Is AI Art real art?

[whatistheromance]

I've been seeing this topic pop up more and more lately, and I wanted to ask this message board about it... for some reason. 

[Apex]

Personally I don't care about whether AI art is "real" or not. I think the more important argument is how it's being used. AI has the potential to be a useful tool, but when people try to use it to replace artists it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And when people use AI that's been trained on people's art without their consent. And when people flood literary magazines with AI generated works because they assume it's easy to craft a story, and are looking for a shortcut to success in a creative field. It makes me apprehensive of the future.

[Dane]

It's disgusting, they're trying to replace real art, real artists. We need to stop treating ai generated images like real art, it's never gonna be the same as human-made artworks. We all know mass producing is kind of shit, we really don't need illustration to be mass produced. The art world has been going through a lot these past few years, with NFTs and, as usual, people who are only in the art world because of greed. As an artist, I am afraid. For myself and every other illustrator. This is not okay. Ai generated images will never be real art.

[Neon]

To me, art is deliberate. It is the result of countless decisions and effort. Despite being called "articifical intellegence" the programs used to create "AI art" are not intellegent. They just look at their samples and put the bit that is most likely to come after the last bit. Think of your phone's suggestive text. It's that, but with images. There is no decision making. No effort. No point (not even to just have fun).

To me, art is meaningful. AI art is meaningless.

(and then you get into how its literally just theft and that there are no laws to adequately address it, but I don't think I could give that topic justice)

 

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

The question of what is or isn't "real art" is always going to be a subjective and ultimately futile one. What we need to be worrying about is not how to define AI art, but rather the impact it has on human artists, which is, at the moment: Some fucked up bullshit. Do I want AI art to shit itself and die embarrasingly? Yeah. Will I say it's not "real art"? No, cause I wouldn't say that about anything. Art is subjective and unquantifiable, but the impact is has on people is very real, and that's the important thing.

[whatistheromance]

9 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

The question of what is or isn't "real art" is always going to be a subjective and ultimately futile one. What we need to be worrying about is not how to define AI art, but rather the impact it has on human artists, which is, at the moment: Some fucked up bullshit. Do I want AI art to shit itself and die embarrasingly? Yeah. Will I say it's not "real art"? No, cause I wouldn't say that about anything. Art is subjective and unquantifiable, but the impact is has on people is very real, and that's the important thing.

I'd say to human artists: Don't get discouraged because AI is better than you at drawing, be encouraged to power the future with your drawings being used to make ai better and better.

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

1 minute ago, whatistheromance said:

I'd say to human artists: Don't get discouraged because AI is better than you at drawing, be encouraged to power the future with your drawings being used to make ai better and better.

The problem isn't that people are discouraged because the AIs draw better than them. The problem is that the AIs are being trained on art taken from real artists without their consent or permission, and then sold to people who are using this technology to avoid employing human artists. Those artists whose art the AIs are being told to replicate, or being taught how to draw from, deserve to be paid for their work and they deserve to have the work attributed to them. AI art, in the end, is just futuristic plagiarism.

[illumi]

i call it ai generated images instead since its not art. one could argue that art is subjective and different for everyone; but ai generated images lacks the effort that literally all human artists [whether thatd be a musician; painter; writer; poet; etc] has. drawing is supposed to be fun and the artist will have full control; bc ure the one that lays down every stroke and color of ur piece until it finishes so u can look at the piece and go 'i did a really good fucking job'. the tech bros has none of that. theyre not in control when they generated these images. its all created from a vast database of photos; videos and pieces from human artists [which are all taken and used without consent!]. u can type in really specific prompts and add a specific artist but most of the time it doesnt look like the piece u have in ur head so u try again and again... thats not what creating is abt

tech bros try to say that they have to tweak their prompts to get the 'perfect' result; saying that ai generated images do need hardwork. i bet that all came from the previous point ive stated; bc theyre simply not in control of their own 'creation'. they be deadass saying they spend like 1.5 hours tweaking their prompts to perfection [directly quoted from an actual fucking tweet btw] and that ai generated images is the inevitable future [which i have to agree. ai is creeping up and were nowhere close to stopping ai generated images from stealing work]

but literally searching up the dictionary definition of art can give u the answer. despite art being purely subjective; ai generated images would never fit the definition of art which is pretty darn objective and everyone had agreed on already; 'the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination'. ai is not a person; a human being. it should be used as a tool instead of an artist that others can profit off of. its unethical and fucking gross. ironic that tech bros try to be independent while ai has to use artworks from fellow human artists to work

Edited March 6, 2023 by 7sev

[hemogoblin]

Absolutely not. Art is not a simple act of creation. It is fueled by feelings, emotions, and experiences. None of which AI has or is capable of having. This is also why paintings by elephants at the zoo is not "art". While elephants and animals have feelings, emotions, and experiences, they do not know how to express these through art. Their creation is just lines. Random movements. Directed instructions. It is not art. Art is an expression. It is communication.

AI "art" is certainly also not good in any sense of the word. Have you seen the fucked up hands? The lack of logic and flow? Felt the emptiness? AI "art" is a replication. Directed instructions. It is not soulful. It is not human expression. It is not expression at all. It is calculator equations.

I also agree with everyone else that even if you, out of whatever insecure reason, want to call AI rendition "art" that to do so and focus on this argument is to miss the entire point of the problem.

The problem is that AI generated content is actually, legitimately stolen from actual artists who actually created art (and weren't compensated in any way for this "study" for the AI) and regurgitated in a lesser, more fucked up rendition.

The problem is CEOs using AI to mass produce extremely flawed translations (which, yup, are a form of art), advertisements, logos, commercials, etc. because they can do so for free. The problem is CEOs knowing this product is not good enough to be a final product and then screwing over artists by offering them only pennies for compensation to fix the product because "the base of the work has been done" - never mind that the problems are too damn vast that they cannot be fixed and the artist must create the desired product from scratch.

The problem is writers being pushed out of publication - even independent and small publications - because greedy assholes either want to prove their AI is "good enough" or want to receive the potential monetary compensation of being picked after having produced exactly zero effort and are overwhelming publications with too many fake entries that the pubs close because their staff is too small to sort through to find the actual written works.

The problem is fashion designers not even really showing their pieces and looking to get diversity points by putting their deigns on AI generated images instead of actual human beings receiving actual pay so that no one even knows what a piece of clothing would actually look on someone of their body type or skin color.

The problem is that art is one of the last expressions of rebellion, freedom, and self that people even have anymore that is accessible in some form, and this push to replace people with machine is ultimately going to be a push to remove yet more time and resources towards the things that make life worth living.

The problem is that artists are already overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated for their work and constantly being screwed over by companies and people who just want shit for free, and AI is compounding this problem. The problem is cutting out marginalized people from fields they are already fighting tooth and claw to enter and receive fair compensation in.

AI "art" is absolutely disgusting. There's so many things we could be automating for actual human benefit, and instead we're sitting over here shouting to be heard while the 1% continues to do what it's always done: hoard money at the expense of human life.

Edited March 6, 2023 by hemogoblin

[Alaska Native Manitou]

When AI art becomes exploitative and unethical

[hemogoblin]

11 hours ago, Alaska Native Manitou said:

When AI art becomes exploitative and unethical

Steve Beshel's comment is on point:

Quote

AI should be something that helps liberate people to live more fulfilling lives, pursue work they are passionate about, and assist in their daily lives. Unfortunately in a capitalist system, it's just becoming another way to exploit and disempower people.

 

[whatistheromance]

2 hours ago, hemogoblin said:

Steve Beshel's comment is on point:

How is it disempowering people, if I may ask?

[DeltaAro]

1 hour ago, whatistheromance said:

How is it disempowering people, if I may ask?

To put it in a bon mot: AI could automate menial work, so that people can engage more in uplifting pursuits like art. Instead, it automates art, so people can do more menial work.

Is capitalist greed behind this? Difficult question. It could also be the Moravec paradox in action.

Also, the bon mot above comes from a privileged perspective. If a person's job gets automated away, this is always bad for them in the short term. Even it was dull and unpleasant, it was their source of livelihood. Automation is an average plus for society, but without wealth distribution, it may leave some people much worse off.

PS: You certainly hit a nerve with this thread. 😀 Very interesting topic.

[BasicallyEmoPotato]

This is a very controversial topic, I see. 

Personally, I don't consider it real art.

[DeltaAro]

On 3/6/2023 at 1:32 AM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

The problem is that the AIs are being trained on art taken from real artists without their consent or permission, and then sold to people who are using this technology to avoid employing human artists. Those artists whose art the AIs are being told to replicate, or being taught how to draw from, deserve to be paid for their work and they deserve to have the work attributed to them. AI art, in the end, is just futuristic plagiarism.

Except for outsider art, human artists also learn art from other artists and are inspired by them. No permission is needed, because training on other people's art is neither stealing nor plagiarism.

AI image generators do something resembling learning and abstraction, and generate the image on multiple layers of detail. They don't just collage together existing works. The AI doesn't have the database of the original images anymore - the "only" thing left are the millions of parameters in the nodes of the ANN.

OTOH, the trainings sets needed are extremely large. No human artist has to look at 50,000 images to paint competently, so here the comparison falls apart.

On 3/6/2023 at 1:33 AM, 7sev said:

but literally searching up the dictionary definition of art can give u the answer. despite art being purely subjective; ai generated images would never fit the definition of art which is pretty darn objective and everyone had agreed on already; 'the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination'. ai is not a person; a human being.

This sounds very essentialist. Also, this:

On 3/6/2023 at 3:46 AM, hemogoblin said:

It is not soulful. It is not human expression. It is not expression at all. It is calculator equations.

100 % essentialism. So, we maybe rethink our attitude towards essentialism a bit? Personally, I never thought it was unequivocally bad.

9 hours ago, BasicallyEmoPotato said:

This is a very controversial topic, I see. 

Personally, I don't consider it real art.

If we discussed this in a universal basic income utopia, it would be much more relaxed.

[illumi]

2 hours ago, DeltaAro said:

This sounds very essentialist

may i ask what essentialist means? i dont understand the definition google had given. either way ai generated images doesnt have what it takes to equate to manmade artworks; it should be used as a tool for artists instead of being profited off of and treated like a fellow human artist

[BasicallyEmoPotato]

3 hours ago, DeltaAro said:

If we discussed this in a universal basic income utopia, it would be much more relaxed.

Yeah, lol.

[DeltaAro]

21 hours ago, 7sev said:

may i ask what essentialist means? i dont understand the definition google had given.

"Essence" means the underlying nature of a thing, a concealed quality which makes it what it is. Essentialist thinking is believing in essences and that there are natural categories which depend on them.

For example, the idea posted here, that the essence of art is the "creative expression of emotions", that AI generators lack. They don't express anything, don't have emotions, and instead just produce their images according to fixed logical rules and calculations.

You see, this supposed "essence of art" isn't directly observable. E.g. "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial" was assumed to be human-made and even won a prize, but was unknowingly AI generated. "Muse in a Warzone" is the opposite story, wrongly suspected to be AI-generated.

21 hours ago, 7sev said:

either way ai generated images doesnt have what it takes to equate to manmade artworks; it should be used as a tool for artists instead of being profited off of and treated like a fellow human artist

If they can replace artists, they'll be used as such. 😐 It's even advertised that way.

I agree that it feels like artists are profited off. But it's a conundrum...

While overfitting may cause the AI model to partly reproduce images from the training set, that's the exception, not the norm. And without a concrete similarity, whose rights are infringed?

It would normally be impossible to prove that a particular image was used in the training set. So it needs a special law that makes the training sets explicitly opt-in.

[Harvest-Unity]

thoughts on this video?

[Rinpochard]

I am a hobbyist artist who has also made small profit through art, and in my opinion AI art is not real art. The algorithm is trained by stealing art from all across the internet without the artist's permission, which means that they gain no money from it. A great artist named Sam made a video on it, and I suggest watching it

 

 

[MulticulturalFarmer]

On 3/7/2023 at 8:14 PM, 7sev said:

may i ask what essentialist means? i dont understand the definition google had given. either way ai generated images doesnt have what it takes to equate to manmade artworks; it should be used as a tool for artists instead of being profited off of and treated like a fellow human artist

Democratized art then? Or some sort of "open art" (not open AI art as that's different)

On 3/6/2023 at 2:38 PM, hemogoblin said:

AI should be something that helps liberate people to live more fulfilling lives, pursue work they are passionate about, and assist in their daily lives. Unfortunately in a capitalist system, it's just becoming another way to exploit and disempower people.

So, you mean that artists will be out of a job due to the capitalist system or something? Just making sure I get the comment.

[hemogoblin]

Another article on yet another art form and the damage AI can do: https://thewalrus.ca/ai-is-coming-for-voice-actors-artists-everywhere-should-take-note/

[DeltaAro]

On 3/26/2023 at 9:16 PM, Rinpochard said:

A great artist named Sam made a video on it, and I suggest watching it

He claims that LAION benefits from a copyright loophole as a non-profit and that's a myth.

The actual reason is that they don't distribute the images themselves. It's just a dataset that relates descriptions to URLs. To train your artificial neural network, you have to download all the images by yourself.

On 4/12/2023 at 7:09 AM, hemogoblin said:

Another article on yet another art form and the damage AI can do: https://thewalrus.ca/ai-is-coming-for-voice-actors-artists-everywhere-should-take-note/

Realistic text-to-speech is also beneficial, since it allows visually impaired people to listen to books in higher quality. Niche books rarely have an audiobook version.

Edited April 13, 2023 by DeltaAro

[illumi]

On 4/12/2023 at 1:09 PM, hemogoblin said:

Another article on yet another art form and the damage AI can do: https://thewalrus.ca/ai-is-coming-for-voice-actors-artists-everywhere-should-take-note/

also this

cmon. agi dont even look good. not half as good as the pieces human artists create

[frutiger aro]

in my opinion it's absolutely not.

i think of art as a uniquely human activity involving human talent, thought, and emotion. meanwhile all AI art bots really do is get fed a database of real art stolen from real artists and mindlessly puke out a product based on it. they're literally just glorified art theft machines.