i say this as nicely as I can, you dont need expensive and exploitative algorithms to make art. i dont really care if you say you cant make anything, put a pen to paper and draw. your terrible scribble has infinitely more value than anything a tech company’s software can generate using stolen data. and after you crumple that up and throw it away, get another sheet of paper and do it again, and again, until your wrist snaps apart, and I guarantee you will not only have learned something about yourself but you will be more of an artist than any tech bro using chatgpt
I’ve always been confused about this train of thought, because it seems to justify the opposite of what it’s trying to say.
I mean, if the argument is people will use whatever garbage they have on hand to make art… presumably that includes generative AI? Look, I lived through four decades of people making art out of ASCII. My bar for acceptance for this stuff is really low. You give people a thing that makes pictures in any way and you’ll get a) pictures of dicks and b) pictures of other things.
I don’t think GenAI will kill human art for the same reasons I don’t think AI art is even in competition with human art. I may be moved or impressed by a generated image, but it’ll be for different reasons and in different scales than I’m… eh… moved and impressed by hot dragon rock lady here. Just like I can be impressed by the artistry in a photo but not for the same reasons I’m impressed by an oil painting. Different media, different forms of expression, different skill sets.
The thing is, an AI ‘artist’ isn’t making art. They are generating images with no real meaning or effort put into them.
That depends on what they’re doing. If they’re entering a prompt and rolling with what they get out of it, then sure.
If they’re inputting a prompt and refining it with solely AI tools then meeeh, that starts to fade a little. I’d ask why someone is spending hours going back and forth with an AI instead of doing some of it manually, but it’s hard to tell one way or the other from the final output.
If they’re inputting a prompt, refining it with AI tools and heavily editing what comes out in image editing software that’s approaching some strange digital mixed media weirdness I don’t think we have particularly good intuitions for.
If they’re inputting a prompt and using the output as some building block like a texture on a 3D model or for a content aware fill in photo editing or for a brush or a stamp I genuinely have no mental model for what impact that has in my assessment of the “meaning” or “effort” going into a piece, if I’m being perfectly honest.
Reductionism isn’t serving us particularly well on this one. Makes the pushback feel poorly informed and excessively dogmatic.
Typing a prompt still isn’t making art. If you look at art, everything has intent behind it, nothing is random, everyone has their own style that evolves. Like if you’re drawing a meadow, there are lots of choices you make in the progress, like what plants you draw, in what style, in what stage, are any of them damaged for example. Art isn’t just about the end result, it’s the process itself.
Typing a prompt is describing an image, not making it.
Dragging a mouse isn’t making art. Dragging a live mouse could be, PETA wouldn’t like it though.
You did not read the whole post you’re responding to, did you?
It’s not often that you can see the exact moment an actual human brain ran out of token space, but here we are.
Finish Him!
I think the argument is that an AI “artist” is incapable of creating art. Their “tool” does the work for them. Whereas other artists use digital tools but as just that - tools. The art comes from the artist.
In the absence of needing to use skills to make a living, I have no problem with AI art. In a hypothetical anarchist mutual aid society, people could make art with whatever methods they prefer. Some might create AI models to make art because they’re interested in that sort of thing. Others will make art in the traditional ways, also because they’re interested in that sort of thing. There doesn’t have to be tension between the two, and their basic needs are all there.
When people have to use their skills to make a living, though, then there’s a problem. So many of the places that were paying artists are now whipping something out with an AI model. That leaves artists without a way to cover their basic needs at all.
When people have to use their skills to make a living, though, then there’s a problem.
Progress leaves many professions behind. It’s lamentable, but a price worth paying.
Which is nice to say when your profession isn’t the one on the chopping block.
I’m a programmer. It is.
I’m also a programmer. No, we’re not at risk.
Right now AI is just about useful enough to refresh my own knowledge or do some advanced copy paste. You think that’s where it stops?
Nothing will kill art itself, GenAI will simply be incorporated as another tool
Killing the ability to make money from art AND the bs that corporations are pulling in regards to AI, profit and making line go up is what people are mad about, but that anger is constantly misplaced leading to lines of thought like this lol
I don’t understand why generative AI will kill making money from art. As you said, it’s just a tool.
If an artist can make a web comic in a fraction of the time they used to, they can multiply their output and thus possibly sell to more. A good gen AI artist would also be a good prompt engineer, which would also mean an expanded skillset. Game developers, architects, engineers, could also speed up their work to hit the ground running instead of doing a bunch of repetitive stuff.
Everybody has to adapt to AI. Adapt or die, it’s quite simple.
I don’t understand why generative AI will kill making money from art. As you said, it’s just a tool.
If an artist can make a web comic in a fraction of the time they used to, they can multiply their output and thus possibly sell to more.
You’re presenting the scenario of an artist using a tool to create more art. I think the concern is someone who would have hired an artist uses the tool themselves to make art instead of hiring the artist. Hence the comment @cm0002@lemmy.world made that GenAI won’t kill art, but it will kill the ability to make money from art.
This isn’t a new thing that just started with GenAI though. Entire professions of commercial art evaporated with the introduction of computers. How many typesetters were employed by major newspapers around the world 50 years ago? With the introduction of computers the number has drastically reduced. This is also true of graphic artists that used to work all day over a light box, waxer, and Exacto knife. Now all of that is done with far fewer people in a computer. I don’t see how GenAI different from those technologies and how they impacted artist jobs.
If 1 person can make 10x the art, then 1 person can do the job of 10, meaning 9 people are out of work.
Or it means 10x the art in the world.
If a process that takes 10 weeks for producing an animated movie/show now only takes 1 week, that’s a significant reduction in production timeline meaning more can be produced, or that time can be used to improve other production tasks
Not under capitalism. It means 10x the poverty for artists, which was already made fun of as an underpaying career path…
You ignorant lot are truly pathetic. Educate yourselves on the Luddites and the guilded age for starters… An increase in productivity is not as black and white under capitalism.
You’re thinking of art in terms of a product. It’s not. Art is an expression of creativity. People drawn to it will do it just because they can. They make money from it because capitalism doesn’t give them many other opportunities to provide a basic living.
“Adapt or die” is a cute phrase when it’s not being applied to yourself.
Using AI to generate the things that are in my head is still an expression of creativity, is it not? Some people use paintbrushes, some people use computer aided design and let it be printed or built by others, some people use AI. Why aren’t those expressions of creativity?
Adapt or die is a fact of life. We all have to adapt to change, if I didn’t have to, I’d be perfect. I’m nowhere near perfect. Neither are artists.
Using AI to generate the things that are in my head is still an expression of creativity, is it not?
Yes. Not at the expense of other forms of art, though.
Adapt or die is a fact of life
Because you decided it is. Society does not have to be built that way.
Yes. Not at the expense of other forms of art, though.
Which art forms are dying because of AI?
Because you decided it is. Society does not have to be built that way.
I didn’t decide anything, it’s just life. Move or get left behind. It’s how nature works. That’s just evolution. You don’t have to like it, but it’s a fact.
Which art forms are dying because of AI?
Maybe ask artists who have their work stolen to feed AI models that then take their job. Again, this is a problem because capitalism made it one.
Move or get left behind. It’s how nature works.
We are not nature. We can make different decisions besides brutal evolutionary pressure.
We do decide that. Because progress will not be stopped. If we’d let people’s jobs stand in the way of progress we’d still be picking berries naked in the woods.
Progress does not at all require an “adapt or die” mindset. Not at all. And it’d still be barbaric if we did. More barbaric than picking berries naked in the woods.
“real art”. Gatekeeping art now, are we?
Yes.
Art is made by living things. Until AI is alive it cannot make art. Current models don’t fit the bill. That’s not saying that a far more advanced future AI couldn’t make art, but at present AI can’t make art.
And by what definition would an advanced AI be “alive” enough to create art?
When it can be proven to think for itself and not regurgitate what it thinks you want to hear. When it steps past lines of code, not as a façade or fascimile, but as its own being with its own goals and its own sense of realised existence.
If I may rephrase it: Art can be created by an AI only if it has agency and self-awareness (or, more general, conciousness).
Is that necessary though to create art?
Quite a loaded philosophical question, but an important one if we want to talk about the essence of art and the beings – either natural or artificial – that create it.
Do you think animals, apart from humans, can create art?
By that definition, those without a (known) sense of self-awareness or conciousness, couldn’t. And yet, we can see behaviour that we would call “art”. Be it a bird, which mimicks sounds or invents a dance to impress females, or a fish that draws patterns into the sand for similar reasons.
Lemmy users are notoriously delicate. They cannot survive outside heavily moderated and curated online spaces.
Hence, gatekeeping is a needed tactic to ensure these spaces were they thrive keep a metastatic state.
In fact, a common practice in Lemmy is to gatekeep subjective experiences, like humor, art, memes, taste in music, movies or games.
You name it, you will have dozens of users telling you that “no, in actual fact, your subjective experience about <THING> is wrong, and has to conform to mine, or else”
Of course Ethel guy who can draw a dragon was with coal does nto need AI lmao. The guy with two legs an a working spine doesn’t need a wheelchair.
Yeah. All I want is 1 million big titted dragons. It’s an art piece. I thought about doing some huge multi-year collaborative and inclusive enterprise where every piece had at least one person’s attention, then thought ‘fuck it, couple of hours with midjourney. Same thing really’.
Comments here are a shit show.
“Nothing will stop real artists from making art.”
Exactly. AI images are not going to eliminate art. They just make it more difficult for artists to compete under capitalism.
The solution is to abandon capitalism. Not stop tech development.
If all it takes to be a “real artist” is drawing proficiently, then every ai artist who has also learned to draw is a real artist and every performance or installation artist who can’t draw is not an artist.
I don’t like AI slop, but this argument against it just doesn’t make sense.
It isn’t saying that drawing is the only art form, just that having the ability to create art from scratch is what makes someone an artist. Drawing was an example, performance art, music, and other forms of art are also criteria for being an artist.
Hell, you don’t even have to be proficient if you are able to create art that conveys something.
every ai artist who has also learned to draw is a real artist
Yes, they are an artist if they are able to create art although the label only matters in reference to the things they create. It doesn’t mean everything they do is art.
Using AI prompts is like using a web search to find art someone else created, it isn’t creating art. Does writing down an idea for a book make someone an author? No, it does not.
having the ability to create art from scratch is what makes someone an artist
This implies photographers aren’t artists though. They rely on a specific tool - the camera - and utilize it to create art. This ranges from “just” taking pictures to setting up elaborate scenes.
Another example - for which I have forgotten the name - is art utilizing computers. Not in the sense of anything digital but rather electronic calculating machines built to beep, boop and blink. I’ve been to an exhibition which featured this type of art by one artist. Some were interactive, some weren’t, some were (partially) broken after decades of age and some were still functioning. Most were built during the 60s to 90s by the way. I believe the artist never did created any other art, at least publicly. He was an artist nonetheless.
I’d say AI art is art. Any definition of artistry which attempts to exclude AI art must also exclude other unconventional art forms.
The question shouldn’t be what art is or isn’t anyways. Such questions often lead to gatekeeping or nazis. Rather, it should be about the meaning of art. And most of AI art has the sole meaning of looking decent. AI art cannot ever replace more meaningful art as it alone lacks much meaning. It may at most supplement it, with some artists perhaps using AI deliberately as part of a work.
This implies photographers aren’t artists though.
I mean if you think it is necessary for the person who works with sticks to grow the plant from a seed first to count as ‘from scratch’ that would make sense.
It isn’t about which tools are used, but the process. A photographer, without a camera, can still block off a shot and consider lighting and what exposure they would use if they had the tools handy. It is extremely likely they could do a bare bones sketch of what they would take a picture of. They are considering details and how it would impact the way the picture turns out and the feelings that might be invoked in whoever looked at the photo down the road.
A tech bro using AI is just throwing words into a blender and seeing if something comes out. We aren’t talking about possible AI refinement tools, we are talking about AI tech bros who throw shit out with shitty and inconsistent lighting, terrible textures, and other bland shit that is rehashed crap vomited forth from the AI system that is no more art than doing a web search, saving one of the results, and saying “I made this”.
A photographer without a camera cannot produce art though. They can imagine it, explain it and even make a rough sketch - but the end result isn’t art. It’s a concept for art that is not yet made reality.
Similarly, there are differing levels of effort in order to create AI art. For instance, someone using an LLM to create an AI picture has approximately as much artistic merit as someone using their phone to take a selfie. It requires roughly the same amount of effort as well.
But for other AI art, it can take a lot of time to get everything right. I’ve dabbled with Stable Diffusion two years ago and there is a lot of finetuning and parameters you had to set to get anything worthwhile. My attempts roughly looked like taking a photo with random brightness, contrast and exposure settings: like utter trash. With some time and practice one could likely get adept at manipulating whatever model one is using and generate plenty of images with purpose.
Most AI generated images have little to no artistic merit, just like most pictures taken with a smartphone camera. But you cannot conclude that any and all art with either of those tools is therefore impossible.
Similarly, there are differing levels of effort in order to create AI art. For instance, someone using an LLM to create an AI picture has approximately as much artistic merit as someone using their phone to take a selfie. It requires roughly the same amount of effort as well.
That is correct.
Photographs that simply document something existing are not art. The photos I take of something that catches my eye are not art if I don’t bother with a minimum of framing or any kind of composition. Those are just snapshots of something existing, which is also the case with most selfies.
But you cannot conclude that any and all art with either of those tools is therefore impossible.
I sure can!
A camera can be used to make art and just document things. A paintbrush can be used to make art or just paint a wall a single color without any larger context that would make it art. Tools used to make art are also able to be used to make stuff that isn’t art. Even art that might look random, like Jackson Pollock’s splatter paintings, were intentional with composition and purpose.
A LLM is a randomizing copy blender. It has a vague idea of what the person is going for, but it is just mashing together stuff that was pumped into it without intent or purpose. If it gets lucky and is what the person wants, cool. It still isn’t art and can’t be due to just being a randomized mismash of things other people created like fancy copy machine.
having the ability to create art from scratch is what makes someone an artist.
But in that case all AI artists are artists because all humans can create art from scratch. Everyone draws in the dirt.
I’m happy considering all humans artists - I do think that - but again that means that burning a stick and drawing on a rock is just not a valid metric for being an artist.
I’m getting flashbacks to when people, during the man vs. bear debacle, started arguing about bear muscle strength.
You are completely missing the point and unfortunately I cannot explain it more clearly.
You realize you just said photographers aren’t artists, right?Edit: Someone already pointed this out. Ignore this comment. I don’t delete it because Lemmy is weird about deleting comments.
The other person was also wrong.
According to your own delusions?
the ability to create art from scratch is what makes someone an artist
What is “scratch”?
That’s the whole argument against AI art.
Did you make spaghetti with pre-made noodles?
Did you make your own noodles?
Did you grind up your own wheat?
Did you make easy mac in the microwave?
Which one is a true chef?
Maybe
Probably
Definitely
Probably not
Does the AI make the “art” or does the artist use AI as a tool.
The chef creates the easy mac. A person cooks the easy mac.
Having AI create the “easy mac”, then trying to claim cooking the “easy mac” makes you a chef is what’s wrong
But if you get the AI to create the noodles, sauce, meat ball seasoning, etc. And you put it all together well. Then you can claim you’re somewhat of a chef.
That is another good example. Using a text prompt of an AI is like microwaving a premade meal.
But tech bros using AI who can’t create anything without the AI aren’t artists just like someone who can only microwave premade meals isn’t a chef.
Hell, adding some additional cheese or making informed substitutions and maybe a tiny bit of some seasoning is being a chef.
But if you use the AI to create the meal entirely you aren’t choosing the noodles, sauce, meat balls, or anything else. You are picking items from a menu at best and hoping for random chance to spit out something you like.
Intentionally applying an AI filter to something intentionally chosen with an expected outcome could be used to create art just like algorithm based filters. But the meme is referring to people who can’t actually create anything without an AI text promp.
