Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k • Hacker News Board

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#51

Post by majormajor » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #24

timClicks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that people don't seem to understand that most open source licences don't require attribution. If you have released your code according to a licence, what right do you have to complain that people are using that code in accordance with that licence? In this case though, it looks like Obvious did set out to attribute the original GAN author and Christie's have omitted that.

> what right do you have to complain that people are using that code in accordance with that licence? It’s not legally required to credit the author of the original code, but it’s a jerk move not to do so, especially if the work is primarily not your own. All it does is discourage developers from releasing things open source, which is very bad in the long run.

> All it does is discourage developers from releasing things open source, which is very bad in the long run.

Is it, though? In terms of keeping a health job market, I'm somewhat skeptical that offering things license to allow even commercial usages for free is necessarily a long-term good for me.

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#52

Post by wavefunction » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #50

bobthepanda wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, isn't art used as a tax dodge these days? That and a giant influx of money from countries that don't historically buy a lot of art (e.g. China)

How exactly would buying art work as a tax dodge?

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114622...

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#53

Post by guelo » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #36

erwan wrote: post #32

I have sympathy for the author's frustration but they open-sourced their work under a very permissive license. It sounds comical that suddenly something becomes valuable because you hang it in a gold frame, make minor modifications to it and ascribe it some symbolism. But that is exactly how contemporary artworks are done. If you go to exhibits and auctions, it is not uncommon to see highly valued work that requires…

> I'm inclined to think that the general public underestimate contemporary art and the art world overestimate its superiority over the more conventional works. I really like your framing of this and agree wholeheartedly. I think it really comes from contemporary art’s focus on abstraction and meaning within context. The combination of focus on abstraction and meaning while requiring the viewer to understand the conte…

In that case accessibility would be enhanced by the artist writing down the meaning and context. But I take it that artists are loathe to do that because they fear that explaining it would make it lose it's mystique, kind of like how explaining a joke ruins it, so you basically end up with what amounts to elaborate inside jokes. OTOH, it probably helps drive up the price when the rich buyers feel like they're part of the secret in-group.

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#54

Post by newswriter99 » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #36

erwan wrote: post #32

I have sympathy for the author's frustration but they open-sourced their work under a very permissive license. It sounds comical that suddenly something becomes valuable because you hang it in a gold frame, make minor modifications to it and ascribe it some symbolism. But that is exactly how contemporary artworks are done. If you go to exhibits and auctions, it is not uncommon to see highly valued work that requires…

> I'm inclined to think that the general public underestimate contemporary art and the art world overestimate its superiority over the more conventional works. I really like your framing of this and agree wholeheartedly. I think it really comes from contemporary art’s focus on abstraction and meaning within context. The combination of focus on abstraction and meaning while requiring the viewer to understand the conte…

I disagree.

If you spent two minutes rolling some white paint on a white canvas because your "abstract message" was about the void of space, it's not profound, you're being an ass.

Conversely if you spent at least five hours stippling black spots on a white canvas in the image of some obscure shape, because you had a concept in your head, and it took a considerable amount of effort, THAT is a profound piece of work.

The art world isn't full of bohemians with time and knowledge who've developed understanding of abstractness. It's full of pretentious, bored, rich people. Huge difference.

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#55

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:25 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#56

Post by muktaakash » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

Blu bla blah blan blac blanc I!

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#57

Post by Luc » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

talltimtom wrote: post #42

minimaxir wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what right do you have to complain that people are using that code in accordance with that licence? It’s not legally required to credit the author of the original code, but it’s a jerk move not to do so, especially if the work is primarily not your own. All it does is discourage developers from releasing things open source, which is very bad in the long run.

> but it’s a jerk move... What on earth are you on about!? The author has every possible opportunity to set out whatever he wants in the license. If he wants anyone who uses it to name their firstborn after him he can put that in there. If he doesn’t then there is absolutely no issue or nothing jerk-like of anyone who follows to the letter he license the author decided to use. It’s up to the author to specify what he…

Jeez,we're going to berate people who get ripped off because they're 19 year old art students that didn't consult a lawyer before releasing their art project?

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#58

Post by DrNuke » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

That’s why hand-made artifacts will soon be back in force through a new generation of more savvy art dealers, this hopefully being good for a startup or good enough for lifestyle businesses in the coming decade.

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#59

Post by crucialfelix » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #53

_2d30 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm inclined to think that the general public underestimate contemporary art and the art world overestimate its superiority over the more conventional works. I really like your framing of this and agree wholeheartedly. I think it really comes from contemporary art’s focus on abstraction and meaning within context. The combination of focus on abstraction and meaning while requiring the viewer to understand the conte…

In that case accessibility would be enhanced by the artist writing down the meaning and context. But I take it that artists are loathe to do that because they fear that explaining it would make it lose it's mystique, kind of like how explaining a joke ruins it, so you basically end up with what amounts to elaborate inside jokes. OTOH, it probably helps drive up the price when the rich buyers feel like they're part of…

Artists almost always write an extensive explanation of what their work means.

It's got to the point of satire:

https://artybollocks.com/generator.html

Re: Christie’s sells its first AI portrait for $432k

#60

Post by dmhn » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

Raphmedia wrote: post #35

king_magic wrote: post #18

Color me extremely unimpressed. I just can't believe someone would pay that much for something... so visually mediocre. When you look at how GANs work, they are incredible for what they are (especially StackGAN / GANs conditioned on some input)... but I just don't think there's any real creativity - or for that matter, intelligence - in GANs yet.

It's one of the first work of art by an AI. Think of how much this fact alone will increase the price of the painting in 200 years.

There is a difference between price and value: an art collector may buy a ‘work of art’ for a ridiculous price, hoping that someone else will buy it for an even more ridiculous price. However, the speculations of art collectors do not determine the actual value of the ‘work of art.’ And it seems that very few people outside of the art collecting business actually value AI generated artwork (that’s probably why it was expected to sell for only 10k).