About the Digital Art • Hacker News Board

Re: About the Digital Art

#11

Post by gilleain » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:02 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #8

gilleain wrote: post #2

Of course, now the question the boy in the article asked - "where does the Tiger come from?" - could be answered with "the prompt". The arguments today are whether a prompt like "draw a Tiger" are the same somehow to someone using a pencil or digital stylus or whatever to draw a tiger. "But I do know that there’s no program that will draw one from scratch, any size or pose or color or style, like I want it, without a…

To be fair, his “like I want it” can be a serious qualification that AI doesn’t yet meet in general. It’s still today pretty hard to control image generation specifics, and even harder to control videos. The times I’ve tried, I found the process completely frustrating. AI generated pictures are the most amazing when you have very low expectations, but when you need super controlled edits, it’s really not yet very goo…

Interesting point - usually people approach the question "who draws the tiger" from the other end. As in, the assumption is (not unreasonably!) the genAI is doing all the work and the AI 'artist' is doing nothing.

Of course, the more control you have - as you say - over the process, the more you are the artist.

I have to say, I'm not that interested in whether the output 'really' is art or not. I'm sympathetic to non-AI artists and I personally prefer art made by humans. However ... it is not impossible to make something that looks good or communicates an interesting idea with AI, but not trivially.

Re: About the Digital Art

#12

Post by dahart » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC

technojamin wrote: post #9

dahart wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, his “like I want it” can be a serious qualification that AI doesn’t yet meet in general. It’s still today pretty hard to control image generation specifics, and even harder to control videos. The times I’ve tried, I found the process completely frustrating. AI generated pictures are the most amazing when you have very low expectations, but when you need super controlled edits, it’s really not yet very goo…

You'll never be able to draw the tiger how you want it unless you draw the tiger. Prompting is not drawing, it's commissioning from another creator.

I might be able in the future to get the tiger I want, without drawing it myself. There are some famous painters who create works solely in their name but have apprentice artists do the actual painting. Not entirely unlike creative directors in general, I suppose.

Re: About the Digital Art

#13

Post by dahart » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

jdw64 wrote: post #10

dahart wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where does AI fit in? […] what am I, then? One of many. Personally I’ve never seen this as a particularly confusing or mysterious question, as long as you don’t anthropomorphize the computer. The computer isn’t writing your apps out of thin air, people made all the training data, and people wrote the tools that can turn prompts into code & images. You are just choosing to use the work of other people, and tools mad…

Your reply has some comforting points, but there are also a few difficult ones. Because the premise of all this is basically that there's originality based on ideas, right? But realistically, the apps I deliver aren't original. They're more like, 'There's this app, could you migrate this feature for us?' or 'Could you implement X site's functionality for us too?' In that sense, the tool creators in the original post…

> the premise of all this is basically that there’s originality based on ideas, right?

That’s part of it. But it depends. I’m not sure exactly which premise we’re talking about, since digital painting and writing apps are fairly different activities. It also depends on whether we’re making legal distinctions or just judging originality for the sake of narrative or discussion. Either way, I personally think that original ideas are only part of the equation, and that original execution matters for the purposes of art as well as for the purposes of software, and this goes if we’re talking about copyrights as well.

I’ve done digital painting, and written apps for others, as well as written tools and libraries made for digital artists. As a digital artist, I’ve had people wonder out loud in front of me whether I had any skill as an artists since “the computer did all the work”. As an app developer I give the person commissioning the work and giving the specifications the credit for the design, even though I might have to make many unspecified micro-decisions. Likewise, I take credit for the design of apps I write for myself. As a contractor, the client is the “artist” for the purposes of this conversation. I’m responsible for execution of their vision, and I can hand some of that off to AI in which case I’m giving away or sharing some credit for the execution. As the author of tools or libraries for artists, my credit stops with the tools or libraries, and artists that use those tools get all credit for both the ideas and the execution of their works.

Anyway, I mostly agree with you in the sense that apps I write are only as original as the original pieces I put in them. There is room for creativity (depending on the flexibility of the client/employer), maybe for novel modes of UX, maybe for thoughtful design and beautiful interfaces (both code and graphics). It’s also possible to make good apps without adding a lot of originality too, and there’s nothing wrong with that - it can be more efficient and better for the client/employer to not push your own ideas. That’s more engineering & business than art/authorship/originality, but still a valid lens for evaluating your identity and responsibilities.

Re: About the Digital Art

#14

Post by dahart » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 12:17 AM UTC

gilleain wrote: post #11

dahart wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, his “like I want it” can be a serious qualification that AI doesn’t yet meet in general. It’s still today pretty hard to control image generation specifics, and even harder to control videos. The times I’ve tried, I found the process completely frustrating. AI generated pictures are the most amazing when you have very low expectations, but when you need super controlled edits, it’s really not yet very goo…

Interesting point - usually people approach the question "who draws the tiger" from the other end. As in, the assumption is (not unreasonably!) the genAI is doing all the work and the AI 'artist' is doing nothing. Of course, the more control you have - as you say - over the process, the more you are the artist. I have to say, I'm not that interested in whether the output 'really' is art or not. I'm sympathetic to non…

> the assumption is (not unreasonably!) the genAI is doing all the work

Yeah. I agree it’s reasonable, but there’s a fun twist I experienced myself. I used to do a type of generative digital art… artificial evolution… long before anything like Dall-E. I wrote the procedural tools, so I was creating the imaging software and doing all the work. Some people still assumed the computer was doing all the work and jumped to the conclusion that it was art of lower value than other kinds. There is another angle about art that can be mechanically and exactly reproduced having lower value, and I think that is also valid and factors into how people see digital art.

Personally, I also prefer art made by humans. AI can easily make beautiful and interesting images, but it has little meaning and seems far less interesting. Art is often as much about the narrative or story of the art and/or the artist, about why they’re doing what they do, as it is about the artifacts. I used to think it was somewhat ironic that the art-consuming public behaved this way, but now I realize I very much do the same and value human motivation and original ideas & execution and unique unreproducable art as much as anyone else.

Re: About the Digital Art

#15

Post by jdw64 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 12:52 AM UTC

dahart wrote: post #13

jdw64 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reply has some comforting points, but there are also a few difficult ones. Because the premise of all this is basically that there's originality based on ideas, right? But realistically, the apps I deliver aren't original. They're more like, 'There's this app, could you migrate this feature for us?' or 'Could you implement X site's functionality for us too?' In that sense, the tool creators in the original post…

> the premise of all this is basically that there’s originality based on ideas, right? That’s part of it. But it depends. I’m not sure exactly which premise we’re talking about, since digital painting and writing apps are fairly different activities. It also depends on whether we’re making legal distinctions or just judging originality for the sake of narrative or discussion. Either way, I personally think that origi…

Thank you for your comforting reply. I appreciate you taking the time, and I think I feel a little less depressed now.