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GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

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Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#121

Post by giantrobot »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #66
jedberg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. The writing I create is art too. There is still creativity involved: I still have to come up with the prompt for the AI.

Edit: Retracting my original statement.

You're going to fall of that high horse of yours and break something. Most art for blogs before AI was shitty stock photos, maybe with a filter applied. It was not high art. It wasn't a major creative endeavor. It was a means to get Google with it's toxic ranking to bubble a blog post higher than the low effort copy/paste slop.

Google ranks a text-only page lower than one with a hero image. It ranks pages with a single image lower than one with multiple images. The stock art industry had long ago devalued actual art on the web selling vast collections of stock photos for a few dollars or giving away dreck for free.

AI tools have put no more actual artists out of work than Shutterstock or Unsplash. At least with an AI tool someone can make a hero image slightly more creative than "vaguely ethnic woman looking at computer" or a n out of focus picture of a dandelion.

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#122

Post by 8note »

aidenn0 wrote: post #73
ilaksh wrote: post #64

I would really like an objective explanation of why this attitude "that the whole point of art is the process of making it" is anything but pretentiousness in it's purest form. Surely the actual artifact itself has some value? And even if one supposes that a key part of the value is self-exploration (which I disagree with generally because that presupposes an excessive level of self-importance), then being able to it…

> I would really like an objective explanation of why this attitude "that the whole point of art is the process of making it" is anything but pretentiousness in it's purest form. It's not necessarily pretentiousness (though it's definitely pretentiousness adjacent), but a view from the point-of-view of an artist. I say it's adjacent to pretentiousness because I think implicit in the entire article is the assumption t…

i dont think you need to go so far as to say more important, just that it is a part.

ai art is purely consumption, or if there is a production part, its from the artists who were ripped off as part of training and reselling their work through the image generator

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#123

Post by skybrian »

asdff wrote: post #19
skybrian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you can pretty easily use more dishes with less effort? If you end up spending more time on other chores, that's up to you.

Having lived in apartments with and without dishwashers its not as much of a time savings as you might realize. the dishwasher needs a degree of maintenance. Dishes have to be loaded precariously in a way to effectively wash them from the sprayer jets. Some dishes have to be washed by hand still. Everything needs rinsing and scraping. Its a modern dishwasher so that means its too weak to dry dishes on dry cycle to sk…

What I was getting at is that dishwashers and hand washing scale up differently, but not everyone needs to wash lots of dishes.

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#124

Post by skybrian »

Philpax wrote: post #94
skybrian wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can they fill the screen with 20 variations nearly instantly? If so, I'd like to see that.

This [0] is 149 images per second, late ~2023. Not sure what the current SOTA is here on the quality/speed axes, but I'd imagine it's better. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/18buns9/sd...

But that’s just a demo. Are there any image generators that generate 20 images ata time by default?

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#125

Post by jebarker »

debugnik wrote: post #110
marssaxman wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the AI that makes the art, but the person who tells the AI what to do. A painter friend of mine has gotten into generative AI lately, and the sometimes-pretty, sometimes-intimidating pictures she comes up with sure look like an artistic expression to me. She has a vision of something she wants to see, and she uses tools to bring that vision into reality, just like she does with paint; the new tools just give…

> It's not the AI that makes the art, but the person who tells the AI what to do. Would you still call them an artist if they commissioned another human actually skilled instead of an AI model? Why can't people accept that their role in this new process simply isn't the one we've always called artist? We don't call computers to the people using a computer, that role is now the machine's. I'd rather label the model it…

> Would you still call them an artist if they commissioned another human actually skilled instead of an AI model?

Nope, I'd call them a patron

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#126

Post by jebarker »

jedberg wrote: post #88
emaro wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda understandable, but as a consumer, I already dislike that a lot. In the beginning, AI 'art' was novel and interesting in a way. But now I've already seen so much generic illustrations, and in 95% they don't add any value to a blog post. I'm even less likely to click on links with a generated thumbnail these days. It creates an expectation of SEO spam or low quality and I have to wonder if the author also used A…

As a creator, I dislike it too. I'd love it if the platforms would just show you my content without the pictures. But the pictures are what make people click, so I'm stuck. It's the same reason online recipes have life stories. Because Google rewards longer pages. So now you have to do that just to get seen, even if you don't want to.

> But the pictures are what make people click

I wonder if that's a conscious or sub-conscious decision on the clickers part? It's hard to imagine anyone is consciously motivated to click on an article because of an AI generated picture.

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#127

Post by inhumantsar »

voidhorse wrote: post #120
TeMPOraL wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't wrong, especially about motivations. The "current consumer focus" has had some weird results, too - particularly in the image/video generation space, it's the consumers , or rather the OSS community, that actually did 90% of the work of turning AI research output into product prototypes - which many a startup now just pick, polish and scale up. Not to dismiss that work, either, but that's mostly the old-sc…

Always nice to see Whitehead show up. That is true, and that makes a lot of sense for supplying the outputs for our vital needs , like shelter, food, etc. But I would argue that creative work is different. Creative work is typically more about the process , not the immediate output, and in fact, it is usually only during the process itself that we figure out what we really want to express in a creative work. Art: "pu…

> there's a reason all of our analog tools have stuck around for art making

As an early adopter of digital cameras and convert to film photography, I agree... to a point. Producing creative work can be entirely about the output and those outputs can be as Fine as any Fine Art, not "merely entertainment".

Take writers for example. As a business and as a creative pursuit, writers have (on the whole) enthusiastically adopted every technology that's come their way. In large part that's because it helped them stop thinking about certain critical operations. eg: dealing with ink and nibs and loose papers. And while I'd imagine most writers derive a lot of fulfillment from the process, none of that compares to the feeling they get when others read and enjoy their work. Do some writers still use pen and paper? Absolutely, but does that mean their art is better or more Fine or more authentic?

Those analog tools might still be around, but it's largely because there are people who still enjoy those mediums, not because their modern alternatives are inherently Less in some way. If they were then all the paintings in your local gallery would have been done in tempera.

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#128

Post by ilaksh »

dfltr wrote: post #81
ilaksh wrote: post #64

I would really like an objective explanation of why this attitude "that the whole point of art is the process of making it" is anything but pretentiousness in it's purest form. Surely the actual artifact itself has some value? And even if one supposes that a key part of the value is self-exploration (which I disagree with generally because that presupposes an excessive level of self-importance), then being able to it…

“So what," the Chelgrian asked, "is the point of me or anybody else writing a symphony, or anything else?" The avatar raised its brows in surprise. "Well, for one thing, you do it, it's you who gets the feeling of achievement." "Ignoring the subjective. What would be the point for those listening to it?" "They'd know it was one of their own species, not a Mind, who created it." "Ignoring that, too; suppose they weren…

That's a great quote and explanation of why the process of making art is important for those who participate in it. However, it does not claim that the _entire point of art_ is that process, which is what I am refuting.

I think it's important that artists keep doing actual "traditional" art and grow in the process if they have any motivation to do so. But I feel strongly that asserting that AI art or art that hasn't involved some arduous process, doesn't have any value, is nonsense. Because that means that enjoyment or communication from art is not just much less important than the development of the artist, but worthless. It's kind of a classist or elitist and self-aggrandizing view.

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#129

Post by ilaksh »

tommilburn wrote: post #82
ilaksh wrote: post #64

I would really like an objective explanation of why this attitude "that the whole point of art is the process of making it" is anything but pretentiousness in it's purest form. Surely the actual artifact itself has some value? And even if one supposes that a key part of the value is self-exploration (which I disagree with generally because that presupposes an excessive level of self-importance), then being able to it…

> I would really like an objective explanation of why this attitude "that the whole point of art is the process of making it" is anything but pretentiousness in it's purest form. i think that's a problem - i am no philosopher or art historian, but i truly can't think of "objective" truths of any kind when i think about art, the process of making art, or the process of engaging with art. it's nice to make art. i play…

Okay but can you parse my question a little more carefully? Because I said "the whole point".

Also you're talking about the context of the art and it's meaning. That does not depend on any actual person being involved or any long drawn out process of creating the art. In fact, if you really dig into the capabilities of AI tools today and think about it, they dramatically accelerate the ability for some artists to create lots of meaningful work that is very contextual. Or to make more carefully refined works that they have iterated on and carefully curated.

Re: GenAI Art Is the Least Imaginative Use of AI Imaginable

#130

Post by ilaksh »

parpfish wrote: post #104
tommilburn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would really like an objective explanation of why this attitude "that the whole point of art is the process of making it" is anything but pretentiousness in it's purest form. i think that's a problem - i am no philosopher or art historian, but i truly can't think of "objective" truths of any kind when i think about art, the process of making art, or the process of engaging with art. it's nice to make art. i play…

> i think a lot of value is the context of the art itself I agree. The enjoyment I get out of a good piece of art isn’t just the piece of art itself, it’s that experiencing the art is a way to kind of connect your mind with the human that made it. If part of the art resonates with me, it’s nice to know that there was another person that felt the same way. If the art is a technical marvel, so can think about the geniu…

Is the deeper connection to art just about the fact that there was another person who felt something, or is it about what the art is communicating/representing? I would argue that the real value is in what feeling or information is actually being communicated, not what person or process was on the other end.
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