AI art is the fast food of the art world. Pull up to the window, order a number three from the menu, and blam! You are now the owner of a bag full of shit food with a side of fatty liver. AI art is the exact same thing (minus the fatty liver).

AI art is flooding DeviantArt right now.

It looks cool, but ultimately it's a generic output that is immediately replicated.

what happens when you feed ai art into ai art generators?

It's just doing what photography did to older art forms.

Not the same at all. Photography (real photography) requires both skill and apprenticeship. Typing a word into an AI art program and pressing ‘enter’ isn’t in the same universe as any other art form because it isn’t actually an art form. AI art is much closer, in both form and function, to an online horoscope reading.

Point and click. Type a word. The skill comes from the tool selection, the choice of subject, framing, curation and post process.

Trust me, I've made very low quality works with both now and can confirm that they both have allowed me to have the level of quality far exceeding many artists, while also understandably being very shitty. Like, the pictures of my dog alone would cost a fortune to replicate with a painter.

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“a level of quality far exceeding many artists” except that it isn’t because you didn’t actually make anything.

It’s the same as a ‘digital guitar solo’ app. Type in a genre of music, the computer makes a solo, and then you pretend you can play guitar better than Jimmy Page.

Or someone insisting they can cook real food based on the fact that they play video games where they cook.

I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t enjoy your art making app. I’m merely suggesting that whatever pride you take in your ‘creations’ is kinda silly.

I mean, I think photographers that really excel in their craft should absolutely take pride in their work. Even if a large part of the work was done in the engineering as well.

Who would have thought that robots would threaten creatives' livelihoods before menial labor? Actually, I guess automobile manufacturers have used robots in assembly lines for decades now. And fast food order kiosks are becoming more commonplace.

But I think we all agreed that art and that whole area of work would be the safest from automation. Honestly I thought language translation ai would be the first big breakthrough. Hard to believe that Google translate still isn't that great.

More directly on topic, personally, I do think it's cool that this technology can bring dead artists back to life, but maybe wait more than a week after their passing next time. It's in bad taste. Like using a cg model of a dead actor, you have to let some time pass before you do it.

You are actually speaking to a former professional photographer who teaches both photography and computer graphics. And absolutely I take pride in my work. What I do with a camera is a far different reality from typing a word and clicking enter. And, beyond all the technical understanding that real photography requires, the true art of the photographer is the art of ‘bearing witness’. A photographer must be present in the environment to make the photography. I have spent countless hours walking paths in pitch dark so I could be in a certain location at sunrise. This is a far cry from typing a word and pressing enter.

But even in that I am honest. I was also trained as an illustrator and I am more than happy to admit that no single photograph has challenged me as much as a thirty hour pen and ink drawing. Photography is easier to make than a painting by orders of magnitude and likely wouldn’t qualify as an art form but for the fact that photography is indeed truth and photographers must bear witness.

But AI paintings? Nahh that’s the visual arts version of Cooking Mama. Like I said, enjoy making your little projects, just don’t make the mistake of thinking you are making art.

Typing a word is the same as pointing and clicking.

You are dismissing the work people do put in to get good generated art. It's the equivalent of equating what you do with a camera with what I do with my phone when I see my dog being cute.

Like I want AI generated art to be able to make masterpieces that take the ideas in my head and turn them to be as good as some of the awesome works I've seen so far, but I'm just winging the phrase and picking between maybe 18 images, so clearly not putting in the same effort as some of the people really making cool works.

I’m dismissing the idea that typing a word and selecting an image, then doing some basic post processing is art.

Photography is not pointing and clicking, if I handed you my camera bag, you wouldn’t even know how to attach a lens to the camera body, and if you did figure that out, my camera is a pro rig, so unless you know what all those little numbers do, you likely won’t even be able to make a properly exposed photograph. Furthermore, as I said, my photography is not the same as my drawing and painting. Photos take an average of 1/60 of a second to make. The average painting I do is somewhere between 10-20 hours of time. But photography is truth and photographers must bear witness to the truths they record. And for that reason, photography has earned its place in the art world.

Much as I try, I can’t find any similarly compelling attributes to AI art. Its as fast as a photograph, without truth or bearing witness and without any in depth learning about the art.

Like I keep saying, it’s the Cooking Mama of art. You don’t have to agree with me (even though I’ve worked in the visual arts for three decades). My opinion is just that, and opinion.

I mean I’m sure some folks make some pretty cool things using AI. But those of us who can turn a piece of white paper into art with nothing more than a pencil will always be entirely unimpressed by AI ‘art’. Sorry but we’ve earned that privilege.

Pixiv too, there are a couple of tags I follow on and off and right now they're just rammed with AI generated stuff, massive galleries of 70+ near identical images.

I think I read that they at least were taking action against it, not banning it but created new categories for the stuff to try and segregate it

Being able to write a simple letter used to be considered a specialist skill, typewriters and keyboards put them all out of work but provided work for those making the technology. This allowed far more people to write their thoughts and run businesses.

Harvesting crops used to be so labour intensive that our school holidays are based around them as every able bodied person in the town would be required. The same is true for ploughing fields, clearing land or planting.

Explosives and heavy machines replaced 90% of the people doing mining or other heavy work.

90% of people in manufacturing have already been replaced with complex assembly lines that mass produce most of our produce.

In construction, only a fraction of the people are required compared to the past when everything was built by hand.

In terms of services, banking, travel agents, insurance, shopping services and countless others have been automated by the internet.

In research countless people performing arithmetic calculations have been replaced with computers, this allows us to do 100 times more than we used to.

Live music used to be the only option, but these days 99% of people can listen to 10000 songs at the click of a button thanks to the internet, the radio, TV or CDs and records.

In terms of basic photography, every adult and child now has a "point and click" camera phone that takes photos that are more than good enough for 99% of purposes.

In terms of design and engineering CAD has dramatically reduced the labour spent planning things.

The entire world has moved on based on clever people inventing powerful tools that reduce the need for manual efforts. Art is no exception to this rule and frankly it is long overdue for people to be able to use simple tools to generate their own logos, icons or basic artwork for YouTube channels, business cards or websites.

At a basic level your argument hinges on me accepting that the Sistine Chapel can be replaced by pressing enter on a keyboard. Why do we not replace the NFL with watching dudes play Madden? Why listen to a Jimmy Page guitar solo when you can listen to an even ‘better’ one made by AI? Why buy a $45.00 burger at a top notch restaurant when you can get a quarter pounder at McDonald’s for a tenth of the price?

Your entire argument is predicated on a flimsy premise. Rembrandt’s final self portrait is not the same as a vein of ore that needs extracting from a slab of granite or a field that needs plowing.

And, incidentally, people still pay very handsomely for the work of photographic professionals. I have yet to attend a wedding where the photographer is equipped with an iPhone 12.

p.s. when the internet is down and power is out, I can still draw.

>At a basic level your argument hinges on me accepting that the Sistine Chapel can be replaced by pressing enter on a keyboard.

It really doesn't.

All sorts of high end artisan goods are built by hand, all sorts of fancy crops still need to be tenderly raised by hand, and multiple parts of the construction process are done by hand too.

The availability of AI artist tools won't replace all art, but it might very replace the need to steal, overpay or go without much of the basic stuff.

It also isn't just "pressing enter". The ability comes not from the user of the tool but from the designer and builder of the tool here. The skill in farming isn't the person "just pushing buttons" to plough fields or plant seeds. The skill lies with the people that designed those machines or developed the sophisticate seeds.

>Your entire argument is predicated on a flimsy premise.

No its not. You just can't distinguish between the ultra elite version of the product from the mass market consumer goods. A heck of a lot of people are "happy enough" listening to music streams instead of going to a live performance, we still have concerts, but the streams allow more access at a far lower cost. We still have photographers and portrait painters, but most people are "happy enough" with smart phone phones shot by amateurs based on automatic settings programmed into their phones.

> incidentally, people still pay very handsomely for the work of photographic professionals. I have yet to attend a wedding where the photographer is equipped with an iPhone 12.

That's precisely my point. 99% of phones are taken quickly and easily but the high end special stuff is still done as it used to be. As for the price, I do agree they charge an utterly extortionate rate for a few hours work, especially when the cheeky sods also keep the rights to the images so they can rip people off with printing costs. The same issue is why no one hires artists.

>when the internet is down and power is out, I can still draw.

Good for you, everyone needs a hobby.

‘everyone needs a hobby.’

Brilliant and thankyou. If my hand crafted pen and ink drawing that takes 15 hours is a mere ‘hobby’, then your McDonald’s drive through AI art can never hope to be considered something of any substantive value. I’m pleased you recognize that now.

If I spent 200 hours hand painting a living room wall magnolia with a tiny paintbrush then it would have no more value than if someone had done it with a roller in 5 hours.

>your McDonald’s drive through AI art can never hope to be considered something of any substantive value.

I've been telling you since the start that I'm not talking about "substantive value", I'm talking about the 1001 lower level things like icons, graphics, backgrounds or logos for youtube channels and the like.

There are so many things that people would like to be able to generate something unique and nice looking without spending a weeks wage for some pretentious and self important "savant" to scribble for them.

But you don't want to understand that point as you know it reduces your market.

That's a spicy take. But yeah, a lot of the same criticisms were leveled at photography early on

Hey man, you wanna redesign your own company’s logo? Go for it! Utilitarian art is a different animal. You wanna create and print a ‘landscape painting’ and hang it on your wall, I think that’s awesome. Calling AI fast food was, as I reflect on it, an overly harsh assessment, I think it’s a more apt analogy to liken it to paint by numbers. Which is to say, creative possibilities within a programmed framework.

It is what it is. I’m not a fan, nor am I impressed, but I’m not opposed to folks using it to make logos and wall art and whatever else. And if it brings them joy, well shit, who am I to shit on that?

In my mind it’s not what I consider art, but that’s just me.

> But I think we all agreed that art and that whole area of work would be the safest from automation.

It still is. The vast majority of AI art is passable for a random person but if you want a particular style it's not that great. Unless it becomes miles better it'll probably just become a tool that artists use but don't rely on.

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> Photography is not pointing and clicking, if I handed you my camera bag, you wouldn’t even know how to attach a lens to the camera body, and if you did figure that out, my camera is a pro rig, so unless you know what all those little numbers do, you likely won’t even be able to make a properly exposed photograph.

Do you know how to make generative art professionally? Or know what all the dials and inputs mean or do?

I teach computer graphics so I’m familiar with photoshop, lightroom, Illustrator, and have even done some low level work with Maya (3-D animation program). Have I personally laid eyes on one of these AI art generating programs? No. Am I confident that I could figure out the UI quickly and easily navigate the tool menus? Yes.

>In my mind it’s not what I consider art, but that’s just me.
>
> I’m not a fan, nor am I impressed, but I’m not opposed to folks using it to make logos and wall art and whatever else. And if it brings them joy, well shit, who am I to shit on that?

It would seem we have plenty of common ground after all.

Goddamn Buzz Killington over here guys 😂

Not sure why folks are so triggered. I mean do people who play guitar hero get triggered when an actual guitar player tells them they aren’t really musicians? Do folks who make paint by numbers truly believe their ‘original’ art should be in a gallery somewhere? I mean, I have no qualms with AI generated ‘artwork’, but am I really expected to consider the folks making it ‘artists’? Because that’s like someone who’s really good at Madden demanding folks consider them an elite level athlete. Just sayin.

I think it could also be use as an assistant to stop creating such toxic and debilitating environments for mangakas. It should be viewed as licensed work for that style I would think.

Art gatekeepers are the coolest people.

Being condescending and calling it a “little hobby” in hopes of infantilzing a technology that you’re afraid is coming for “mAh ArT”

Wow, again, so triggered. Listen, if you wanna call yourself an ‘artist’ I’m not stoping you. I’m not going to pretend to be impressed, but that shouldn’t really bother you.

Never once was I one of your buzz words. I just said you sound like a real fun guy. Then you went and spoiled the surprise.

See, even when the only effect you had was embarrassing yourself, you still think you’ve had some profound effect on others. Truth is you don’t. The only thing you triggered in me was cringe, but then again that seems to be the norm for a “cool guy” like you.

You’re wasting time my friend. In the time it took you to post at me, you could have literally created dozens, nay hundreds, of masterpieces with your AI art generator.

I guess you finding out you’re insufferable is probably a waste of time. Not like you’d reflect and choose not to be a dick.

Buddy you should take a look in the mirror. You’re the one who is insisting that I must bow down before AI artists and recognize their unique genius. I’m simply unimpressed is all. Deal with it. I’m not against AI artwork, I’m just not impressed by it. Sorry not sorry.

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