> I am referring to those who stay up late, have starved for their art. Have tried, sometimes successfully, to invent beauty within themselves and through a craft. There is bad art. There is no “art”. Except when made by a computer. The crucial difference is a subtle one, but a very large one. This is to confuse or, at the very least, expose a faulty sense of priority you’ve given the term “art”.
What about the fact that AI can't create art without a human input? What about the fact that humans created AI as tool that creates art? How is AI different than a paintbrush / camera / CGI software to make movies?
Well, if you really HAD to answer that question yourself, as a thought experiment, say, do you think you could approximate a response? Can you come up with any ways that A.I. is different than these other items? Are you suggesting that there is no good answer?
This is not a trick or anything, to be clear. But one thing in considering an answer is crucial:
In terms of A.I art ( I will use that term for now), who is the artist? Is it the inventors, who made the technology, is it the A.I. machine itself (the app) or is it the human who is entering the prompts? In your viewing of A.I. art, is this even a real or important question?
I think an answer to that is important to consider before an answer to your original question...
> What about the fact that AI can't create art without a human input?
We already have a word for someone who tells an artist or image generator what they'd like a picture of. We call that person a "patron"
The patron is not the artist. In the vein of Edison's "!% inspiration and 99% perspiration" they barely register. Many authors will tell you that ideas are not what they are short of.
> What about the fact that humans created AI as tool that creates art? How is AI different than a paintbrush / camera / CGI software to make movies?
Having used all of the above, I'll remind you that art is about choice.
A person picking and choosing between outputs may _possibly_ be as much of an artist as a home designer choosing between wallpapers to put on a wall. They're taking a fabricated and existing image and choosing how it is to be applied and displayed and used.
But every tool above requires time and multiple layers of choices. Which brush, which media, the actual physical act of using said brush, how to mix colors or fade a pencil shading. Structuring the points and vertices while sculpting a model. Choice after choice after choice after choice both physical and near-instinctive as well as overtly conscious, as well as refinement, reappraisal.
Even a camera - we recognize the difference between a selfie and a shot specifically chosen for its artistic ambience and framed view and lighting and what is portrayed within that framing. At the higher end when one disables many of the auto-filters, we have selection of shutter and exposure speeds. One has to physically go to a place and recognize the potential image and aesthetic beauty of it. Many of these images are further refined on development, digital or otherwise.
Aanya. I resisted entering this thread until I saw your words and committed to this time to write on behalf of all the thoughtful and intelligent responses.
If you don’t know the answer to your own question, please save your ignorance for elsewhere.
Taking a break from my studio here in Paris… not Texas… AI, can never be Art even if a chip is installed in a fine acute brain of a life time fine artist….
I went Chomsky’s office 20 years ago at MIT to create a portrait of him (in total agreement with his assessment)… that was a choice….. language, feelings, failures, tearing down, rebuilding, observations, a life time of interacting with other humans in 8 cultures, as fine art is a complicated in depth language seemingly unknown to you.
Ok, back to work on my Freedom of Speech (including yours) sculpture in honor of massacred cartoonists for Charlie Hebdo. After seeking help during my Irish coffee break, contacting companies in French to come get rid of the bed bugs coming out of the old wooden floors while on my knees drawing my idea of the theme “The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword” on butcher paper while they rallied(I’m sure I heard a bugle call) to feast on my bloodline last night I’ll return now across the Butte-aux-Cailles to wait on the professional eradicators.
Sacrifices. Their lives.
fyi…. The bug patrol is on their way!
Gosh how I wish these critters had been AI generated, you know, like a tool.
I didn't make a complex observation and you seem to have responded to something I never said or claimed. I can't make out a single thread of cogent thought. That was such a hodgepodge of random thoughts I actually had to run this through an AI detection to see if I was being trolled.
You started with a logical fallacy, then let me know you aren't in Texas... which I hadn't even considered you'd be there...
The you name drop Noam as if that portrait had anything to do with fine art...
Then Freedom of speeach, Charlie Hebdo and the fact that you can't keep your room clean enough to avoid bedbugs (gross!)
In response to Jack Edward comment you screen shot, I replied this:
"You know who has deep emotional availability and wonder? Down Syndrome kids like my son."
And the screenshot of Michael's comment is spot on.
AI is a tool, like a brush or a canvas, or an art school. It pulls together input and recommends output.
What makes the output art? The Human input and the human interpretation
Vir Heroicus Sublimis is art...sure... just boring. All the fawning over it is through the name. Hell, if you hadn't put the name up no one would know what it is. It's nothing without an identification. Yet I see a lot of AI art and I don't have to be told it's not a computer rendering error where the image didn't completely come through.
Let me state this again. YOU HAVE TO TELL ME IT'S ART!! No one has to be told the AI generated output is artistic.
And yes, I've seen the painting in person and, from a distance, I had no idea whether I was looking at a half-painted wall under construction until I got closer. The funnies part was my Down Syndrome Kid had a confused look on her face for this piece. Even with her deeper well of wonder it still didn't resonate and the words "Vir Heroicus Sublimis" is kind of lost on her.
Can you explain why "having to be told/not told" is a litmus test? Because it has the potential to blend in? And so what if it does? What does it matter what you are told? Is it the work of art's fault that you didn't know? I don't see the true value of that, honestly.
Also, I don't truly see much fawning over the painting, truly. As I mentioned in the article, it took me to call out the name of the artist, and it was @lisakuzniak that referred to it by name. Mostly, comments were very negative toward the painting. What fawning are you referring to? Because it is in a museum? Is that what you mean?
Paintings like this are often chosen because they lack context, and can be stand ins for art, in general. Those that have the instinct to mock it are already primed.
My thoughts are that the comments were negative to the painting because it didn't come with an identification of what you were told to think about it. That's what makes my point stand strong. To appreciate that art, you have to be told it's art (which the meme did) and then you have to be told what the art wants you to think about it "Vir Heroicus Sublimis"
When left with only the identification of Art.... most people don't care for it. It's basic, it's bland, it looks like your image didn't fully load on your computer.
Excuse me- I am sorry. I am a little confused, truly.
The painting did NOT come with an identification of what you were told to think about it? I have to protest! It DOES come with an identification of what you are told to think about- The hero of the meme, if you will, says "It's just red", This is a signal, a commentary of a kind, suggesting that you, too, should just think of it as red. The meme absolutely gives an identification and a directive and certainly tells the viewer what you are supposed to think about it. I do not necessarily believe that titles are in and of themselves narratives, although they can be. Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" for instance is not exactly a philosophical statement in itself.
I disagree, also, that you need to know the paintings title to muster some appreciation for it, in general for works of art. I don't think they go hand in hand, is what I am saying here. If you disliked the art before, there is no promise you will like it after knowing the title. You can like the art and not know the title. You can like the art and know the title. You can dislike the title and like the art....etc, etc.
I am not sure how to interpret the last phrasing in the coment. Are you saying that highly conceptual art, that does not strive for classic beauty, visual pleasure, whose meaning is only derived from its title, is bland and not cared for by most people? I would agree with that. I would even include myself in that crowd, more often than not. I can't imagine instantly liking a painting I previously disliked, because of suddenly learning the title. It is possible, though, I imagine.
But, ah, I have to say, the phrase "It looks like your image didn't fully load on your computer" is tedious. I tried to say in the article, and as most people know, art is best experienced in person. So, in the museum setting, in real life, I don't think anyone would think it was a faulty JPEG. Below is that excerpt:
We may place an equal value on the two, superficially, because both authentic painting and A.I imagery are reduced to equals, at the very least, through the mechanism of the computer screen. You can see both images, but cannot feel them, cannot stand in their presence. For A.I. created imagery, this means little to nothing. For painting, it is everything.
I think the appeal to "childhood" -- "my child could do this" -- is very interesting, because when you hold up authentic human artwork and AI shlock and ask these folks which an adult with a real sense of taste would prefer, the answer is fairly shocking.
A few things here that I think are important:
"All the fawning over it..." No one is 'fawning' over it, they are merely giving proper context as to why it hangs in a museum. I think this propensity of AI-defenders to melodramatically over-state in this way is telling. Maybe... something a child would do?
"AI is a tool, like a brush or a canvas, or an art school." Eh, you compared AI to an implement, and then a medium, and then an institution and then imply that these are all basically just the same thing, so we should regard them as having equal value. I don't think we should.
"YOU HAVE TO TELL ME IT'S ART!!" This is -- and I don't mean to be personal here -- a YOU issue. Many people have no problem accepting this. Looking at something like a red canvas, or a Rothko or something, and going "what do we think of this art" is the kind of art lesson you get... you know, in childhood. Middle school art class provocations.
"No one has to be told the AI generated output is artistic." Sure you do. I'm a marketing professional who includes minor graphic design work as my job. Some stuff out there is art, but the stuff I make isn't really ART, it's advertising shlock. AI makes visually stimulating shlock as well. Fella, it's hack work!
"The funnies part was my Down Syndrome Kid..." I do not know why you keep bringing up your "down syndome kid" to illustrate your points. Is it because we believe that they are sighted in some particular way? That what they enjoy or understand should be taken less seriously? I'm not sure what saying the quiet-part-loud here would be, but I wish you'd just say it.
"with a real sense of taste" Who is this? How do you define this? Because right now it sounds like "Someone who thinks like me"
Well, if your craft is hack work, I can now understand why you have this opinion. Nothing I create is hack work. My art is in everything I do and I'm proud of it. That's probably the mirror you are looking into right now. You wallow with the hacks and hate it and you can't imagine others would reject that and then have a different opinion of art.
But I see two sides of the hack. The modern art community is as much of a hack as your advertising schlock. You haven't broken free, you've just shifted hacks.
>> "with a real sense of taste" Who is this? How do you define this? Because right now it sounds like "Someone who thinks like me"
Nope, actually, I think mature sense of taste, like any mature facet of personality, has characteristic of maturity WHILE being totally individual. I defined this a little in another comment, so I guess I'll just copy-paste what I said there: Someome with "taste" is someone who has worked hard to take culture, history, and craft into account, developed their own sense of discernment, has developed their personal sense of style through struggling. In other words: it's the effect of aesthetic measure when developed from much experience. It is the thing that happens when experimentation meets the alchemy of an individual personality. It's like style in that way. It's the way you evaluate things after you've learned to GRAPPLE with them.
EDIT: I might add, this absurd thing of "everything I do is art" not only sounds pretentious, it's just remarkably untrue. I'm sorry, but no one is going to take seriously the idea that "everything" is "art" because it just destroys the category. But like your descriptions of "tools," I'm starting to see a theme. It's starting to look like: Don't call anything more valuable than anything else -- only I can do that.
lol, it's really not. I make some things that are art, and some things that are not considered art, but are nonetheless aesthetic products (often art is something that insists on its failure to productize).
To then go "Well only a HACK would admit to creating HACK WORK" is just histrionic.
A…. I wrote you a pleasant note on Art and Adventure. Lost it. In brief.
Not my room. An atelier for Musicians trying to do a good deed. Read up on bed bug infestation in Paris. I just got lucky.
Wondering how Olympians will fair.
Chomsky. His name was mentioned by Powell (I liked his mechanical image maker point) in your thread. Reread. One of many heroic humans like many others I have been fortunate to break bread with and discuss Art among many topics before these impersonal lines.
More remarkable humans to come I hope. You cannot have them redacted out of a narrative. Absurd.
Sounds like you have had adventures. Get up, get out, over and over, take risks, bump into a Bird Eating Goliath Spider’s web
and do the Spider Dance while showing your daughter how to get untangled from the sticky midnight mess suppressing irrational fear. I created a drawing from that madness in the Costa Rican jungle.
Portraits: Van Gogh, Matisse, Claudel, Gauguin, Basquiat and endless others thru millenniums with their portraits and self portraits would certainly disagree with you, as Noam would. Playing Devil’s Advocate is unnecessary.
I have to get back to my drawings for my heroic sculpture honoring massacred artists, the ultimate sacrifice, which was written about in this thread which is why it was mentioned: Human’s Sacrifices to create vs AI’s lack of in creating Art.
A,live well.
Humor is a needed survival tool.
Not sure AI has that covered yet.
All in a day of an artist on the road. Signing out of this.
em
Paris not Texas: I lost count of saying France, not Texas to Alabamians. Sigh.
Again, word vomit. There is literally no rhyme or reason or point to this. This is like the intellectual masturbation I was referring to earlier that manifests in 'fine art.' It's like reading a transcript from Trump. It's nonsense.
Someone who has worked hard to take culture, history, and craft into account, developed their own sense of discernment, has developed their personal sense of style through struggling. In other words: it's the effect of aesthetic measure when developed from much experience. It is the thing that happens when experimentation meets the alchemy of an individual personality. It's like style in that way.
This idea that there's no such thing as "taste" or "style," or that the very concepts are elitist is fine, it's just deeply immature and not well considered, not to mention just plainly mercenary and anti-intellectual. It's just kind of an affront to human striving -- a literally anti-expertise opinion.
Like, my guy, you just sound like someone who thinks that if one person has read a book, and the other person reads the summary on the back, that only an effete, self-rightous elite would eeevvvvvveerrr dare INSIST that the one who actually read it maybe knows something more about it.
I basically agree with you, and hope you won't include me among the Philistines if I say that to me the Barnett painting is not real art either--because he's merely painting a concept, as much abstract art does, reducing himself to a mechanical image-maker, ironically rather like a computer. However, we can confidently say that AI is not Artificial Intelligence at all--the machine doesn't have an iota of intelligence, and is just a collection of data and algorithms--and any 'art' it can create is necessarily imitative and repetitive. In fact as Noam Chomsky said--I don't like the man, but he's right about this--AI is nothing but Artificial Plagiarism. The intention of its makers is milk the public, and also to indoctrinate them, which is already happening. Of course humans make bad art, as you say. Even great artists make bad art sometimes. But we can also make sublime art. AI will never do that.
AI leaves nothing for true serendipity, true collaboration, true effort. One's best efforts in the past, driven by alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, sweat, effort, late nights and early mornings, careful methodical research, and a burning desire to be entertaining. AI cannot replicate that, especially when you leave the conclusion to the end. The anglo-saxon style , with a proposition/conclusion at the beginning, could be easily emulated, but the continental style, weaving the narrative into whole cloth at the end, is something AI can never do. Of late, one is inclined to value even bad human art as of higher value than even the best electro-stim dross, for at least someOne has captured the shadow of their imagination, however poorly. We all know intuitively when something has been produced without soul and spirit.
The defense of humanity is good. I agree with it. The distinction between “art” and “image” is good. I concur with that, too.
You make the correct intuition that AI finds its foothold in the reaction to PoMo anti-art (not all PoMo art is anti-art, but a lot of it is), but you spin it as though that’s the rubes’ fault for Not Getting It.
That dog won’t hunt. It’s been repeated *ad nauseam*; it doesn’t score. The Art World has spent decades proclaiming that Everything is Art if You Say It Is. Well, the chickens are home now, and they’re going to the place set aside for them.
One problem is that people think, incessantly, that there is something "to get". As for Raphael evolving, or devolving, if you wish, into an ugly Picasso, that could very well be the case, I can't know. But I am not ever making an aesthetic defense, not at the moment at least. I don't happen to find Picasso's oeuvre to be ugly, but it matters none, in the context of this piece, if other people do, or even if I do, for that matter.
I find much of art to be destroyed by verbiage and the elitism of the art world, the art school, the art student who makes art that feels like homework. On that note, I dropped out of high school, opted out of college, never attended art school, etc. I dislike intensely academia and the general attitudes of art grads.
It is, in many cases, pretentious. And pretentiousness breeds an oppositional snobbery as well. The "rubes" you speak of may also have their nose up in the air, too, in their own ways. However, I don't believe I spin it as their fault. It IS largely the fault of the language that artists have adopted- a phenomenon I lay at the feet of academia and the art school factory.
Another quick thought-
We must, at the very least, consider the possibility that Picasso, a man who left one of the largest caches of art, painted all his life, may know more than you, I, and possibly most people about his paintings and paintings in general. If that is not a possibility even, that too, is snobbery of a kind.
AI cannot create art. But AI is art in a sense, or something art-adjacent anyway, a creative product of scientists and engineers. Their work does indeed partake of the human spirit in a way that is similar to the work of painters or writers or dancers. So AI is interesting the same way a watch is interesting or a television set might be interesting. It´s the product not the producer.
I enjoyed your take on people-created art vs AI. Quite a bit of it resonated with me as I am currently in the weeds of a mixed media piece and trying to problem solve and experiment and create a tangible thing (that I hope turns out well.). Thank you for this wonderful and thought provoking essay.
I’m one of those philistines who left a drive-by comment. Much like a meme, commenting captures an impression while sacrificing complexity.
I don’t see much to disagree with in your piece. Real art is a vehicle for the artist to express something ineffable that causes an emotional response in the audience experiencing it. I respect any artist that is able to convey wonder, joy, sadness, perplexity, or any authentic emotion through their work. AI will probably never be able to achieve this at the level of a human being who takes their art seriously and executes it with passion.
I don’t have any formal training in visual arts, but know a lot more about music. I imagine the process is similar though; a good musician combines technical skill and ambition with a sense of playfulness, passion, or some other elevated emotional state.
I guess my original point was that real artists have little to fear from AI. Yes, it will impact the “artists” churning out mass-produced dreck, but I’m hard pressed to think of any other categories of employment that society has decided must be protected from technological or market forces, and would encourage every human being on earth to create art for its own sake. I’d also point out that plenty of modern artists rely on lazy or trite provocation. I don’t fault people for being ambitious and flying too close to the sun in their art, but there’s a fine line between clever and stupid, and plenty of examples of artists fall on the wrong side of it in pursuit of fame or notoriety.
Thank you for the detailed and balanced response. My first thought is that you've read a bit too deep into the meme because it's an observation. There were many of the comments such as Jack Edwards, that proved my observation and, as Beowulf Obsidian commented before me...it's complicated.
You suggest I have apathy toward art. This is not only untrue but unfounded. I am an artist. I'm a writer and I work all forms of art into everything I do. I go so far as to argue that art isn't a part of STEAM but underpins STEM as its very foundation.
I've also never made the argument that AI makes art. AI is like Canvas or Paint. Can those two make art? AI will never output anything without human input.
Even more so, AI was created by Humans. As one person commented on my original meme, "I see the bottom image and I think computer scientists working on perfecting their craft." In its own irony, AI itself is the output of artistic capability (again, refer back to my writing on The Art of STEM)
Are there hacks who will use AI to generate crap? Sure... But there's certainly a non-zero probability that you also just described modern art to most people. I'm not on the side of the hacks in AI or modern art. Modern art just comes with the presumptuous self-assurance that if no one else gets it, it must be 'real art' that requires a deeper well of emotional availability.
I'm going to pull back here a little bit about whether AI can be creative. I also wrote in detail on that topic with these two essays:
In general, the people I talk to on this topic aren't as bothered by art like Vir Heroicus Sublimis but by the person memed on the right. We don't have apathy, we just see people who don't understand themselves or humans in general and are wrapped up in a child-like ignorance in an adult body and lashing out with self-righteous indignation.
We don't lack awe or wonder, but we do wonder how much Vir Heroicus Sublimis has depth because someone named it and told us what to think. That's another layer here that bothers me about the memed character on the right. They are not only typically ignorant about themselves but have been told, through titles and placements in a museum, that this is art and how to interpret it.
I have an essay I've drafted which will come out on July 4 which addresses your Artificial claim. I write:
"Artificial Intelligence is an unfortunate term in many ways. On the one hand, it doesn’t allow for the acceptance that it’s anything but artificial, fake, or manufactured. The AI over-hype these past couple of years doesn’t help this perception.
On the other hand, it triggers many people to consider it as opposing or in competition with natural intelligence, i.e. human intelligence. Especially in the art and literary world, there’s a very vocal bias, often resulting in shaming, that any use of AI is somehow an assault or an insult to the artistic endeavor."
I go on to suggest that a proper term for AI is "Augmented Intelligence." There's nothing artificial about it if you view it like a tool. It's as real as paint and canvas. The art is the human input, analysis, and output as David Knickerbocker stated in your screenshot.
In closing, the main thing to consider here is that this is one element of a long line of these arguments. Orators had the same arguments against writers. Scribes had the same arguments against printing presses. Painters had the same arguments against photography and, hell, photographers had the same argument against phone photos (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-45011397)
The argument isn't new and the lack of understanding about what underpins the arguments isn't new. It's a thread I pull in my first novel which creates the divisions between humans that the plot exploits to create catastrophe.
This is a fantastic response. I've read most of those essays as you've published them and it's impressive how they weave together on this topic. Now I'm going to have to read them again with this perspective!
I agree, it's not apathy, it's the analysis of credulity and right now, I think there's incredulity which they call apathy.
Well, I'm sure you'd have higher credibility if you spent 4 years studying art history instead of a STEM degree. Basically STEM means you're Philistine for art and there can be no cross-over at all!
But then again, after having spent 4 years studying art history you certainly have to make it sound like it was valuable 😂
You'll probably enjoy this essay about the Art of STEM:
All I do is discovery and creation. Anyone who wants to come at me with a dogmatic and narrow view of art will get nothing from me. They are the one who do not understand art or creation.
The meme and my comments aren't discounting modern art writ large. It's discounting, as you pointed out, certain art and those people you described as 'artsy fucks.' I have seen some fantastic modern art that doesn't need defending, resonates, and doesn't need naming.
To your point on names, would the Mona Lisa be amazing if it weren't named? Yes. Does the name actually drag down the appreciation becasue it pushes us toward a bias of female? Also yes. The Mona Lisa doesn't need a name to be fantastic art.
Yet without "Vir Heroicus Sublimis" It falls flat. The majority of that art is what it tells you it is. While you could remove "Mona Lisa" you can't remove "Vir Heroicus Sublimis"
To wrap back, I'm not discounting all modern art, just the artsy fucks on the right and their ignorant reaction to AI.
Ah, this is good. I am glad you don't throw all of modern art into the meme bin. Van Gogh is modern art, but nothing like what is being mocked in the meme.
You are correct about the Mona Lisa. We are still left with the piercing smile after all. Zizek recently wrote a piece on Coubert's 'Origin of the Universe' and discusses a similar thread.
I would push back a little on the title of the Newman painting. Funny enough, you are being slightly more generous than I am. I don't think it requires the title, as the title, truly, is as abstract as the painting itself. It does not lead the viewer to believe in anything, nor direct the viewer. It does not provide a narrative. It does not tell you how to feel about it.
Now, if the painting were titled "All I can see forever is Red" or "Bloody Sunday: The Massacre of Bogside" THAT is a narrative. That is telling what the painting is intended to mean, how to think about it. Vir Heroicus Sublimis does not, in and of itself, make the painting. It doesn't even clarify the use of red, in fact.
If the painting were mislabeled say, unknown to the viewer and instead said "No. 99". You could ponder what that meant, likely in vain. Then comes the attendant with the new label, fixing the error. "Oh, its actually Vir Heroicus Sublimis, that makes WAY more sense, now I get it!"- would NOT be a sensible response. But if replaced by the titles I suggested above, it actually would make more sense.
I suggest the painting does not require a title at all. The same way one can appreciate a bouquet, without knowing the specific names of the flowers.
I'm going to disagree that one exists and the other doesn't. The person on the right side of the meme is a characterization of how most of those people appear to everyone else. They're not rational agents sagely analyzing their position. They are raging. The meme isn't about people like you.
What you describe as "What does exist is people who don’t think ______ is Art for humanistic, philosophical, and programmatical reasons."
Now in that blank feel free to add "Writing," "Photography," "CGI," etc. because it's a response that transcends just AI.
AI is just a tool. It requires human input and a human to do something with it. AI is a lot like a camera (and yes, photographers have the same angst about cell phone cameras that people have about AI)
If you want a few examples of the people on the right side of the meme, this is a great article on the topic and also covers a ton of your points:
Yes but. I do think it can be a nice craft item if some effort is taken to transform it from pixels on a screen into a physical object. In my case paper cuts.
I thought about you while writing this, actually. Knowing that your images are sourced from A.I. Your cut outs are a strange hybrid, and require hands. I was also wondering where you land on my opinion.
I have actually written against AI art. For me the central problem is what I call the portfolio problem, which is the idea that a real artist has an evolving vision that evolves, changes and ties together in a portfolio, but an LLM image generator can't have that a-prori as it has no sense of an "I."
So what I say is my paper cuts are not fine art they are a craft item. I think as a craft item they can have a sort of validity in that they tell a little story and done right are aesthetically pleasing. I do think there is a hunger in the public for representational images that are crafted to tell a story and that aren't jarring on the eyes. One might say the same of a comic book, or graphic novel, probably not art, but that doesn't mean it can't be engaging or tell a story. Not all images have to be fine art, I have no need to be in a museum because I didn't make fine art. My paper cuts serve me well as a craft item and seem to please some people, as I have sold a few.
I also have written a recent piece calling AI on a screen Gnostic and Satanic, so as you can see I have mixed feelings about this whole business. OTH outside of theory I enjoy working with the laser, and I enjoy the finished pieces, shrug. I'd certainly rather do this all day, then my day job I am trying to fade out.
> I am referring to those who stay up late, have starved for their art. Have tried, sometimes successfully, to invent beauty within themselves and through a craft. There is bad art. There is no “art”. Except when made by a computer. The crucial difference is a subtle one, but a very large one. This is to confuse or, at the very least, expose a faulty sense of priority you’ve given the term “art”.
I've said elsewhere - Art requires CHOICE
What about the fact that AI can't create art without a human input? What about the fact that humans created AI as tool that creates art? How is AI different than a paintbrush / camera / CGI software to make movies?
Well, if you really HAD to answer that question yourself, as a thought experiment, say, do you think you could approximate a response? Can you come up with any ways that A.I. is different than these other items? Are you suggesting that there is no good answer?
This is not a trick or anything, to be clear. But one thing in considering an answer is crucial:
In terms of A.I art ( I will use that term for now), who is the artist? Is it the inventors, who made the technology, is it the A.I. machine itself (the app) or is it the human who is entering the prompts? In your viewing of A.I. art, is this even a real or important question?
I think an answer to that is important to consider before an answer to your original question...
Perhaps relevant : https://lastredoubt.substack.com/p/ai-art-and-choice
I'll answer this seriously.
> What about the fact that AI can't create art without a human input?
We already have a word for someone who tells an artist or image generator what they'd like a picture of. We call that person a "patron"
The patron is not the artist. In the vein of Edison's "!% inspiration and 99% perspiration" they barely register. Many authors will tell you that ideas are not what they are short of.
> What about the fact that humans created AI as tool that creates art? How is AI different than a paintbrush / camera / CGI software to make movies?
Having used all of the above, I'll remind you that art is about choice.
A person picking and choosing between outputs may _possibly_ be as much of an artist as a home designer choosing between wallpapers to put on a wall. They're taking a fabricated and existing image and choosing how it is to be applied and displayed and used.
But every tool above requires time and multiple layers of choices. Which brush, which media, the actual physical act of using said brush, how to mix colors or fade a pencil shading. Structuring the points and vertices while sculpting a model. Choice after choice after choice after choice both physical and near-instinctive as well as overtly conscious, as well as refinement, reappraisal.
Even a camera - we recognize the difference between a selfie and a shot specifically chosen for its artistic ambience and framed view and lighting and what is portrayed within that framing. At the higher end when one disables many of the auto-filters, we have selection of shutter and exposure speeds. One has to physically go to a place and recognize the potential image and aesthetic beauty of it. Many of these images are further refined on development, digital or otherwise.
Because art is about choosing.
Aanya. I resisted entering this thread until I saw your words and committed to this time to write on behalf of all the thoughtful and intelligent responses.
If you don’t know the answer to your own question, please save your ignorance for elsewhere.
Taking a break from my studio here in Paris… not Texas… AI, can never be Art even if a chip is installed in a fine acute brain of a life time fine artist….
I went Chomsky’s office 20 years ago at MIT to create a portrait of him (in total agreement with his assessment)… that was a choice….. language, feelings, failures, tearing down, rebuilding, observations, a life time of interacting with other humans in 8 cultures, as fine art is a complicated in depth language seemingly unknown to you.
Ok, back to work on my Freedom of Speech (including yours) sculpture in honor of massacred cartoonists for Charlie Hebdo. After seeking help during my Irish coffee break, contacting companies in French to come get rid of the bed bugs coming out of the old wooden floors while on my knees drawing my idea of the theme “The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword” on butcher paper while they rallied(I’m sure I heard a bugle call) to feast on my bloodline last night I’ll return now across the Butte-aux-Cailles to wait on the professional eradicators.
Sacrifices. Their lives.
fyi…. The bug patrol is on their way!
Gosh how I wish these critters had been AI generated, you know, like a tool.
I didn't make a complex observation and you seem to have responded to something I never said or claimed. I can't make out a single thread of cogent thought. That was such a hodgepodge of random thoughts I actually had to run this through an AI detection to see if I was being trolled.
You started with a logical fallacy, then let me know you aren't in Texas... which I hadn't even considered you'd be there...
The you name drop Noam as if that portrait had anything to do with fine art...
Then Freedom of speeach, Charlie Hebdo and the fact that you can't keep your room clean enough to avoid bedbugs (gross!)
What the hell is this if not a troll?
In response to Jack Edward comment you screen shot, I replied this:
"You know who has deep emotional availability and wonder? Down Syndrome kids like my son."
And the screenshot of Michael's comment is spot on.
AI is a tool, like a brush or a canvas, or an art school. It pulls together input and recommends output.
What makes the output art? The Human input and the human interpretation
Vir Heroicus Sublimis is art...sure... just boring. All the fawning over it is through the name. Hell, if you hadn't put the name up no one would know what it is. It's nothing without an identification. Yet I see a lot of AI art and I don't have to be told it's not a computer rendering error where the image didn't completely come through.
Let me state this again. YOU HAVE TO TELL ME IT'S ART!! No one has to be told the AI generated output is artistic.
And yes, I've seen the painting in person and, from a distance, I had no idea whether I was looking at a half-painted wall under construction until I got closer. The funnies part was my Down Syndrome Kid had a confused look on her face for this piece. Even with her deeper well of wonder it still didn't resonate and the words "Vir Heroicus Sublimis" is kind of lost on her.
Can you explain why "having to be told/not told" is a litmus test? Because it has the potential to blend in? And so what if it does? What does it matter what you are told? Is it the work of art's fault that you didn't know? I don't see the true value of that, honestly.
Also, I don't truly see much fawning over the painting, truly. As I mentioned in the article, it took me to call out the name of the artist, and it was @lisakuzniak that referred to it by name. Mostly, comments were very negative toward the painting. What fawning are you referring to? Because it is in a museum? Is that what you mean?
Paintings like this are often chosen because they lack context, and can be stand ins for art, in general. Those that have the instinct to mock it are already primed.
My thoughts are that the comments were negative to the painting because it didn't come with an identification of what you were told to think about it. That's what makes my point stand strong. To appreciate that art, you have to be told it's art (which the meme did) and then you have to be told what the art wants you to think about it "Vir Heroicus Sublimis"
When left with only the identification of Art.... most people don't care for it. It's basic, it's bland, it looks like your image didn't fully load on your computer.
Excuse me- I am sorry. I am a little confused, truly.
The painting did NOT come with an identification of what you were told to think about it? I have to protest! It DOES come with an identification of what you are told to think about- The hero of the meme, if you will, says "It's just red", This is a signal, a commentary of a kind, suggesting that you, too, should just think of it as red. The meme absolutely gives an identification and a directive and certainly tells the viewer what you are supposed to think about it. I do not necessarily believe that titles are in and of themselves narratives, although they can be. Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" for instance is not exactly a philosophical statement in itself.
I disagree, also, that you need to know the paintings title to muster some appreciation for it, in general for works of art. I don't think they go hand in hand, is what I am saying here. If you disliked the art before, there is no promise you will like it after knowing the title. You can like the art and not know the title. You can like the art and know the title. You can dislike the title and like the art....etc, etc.
I am not sure how to interpret the last phrasing in the coment. Are you saying that highly conceptual art, that does not strive for classic beauty, visual pleasure, whose meaning is only derived from its title, is bland and not cared for by most people? I would agree with that. I would even include myself in that crowd, more often than not. I can't imagine instantly liking a painting I previously disliked, because of suddenly learning the title. It is possible, though, I imagine.
But, ah, I have to say, the phrase "It looks like your image didn't fully load on your computer" is tedious. I tried to say in the article, and as most people know, art is best experienced in person. So, in the museum setting, in real life, I don't think anyone would think it was a faulty JPEG. Below is that excerpt:
We may place an equal value on the two, superficially, because both authentic painting and A.I imagery are reduced to equals, at the very least, through the mechanism of the computer screen. You can see both images, but cannot feel them, cannot stand in their presence. For A.I. created imagery, this means little to nothing. For painting, it is everything.
Also thanks for your comment, truly. Happy to have this conversation out! It can go to strange levels, though..ha
I think the appeal to "childhood" -- "my child could do this" -- is very interesting, because when you hold up authentic human artwork and AI shlock and ask these folks which an adult with a real sense of taste would prefer, the answer is fairly shocking.
A few things here that I think are important:
"All the fawning over it..." No one is 'fawning' over it, they are merely giving proper context as to why it hangs in a museum. I think this propensity of AI-defenders to melodramatically over-state in this way is telling. Maybe... something a child would do?
"AI is a tool, like a brush or a canvas, or an art school." Eh, you compared AI to an implement, and then a medium, and then an institution and then imply that these are all basically just the same thing, so we should regard them as having equal value. I don't think we should.
"YOU HAVE TO TELL ME IT'S ART!!" This is -- and I don't mean to be personal here -- a YOU issue. Many people have no problem accepting this. Looking at something like a red canvas, or a Rothko or something, and going "what do we think of this art" is the kind of art lesson you get... you know, in childhood. Middle school art class provocations.
"No one has to be told the AI generated output is artistic." Sure you do. I'm a marketing professional who includes minor graphic design work as my job. Some stuff out there is art, but the stuff I make isn't really ART, it's advertising shlock. AI makes visually stimulating shlock as well. Fella, it's hack work!
"The funnies part was my Down Syndrome Kid..." I do not know why you keep bringing up your "down syndome kid" to illustrate your points. Is it because we believe that they are sighted in some particular way? That what they enjoy or understand should be taken less seriously? I'm not sure what saying the quiet-part-loud here would be, but I wish you'd just say it.
"with a real sense of taste" Who is this? How do you define this? Because right now it sounds like "Someone who thinks like me"
Well, if your craft is hack work, I can now understand why you have this opinion. Nothing I create is hack work. My art is in everything I do and I'm proud of it. That's probably the mirror you are looking into right now. You wallow with the hacks and hate it and you can't imagine others would reject that and then have a different opinion of art.
But I see two sides of the hack. The modern art community is as much of a hack as your advertising schlock. You haven't broken free, you've just shifted hacks.
>> "with a real sense of taste" Who is this? How do you define this? Because right now it sounds like "Someone who thinks like me"
Nope, actually, I think mature sense of taste, like any mature facet of personality, has characteristic of maturity WHILE being totally individual. I defined this a little in another comment, so I guess I'll just copy-paste what I said there: Someome with "taste" is someone who has worked hard to take culture, history, and craft into account, developed their own sense of discernment, has developed their personal sense of style through struggling. In other words: it's the effect of aesthetic measure when developed from much experience. It is the thing that happens when experimentation meets the alchemy of an individual personality. It's like style in that way. It's the way you evaluate things after you've learned to GRAPPLE with them.
EDIT: I might add, this absurd thing of "everything I do is art" not only sounds pretentious, it's just remarkably untrue. I'm sorry, but no one is going to take seriously the idea that "everything" is "art" because it just destroys the category. But like your descriptions of "tools," I'm starting to see a theme. It's starting to look like: Don't call anything more valuable than anything else -- only I can do that.
That's a fantastic point about hacks!
lol, it's really not. I make some things that are art, and some things that are not considered art, but are nonetheless aesthetic products (often art is something that insists on its failure to productize).
To then go "Well only a HACK would admit to creating HACK WORK" is just histrionic.
Oh, you just proved it's spot on.
I'm also curious what a real sense of taste is beyond self-righteous intellectual masturbation. Because that's what it sounds like to me. 😆
A…. I wrote you a pleasant note on Art and Adventure. Lost it. In brief.
Not my room. An atelier for Musicians trying to do a good deed. Read up on bed bug infestation in Paris. I just got lucky.
Wondering how Olympians will fair.
Chomsky. His name was mentioned by Powell (I liked his mechanical image maker point) in your thread. Reread. One of many heroic humans like many others I have been fortunate to break bread with and discuss Art among many topics before these impersonal lines.
More remarkable humans to come I hope. You cannot have them redacted out of a narrative. Absurd.
Sounds like you have had adventures. Get up, get out, over and over, take risks, bump into a Bird Eating Goliath Spider’s web
and do the Spider Dance while showing your daughter how to get untangled from the sticky midnight mess suppressing irrational fear. I created a drawing from that madness in the Costa Rican jungle.
Portraits: Van Gogh, Matisse, Claudel, Gauguin, Basquiat and endless others thru millenniums with their portraits and self portraits would certainly disagree with you, as Noam would. Playing Devil’s Advocate is unnecessary.
I have to get back to my drawings for my heroic sculpture honoring massacred artists, the ultimate sacrifice, which was written about in this thread which is why it was mentioned: Human’s Sacrifices to create vs AI’s lack of in creating Art.
A,live well.
Humor is a needed survival tool.
Not sure AI has that covered yet.
All in a day of an artist on the road. Signing out of this.
em
Paris not Texas: I lost count of saying France, not Texas to Alabamians. Sigh.
Again, word vomit. There is literally no rhyme or reason or point to this. This is like the intellectual masturbation I was referring to earlier that manifests in 'fine art.' It's like reading a transcript from Trump. It's nonsense.
Someone who has worked hard to take culture, history, and craft into account, developed their own sense of discernment, has developed their personal sense of style through struggling. In other words: it's the effect of aesthetic measure when developed from much experience. It is the thing that happens when experimentation meets the alchemy of an individual personality. It's like style in that way.
This idea that there's no such thing as "taste" or "style," or that the very concepts are elitist is fine, it's just deeply immature and not well considered, not to mention just plainly mercenary and anti-intellectual. It's just kind of an affront to human striving -- a literally anti-expertise opinion.
Like, my guy, you just sound like someone who thinks that if one person has read a book, and the other person reads the summary on the back, that only an effete, self-rightous elite would eeevvvvvveerrr dare INSIST that the one who actually read it maybe knows something more about it.
Yeah, intellectual masturbation as I expected.
I basically agree with you, and hope you won't include me among the Philistines if I say that to me the Barnett painting is not real art either--because he's merely painting a concept, as much abstract art does, reducing himself to a mechanical image-maker, ironically rather like a computer. However, we can confidently say that AI is not Artificial Intelligence at all--the machine doesn't have an iota of intelligence, and is just a collection of data and algorithms--and any 'art' it can create is necessarily imitative and repetitive. In fact as Noam Chomsky said--I don't like the man, but he's right about this--AI is nothing but Artificial Plagiarism. The intention of its makers is milk the public, and also to indoctrinate them, which is already happening. Of course humans make bad art, as you say. Even great artists make bad art sometimes. But we can also make sublime art. AI will never do that.
That's right along the lines of what I captured in Can AI be Creative. Very similar to your thoughts here.
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/can-ai-be-creative
AI leaves nothing for true serendipity, true collaboration, true effort. One's best efforts in the past, driven by alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, sweat, effort, late nights and early mornings, careful methodical research, and a burning desire to be entertaining. AI cannot replicate that, especially when you leave the conclusion to the end. The anglo-saxon style , with a proposition/conclusion at the beginning, could be easily emulated, but the continental style, weaving the narrative into whole cloth at the end, is something AI can never do. Of late, one is inclined to value even bad human art as of higher value than even the best electro-stim dross, for at least someOne has captured the shadow of their imagination, however poorly. We all know intuitively when something has been produced without soul and spirit.
Amen.
Thank you for reading!
A splendid case for the artist !
Thanks, Johan. Hope you are good, friend! cooking anything new up lately?
Putting finishing touches on something that's on it's way. All the best !
I like this essay, bit I would like it better if you had not used it to defend the anti-art of Post-Modern tastes.
Perhaps if Raphael had worked at it longer, he might have created something as ugly as Picasso’s oeuvre.
You may dress up these lurching doodles in whatever rhetorical robes you wish, but in the end a banana taped to a wall is just that.
What then, would you have me do? I am merely defending humanity! What is it about this essay that you like?!
The defense of humanity is good. I agree with it. The distinction between “art” and “image” is good. I concur with that, too.
You make the correct intuition that AI finds its foothold in the reaction to PoMo anti-art (not all PoMo art is anti-art, but a lot of it is), but you spin it as though that’s the rubes’ fault for Not Getting It.
That dog won’t hunt. It’s been repeated *ad nauseam*; it doesn’t score. The Art World has spent decades proclaiming that Everything is Art if You Say It Is. Well, the chickens are home now, and they’re going to the place set aside for them.
We will need to start fresh.
And also thanks for reading and your thoughts on it!
One problem is that people think, incessantly, that there is something "to get". As for Raphael evolving, or devolving, if you wish, into an ugly Picasso, that could very well be the case, I can't know. But I am not ever making an aesthetic defense, not at the moment at least. I don't happen to find Picasso's oeuvre to be ugly, but it matters none, in the context of this piece, if other people do, or even if I do, for that matter.
I find much of art to be destroyed by verbiage and the elitism of the art world, the art school, the art student who makes art that feels like homework. On that note, I dropped out of high school, opted out of college, never attended art school, etc. I dislike intensely academia and the general attitudes of art grads.
It is, in many cases, pretentious. And pretentiousness breeds an oppositional snobbery as well. The "rubes" you speak of may also have their nose up in the air, too, in their own ways. However, I don't believe I spin it as their fault. It IS largely the fault of the language that artists have adopted- a phenomenon I lay at the feet of academia and the art school factory.
Another quick thought-
We must, at the very least, consider the possibility that Picasso, a man who left one of the largest caches of art, painted all his life, may know more than you, I, and possibly most people about his paintings and paintings in general. If that is not a possibility even, that too, is snobbery of a kind.
AI cannot create art. But AI is art in a sense, or something art-adjacent anyway, a creative product of scientists and engineers. Their work does indeed partake of the human spirit in a way that is similar to the work of painters or writers or dancers. So AI is interesting the same way a watch is interesting or a television set might be interesting. It´s the product not the producer.
thanks for this judson. totally with you on this. i think you've hit the mark, here. good job calling out ai apologists. good. keep going, ur fan, j.
I enjoyed your take on people-created art vs AI. Quite a bit of it resonated with me as I am currently in the weeds of a mixed media piece and trying to problem solve and experiment and create a tangible thing (that I hope turns out well.). Thank you for this wonderful and thought provoking essay.
I’m one of those philistines who left a drive-by comment. Much like a meme, commenting captures an impression while sacrificing complexity.
I don’t see much to disagree with in your piece. Real art is a vehicle for the artist to express something ineffable that causes an emotional response in the audience experiencing it. I respect any artist that is able to convey wonder, joy, sadness, perplexity, or any authentic emotion through their work. AI will probably never be able to achieve this at the level of a human being who takes their art seriously and executes it with passion.
I don’t have any formal training in visual arts, but know a lot more about music. I imagine the process is similar though; a good musician combines technical skill and ambition with a sense of playfulness, passion, or some other elevated emotional state.
I guess my original point was that real artists have little to fear from AI. Yes, it will impact the “artists” churning out mass-produced dreck, but I’m hard pressed to think of any other categories of employment that society has decided must be protected from technological or market forces, and would encourage every human being on earth to create art for its own sake. I’d also point out that plenty of modern artists rely on lazy or trite provocation. I don’t fault people for being ambitious and flying too close to the sun in their art, but there’s a fine line between clever and stupid, and plenty of examples of artists fall on the wrong side of it in pursuit of fame or notoriety.
oh you are not a philistine….I think I agree with what you wrote here pretty much down the line.
Thank you for the detailed and balanced response. My first thought is that you've read a bit too deep into the meme because it's an observation. There were many of the comments such as Jack Edwards, that proved my observation and, as Beowulf Obsidian commented before me...it's complicated.
You suggest I have apathy toward art. This is not only untrue but unfounded. I am an artist. I'm a writer and I work all forms of art into everything I do. I go so far as to argue that art isn't a part of STEAM but underpins STEM as its very foundation.
The Art of STEM: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/the-art-of-stem
I've also never made the argument that AI makes art. AI is like Canvas or Paint. Can those two make art? AI will never output anything without human input.
Even more so, AI was created by Humans. As one person commented on my original meme, "I see the bottom image and I think computer scientists working on perfecting their craft." In its own irony, AI itself is the output of artistic capability (again, refer back to my writing on The Art of STEM)
Are there hacks who will use AI to generate crap? Sure... But there's certainly a non-zero probability that you also just described modern art to most people. I'm not on the side of the hacks in AI or modern art. Modern art just comes with the presumptuous self-assurance that if no one else gets it, it must be 'real art' that requires a deeper well of emotional availability.
I'm going to pull back here a little bit about whether AI can be creative. I also wrote in detail on that topic with these two essays:
Can AI be Creative: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/can-ai-be-creative
AI Is['nt] Killing Artists: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/ai-isnt-killing-artists
I also deeply explore the differences between AI and humans such as:
AI Computes; Humans Think: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/ai-computes-humans-think
What's In a Brain: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/whats-in-a-brain
I've even written two novels on these topics exploring AI and what it means to be human.
www.TheSingularityChronicles.com
In general, the people I talk to on this topic aren't as bothered by art like Vir Heroicus Sublimis but by the person memed on the right. We don't have apathy, we just see people who don't understand themselves or humans in general and are wrapped up in a child-like ignorance in an adult body and lashing out with self-righteous indignation.
We don't lack awe or wonder, but we do wonder how much Vir Heroicus Sublimis has depth because someone named it and told us what to think. That's another layer here that bothers me about the memed character on the right. They are not only typically ignorant about themselves but have been told, through titles and placements in a museum, that this is art and how to interpret it.
I have an essay I've drafted which will come out on July 4 which addresses your Artificial claim. I write:
"Artificial Intelligence is an unfortunate term in many ways. On the one hand, it doesn’t allow for the acceptance that it’s anything but artificial, fake, or manufactured. The AI over-hype these past couple of years doesn’t help this perception.
On the other hand, it triggers many people to consider it as opposing or in competition with natural intelligence, i.e. human intelligence. Especially in the art and literary world, there’s a very vocal bias, often resulting in shaming, that any use of AI is somehow an assault or an insult to the artistic endeavor."
I go on to suggest that a proper term for AI is "Augmented Intelligence." There's nothing artificial about it if you view it like a tool. It's as real as paint and canvas. The art is the human input, analysis, and output as David Knickerbocker stated in your screenshot.
In closing, the main thing to consider here is that this is one element of a long line of these arguments. Orators had the same arguments against writers. Scribes had the same arguments against printing presses. Painters had the same arguments against photography and, hell, photographers had the same argument against phone photos (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-45011397)
The argument isn't new and the lack of understanding about what underpins the arguments isn't new. It's a thread I pull in my first novel which creates the divisions between humans that the plot exploits to create catastrophe.
This is a fantastic response. I've read most of those essays as you've published them and it's impressive how they weave together on this topic. Now I'm going to have to read them again with this perspective!
I agree, it's not apathy, it's the analysis of credulity and right now, I think there's incredulity which they call apathy.
💯. I am an artist as well, and I got such a kick out of the audacity of an artist on the internet telling me that I don’t understand art. Just 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Well, I'm sure you'd have higher credibility if you spent 4 years studying art history instead of a STEM degree. Basically STEM means you're Philistine for art and there can be no cross-over at all!
But then again, after having spent 4 years studying art history you certainly have to make it sound like it was valuable 😂
You'll probably enjoy this essay about the Art of STEM:
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/the-art-of-stem
All I do is discovery and creation. Anyone who wants to come at me with a dogmatic and narrow view of art will get nothing from me. They are the one who do not understand art or creation.
Exactly my thoughts!
The meme and my comments aren't discounting modern art writ large. It's discounting, as you pointed out, certain art and those people you described as 'artsy fucks.' I have seen some fantastic modern art that doesn't need defending, resonates, and doesn't need naming.
To your point on names, would the Mona Lisa be amazing if it weren't named? Yes. Does the name actually drag down the appreciation becasue it pushes us toward a bias of female? Also yes. The Mona Lisa doesn't need a name to be fantastic art.
Yet without "Vir Heroicus Sublimis" It falls flat. The majority of that art is what it tells you it is. While you could remove "Mona Lisa" you can't remove "Vir Heroicus Sublimis"
To wrap back, I'm not discounting all modern art, just the artsy fucks on the right and their ignorant reaction to AI.
Ah, this is good. I am glad you don't throw all of modern art into the meme bin. Van Gogh is modern art, but nothing like what is being mocked in the meme.
You are correct about the Mona Lisa. We are still left with the piercing smile after all. Zizek recently wrote a piece on Coubert's 'Origin of the Universe' and discusses a similar thread.
I would push back a little on the title of the Newman painting. Funny enough, you are being slightly more generous than I am. I don't think it requires the title, as the title, truly, is as abstract as the painting itself. It does not lead the viewer to believe in anything, nor direct the viewer. It does not provide a narrative. It does not tell you how to feel about it.
Now, if the painting were titled "All I can see forever is Red" or "Bloody Sunday: The Massacre of Bogside" THAT is a narrative. That is telling what the painting is intended to mean, how to think about it. Vir Heroicus Sublimis does not, in and of itself, make the painting. It doesn't even clarify the use of red, in fact.
If the painting were mislabeled say, unknown to the viewer and instead said "No. 99". You could ponder what that meant, likely in vain. Then comes the attendant with the new label, fixing the error. "Oh, its actually Vir Heroicus Sublimis, that makes WAY more sense, now I get it!"- would NOT be a sensible response. But if replaced by the titles I suggested above, it actually would make more sense.
I suggest the painting does not require a title at all. The same way one can appreciate a bouquet, without knowing the specific names of the flowers.
I'm going to disagree that one exists and the other doesn't. The person on the right side of the meme is a characterization of how most of those people appear to everyone else. They're not rational agents sagely analyzing their position. They are raging. The meme isn't about people like you.
What you describe as "What does exist is people who don’t think ______ is Art for humanistic, philosophical, and programmatical reasons."
Now in that blank feel free to add "Writing," "Photography," "CGI," etc. because it's a response that transcends just AI.
AI is just a tool. It requires human input and a human to do something with it. AI is a lot like a camera (and yes, photographers have the same angst about cell phone cameras that people have about AI)
If you want a few examples of the people on the right side of the meme, this is a great article on the topic and also covers a ton of your points:
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/ai-isnt-killing-artists
Yes but. I do think it can be a nice craft item if some effort is taken to transform it from pixels on a screen into a physical object. In my case paper cuts.
https://whispertrees.substack.com/p/a-fully-gallery-of-paper-cut-art
I thought about you while writing this, actually. Knowing that your images are sourced from A.I. Your cut outs are a strange hybrid, and require hands. I was also wondering where you land on my opinion.
I have actually written against AI art. For me the central problem is what I call the portfolio problem, which is the idea that a real artist has an evolving vision that evolves, changes and ties together in a portfolio, but an LLM image generator can't have that a-prori as it has no sense of an "I."
So what I say is my paper cuts are not fine art they are a craft item. I think as a craft item they can have a sort of validity in that they tell a little story and done right are aesthetically pleasing. I do think there is a hunger in the public for representational images that are crafted to tell a story and that aren't jarring on the eyes. One might say the same of a comic book, or graphic novel, probably not art, but that doesn't mean it can't be engaging or tell a story. Not all images have to be fine art, I have no need to be in a museum because I didn't make fine art. My paper cuts serve me well as a craft item and seem to please some people, as I have sold a few.
Perfectly reasonable!
I also have written a recent piece calling AI on a screen Gnostic and Satanic, so as you can see I have mixed feelings about this whole business. OTH outside of theory I enjoy working with the laser, and I enjoy the finished pieces, shrug. I'd certainly rather do this all day, then my day job I am trying to fade out.
https://whispertrees.substack.com/p/of-ai-storytelling-simulation-and
I will give this a look, thanks.