproduce their images, certainly not for lack of trying or resources. When working with the models it also quickly becomes apparent that they can abstract over concepts.

At the most it's the difference between organic and barn eggs. Yes, organic ones are nicer. No, barn eggs aren't terrible (depending on local regulations etc. yadayada). Vegans might disagree but, then, well, I'm flexi.

MB420GFY ,

i wonder if the people downvoting you even understand the reference

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

if someone creates a perfect color gradient fill in Photoshop nobody is going to be impressed but make it with colored pencils and people may regard it as stunning

Funnily enough, that was what Mark Rothko was doing with paint. Exploring color to get the perfect shade of something. Looking at color at its most basic. That's why those of us who understand what Rothko was going for often really love his paintings while most other people say, "I don't get it, it's just rectangles."

barsoap ,

Oh I do get it but it's still just rectangles. If the only people who like your stuff are other painters, not other artists in general but other painters, then I think it's fair to say that what you're doing is 99.99% craft and maybe 0.01% art.

That kind of stuff also exists in an AI context, btw, people doing things for the heck of getting it to work and showing off technical aspects. Like absolutely a milestone when it comes to video2video, absolutely at a stage where it's usable for artistic expression if you're willing to work within some limitations, though the video here is much more dicking around than art. You'll also find gazillions of AIified tiktok dances from the same crowd as tracking limbs isn't exactly trivial.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

But it isn't "just rectangles." That's the point. They were slowly and meticulously constructed by layering oil paint in a way that explores the idea of what colors and color contrasts mean.

He didn't just take a broad paintbrush and paint a rectangle.

He also suggested viewing his canvases up close, maybe a foot away, so you could see it the way he saw it.

barsoap ,

With less skill in painting but the same artistic intent I can take a sample book of unicolour fabric with different weaves from the local textile store and put it on a pedestal: Exploring the idea of what fabric texture and texture contrasts mean.

And I'm sure clothing designers all over the world will be ecstatic... or would be, if they didn't have store rooms full of sample books.

It is a valuable and thorough exploration of the craft is all I'm saying. He's a Paganini, not a Ravel.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

But why isn't such an exploration a form of art?

If someone does a complicated abstract painting but uses a ruler and a protractor to achieve it, is that art?

barsoap ,

Because I make a distinction between art and craft. You can produce extraordinarily impressive pieces of craft that have no artistic content at all, no intent nor capacity to convey a message or transform mind or anything that resembles it, you can produce extraordinary pieces of art with zero recourse to craft. Like putting a urinal on a pedestal, as I've mentioned quite often in this thread.

Speaking about protractors: Engineering drawings can actually be art. There's a difference between a drawing that's merely conveying technical information and one that is both technical and at the same time is arranged, presented, such that it does not have to be deciphered, it is capable of transforming a mind by merely being looked at, instead of having to be pondered. It's the difference between a court file and a thrilling detective story.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

So you're claiming any image that must be deciphered isn't art?

barsoap ,

Nah not like that. Art is something on top of the mundane and with technical drawings it happens to be that kind of stuff.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I would argue that Rothko's works are anything but mundane considering the effort that went into them.

barsoap ,

There's also tons of effort in merely technical drawings.

As said: Things can be absolutely impressive for their craft content alone. I'm not discounting that. But art is something on top of that. Art is something which works without craft. Which works with nothing more but a urinal out of a factory.

I'm not married to the word "mundane" in that comment btw it's just a suitable word to use for the baseline I contrast the "art on top" to. If you want to use it for "basic craft, fulfills its purpose" vs. "extraordinary craft, exceeds even the wildest dreams" then be my guest, I do the same I simply didn't happen to use it that way in that specific sentence.

Mastengwe ,

100% this. No one creating pictures using AI Is and artist. And no picture made by AI is art.

Drewelite ,

I just need to press a button and my DSLR will automatically upload the picture I took. Is photography art? Different people get different things from art. If you want to see something that took a human a hundred hours of consideration, that's fine. But I don't care what the artist was thinking most of the time. I care how it makes me feel. What inspiration it sparks in my mind. I've been moved and inspired by AI art. Admittedly I could also probably have been moved by inkblots. But people hang inkblot prints in their house because it does something for them. Art is subjective, meaning it's more about the subject viewing it than the artist.

Mastengwe ,

I’m sorry my opinion upsets you, but it’s not art. Period. You’re not changing my mind. If a robot isn’t an athlete for throwing a football, or a computer isn’t a musician for generating preprogrammed beats….

Punching info into a computer program made by other people…. Isn’t art.

I’m not arguing this with you.

Drewelite ,

You caused me no distress, I was just inspired by your comment to share my perspective.

If a machine isn't an athlete for throwing a football, there are no athletes. If a computer can't be a musician, there are no musicians. The line you're drawing where a computer is worthy of being called an artist, is whether or not it was created by evolution. But there's no technical differences between the two. Or at least there won't be soon.

I understand you're under a different opinion and I thank you for it. I have no need to change it.

Mastengwe ,

Thanks. Sorry for being aggressive. Just so used to being attacked for my opinion.

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