Suno Studio, a Generative AI DAW

Suno isn't a tool. Tools are characterized by precision and a steep learning curve, and "AI" is nothing like.

That’s hilarious.

I’m not saying it’s not ‘art’ whatever that might mean, I am saying this idea that people won’t accept and enjoy an AI version is a fantasy.

When airbrushing became a thing, “real” artists were aghast. They screeched about how it was too “technical,” and removed the “creativity” from the process. Amateurs would be churning out garbage, dogs and cats would be living together, etc.

In fact, airbrushes sucked (I did quite a bit of it, myself), but they ushered in a new way of visualizing creative thinking. Artists like Roger Dean used them to great effect.

So people wanted what airbrushes gave you, but the tool was so limited, that it frustrated, more than enabled. Some real suckass “artists” definitely churned out a bunch of dross.

Airbrushing became a fairly “mercenary” medium; used primarily by commercial artists. That said, commercial artists have always used the same medium as fine artists. This was a medium that actually started as a commercial one.

Airbrushing is really frustrating and difficult. I feel that, given time, the tools could have evolved, but they were never given the chance.

When CG arrived, it basically knocked airbrushes into a cocked hat. It allowed pretty much the same visual effect, and was just as awkward, but not a whole lot more difficult. It also had serious commercial appeal. People could make money, because it allowed easy rendering, copying, and storage. There was no longer an “original,” but that really only bothered fine artists.

This medium was allowed to mature, and developed UI and refined techniques.

The exact same thing happened with electric guitars, digital recording and engineering, synthesizers, and digital photography. Every one of these tools, were decried as “the devil’s right hand,” but became fundamental, once true creatives mastered them, and the tools matured.

“AI” (and we all know that it’s not really “intelligence,” but that’s what everyone calls it, so I will, too. No one likes a pedant) is still in the “larval” stage. The people using it, are still pretty ham-handed and noncreative. That’s going to change.

If you look at Roger Dean’s work, it’s pretty “haphazard.” He mixes mediums, sometimes using their antipathy to each other to produce effects (like mixing water and oil). He cuts out photos, and glues them onto airbrushed backgrounds, etc. He is very much a “modern” creative. Kai Krause is another example. Jimi Hendrix made electric guitars into magical instruments. Ray Kurzweil advanced electronic keyboards, but people like Klaus Schultze, made them into musical instruments. These are folks that are masters of the new tools.

I guarantee that these types of creatives will learn to master the new tools, and will collaborate with engineers, to advance them. I developed digital imaging software, and worked with many talented photographers and retouchers, to refine tools. I know the process.

Of course, commercial applications will have outsized influence, but that’s always the case. Most of the masters were sponsored by patrons, and didn’t have the luxury to “play.” They needed to keep food on the table. That doesn’t make their work any less wonderful.

We’re just at the start of a new revolution. This will reach into almost every creative discipline. New techniques and new tribal knowledge will need to be developed. New artists will become specialists.

Personally, I’m looking forward to what happens, once true creatives start to master the new medium.

This is a very old argument within artistic communities.

In cinema, authorship has resoundingly been awarded to the director. A lot of film directors go deep in many creative silos, but at its core the process is commissioning a lot of artists to do art at the same time. You dont have to be able to do those things. Famously some anime directors have just been hired off the street.

In comics things went the other way. Editors have been trying to extract credit for creative work for a long time. A lot of them have significant input in the creative process, but have no contractual basis for demanding credit for that input. It frustrates them. They can also just commission work, or they can have various levels of input in to the creative process, up to and including defining characters entirely.

Really then, in your example, theres clearly a point where you have had enough of a creative input in the creation to be part of the artistic endeavor. One judge in china ruled in favour of the artist after they proved that they had completed 20 odd revisions of the artwork, before watermarking it.

That is of course, assuming we only follow your strict, reductionist argument. Even for AI art, most generators these days take more than text input. You can mask areas, provide hand drawn precursor art and a lot of other things. And that also assumes no post processing.

Not all AI generated items will be art. But what I find offensive, is the judgement that as a class nothing touched by AI could be considered art. Mostly because I lived through "Digital Art is not Art" and "Computer Games are not Art" proponents of both got overtaken by history and rightly shamed.