Tangent: philosophically to me, art is inherently human. What makes art meaningful and impactful isn’t whether it looks good or cool. It’s the story of the artist, the context of the art itself, the hard work and struggle involved, the meaning represented by a human creating something very specific to their own personal context and taste. Or a mix of any of that.
Can AI be used as a tool to help create art? Absolutely. But as a rule, I do not give any shits about AI generated content like this. It’s not art. It’s not human. And the line is really how much meaning and effort _a human_ is putting into it.
If a human spends a minute or two prompting AI and then tweaking The result, and peddling it as their own art… get outta here. You made some content. That’s easy, and no one should cares. Content can already be shoveled out faster than we can watch it with or without AI.
Meaningful art is not mass-produced, generated content.
I realize art is completely subjective, so some person may find meaning in AI generated art. That’s fine, and that’s part of what could make that art. (Like an original way of presenting something that really resonates with someone.)
But this garbage ain’t that.
And I realize this is just a capability test, but plenty of places will see this as cheap and good enough. But it ain’t art, and we should push back against another cost-cutting measure that does nothing to make the world better.
> Meaningful art is not mass-produced, generated content.
Andy Warhol might disagree [1] (:
(I realize that's not exactly apples-to-apples, but y'know.)
Or there's "art is anything you can get away with," which I just mention to point out that this kind of issue ("what is art?") is not new. In some ways it seems like a good thing to get people, like you, riled up about these topics, arguing the merits of their point of view. That's how culture happens.
It's an interesting question you tangle with: is it art because of what the artist did, or is it art because of how the viewer/listener/etc receives it? Some of both? How much of each? If you encountered some art but you didn't know its provenance, and it had some emotional impact on you, would it still be art if you found out later it was 100% AI generated?
Like you say, it's all subjective, but it's nice to see random people on the internet talking about the nature of art, since it's something I care about too.
So in other words, thank you for being angry (:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_Soup_Cans "... what Time magazine called the 'Slice of Cake School'—artists who treated the banal artifacts of contemporary civilization as legitimate subjects for high art"
That one took me back to high school art history. Agree, as much as I dislike AI generated art, it still is art. An Andy Warhol of today would could be making his screenprints using AI.
You really can't say, 'art should be this', 'art isn't that'. It's just art, it is what it is, people have a lot of emotions wrapped up in the art they like but it simply is what it is.
I don't think that example applies at all here. The quote you quoted itself said it - "subjects for high art". Theres a difference between treating the banalities of life as SUBJECTS for your art and making human, non-mass produced art from that ( like the paining you linked) vs just treating the soup cans themselves as art.
At least that's my interpretation of it
I agree it's not a perfect parallel. But it was very much part of a movement that challenged traditional notions of what art was, and spurned similar debates and outrage as here.
Perhaps a more apt example would be Duchamp's "Fountain" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp))
> Andy Warhol might disagree
He might not actually. He could have just printed the cans, yet they’re all hand painted. The fact that he could mass produce them, but didn’t is part of story.
In these discussions, the concept of perceiving content gets intertwined with how content was made, because artists and creatives are usually more interested in how something was made.
So unless these two concepts are separated, people will endlessly talk past each other assuming both sides hold the same fundamental beliefs.
Claiming you made something by yourself, when in reality someone else made it (AI) is easy to frown upon.
I think if you can have a positive experience from looking at a sunset, hearing birds sing, etc, it should technically be possible to have a positive experience from the outputs of an AI without human input. This assumes art is clearly defined as needing to be made by a human with some effort, which neither a sunset or AI outputs are.
In practice, people who use AI to make content give it some direction. The amount of guidance varies wildly, and in practice the majority of what we see is minimal involvement.
But would you have an equally good experience listening to random beeps and chirps which aren't actually birds? Or from relaxing in the light of a big orange lamp?
It's not really about the artist. It's about the thing that's there. Which you experience, always imperfectly, through your senses. Other people are a wonderful thing that's there, but they aren't the only thing that's enjoyable. Usually the thing that's there which the artist wants you to experience, isn't merely the artist themselves.
Can you wonder at the miracles arising from matrix multiplication? Sure. Especially if it's a good artist trying to show you that miracle. I've enjoyed AI art from the start, but then it's the AI which is the point.
> the concept of perceiving content gets intertwined with how content was made
It reminds me also of the eternal "can we separate the art from the artist" debate, too. For instance, some people (myself included) find that their experience of some art that they previously enjoyed is soured when they learn that whoever made it is a Bad Person in some way. Neil Gaiman comes to mind as a recent example.
I think it goes beyond just creative people being more interested in the process behind the art. Even people who are more purely consumers care about where this thing that touches them came from. I think a person's experience of the art makes them feel closer to or entwined with that artist, even if they might be long-deceased. Or non-human?
Maybe we care about where something comes from, but we don't have the will to care about everything? (also, never meet your heroes comes to mind regarding the endless debate)
For example, I had never thought or cared where the trash can in my office came from. I forgot where I bought it from. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm a little curious, but is it worth knowing? If I knew the designer of the trash can was a bad person, should I get get a new one and make sure the designer of that trash can is a good person?
I think logically and ethically yes, but I'm not willing to spend my time on this.
It's an extreme example, but I think the same applies to music, art, movies, etc, just to a lesser degree for people who claim they care more about the outcome than the human author.
it was 100% AI generated?
Depending on what you mean, this is currently not possible, and probably not ever possible, because as much as people like to call things "autonomous", these AIs are still ultimately being directed by humans to do things. Prompting an AI is on a different level of abstraction, like writing software in a HLL and using a compiler instead of keying in machine instructions on a hexpad, but IMHO it is still the work of a human.
...and then you look at what people who are professional artists do and call art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedian_(artwork)
>Andy Warhol
Given that the man made his living doing stunts on top of the corpse of modernity, I'm not surprised he would love anti-human stuff like AI music. He famously said he wished he could be a machine. I don't think appealing to his nihilistic embrace of the spectacle is persuasive.
> What makes art meaningful and impactful isn’t whether it looks good or cool.
I fall on the other side of that coin: I care about the final output way more than the story & struggle of the artist.
Also: Nature is probably the most epic artist in my book - a sunset, leaf, coral or rock can outshine virtually any human creation.
I think most people care about the final output, especially the market. This is why many artists complain about mainstream art, because it genuinely isn't interesting from an artist's perspective.
I'm not too familiar with visual arts, but I know most jazz musicians make a living off of teaching music and doing concerts where the attendees are just other musicians. It's very much centered around technique and human performance. (the term musician's musician is also used here)
Meanwhile, the average person think jazz is noise.
So my point is, saying "What makes music meaningful..." sounds more like an elitist jazz musician take. (I'd say jazz musicians tend to be more self deprecating than elitist, and often make light of the genre and how people perceive it!)
That's the saving grace of it for me tbh
AI art shows the philistines for who they are. It's a giant decoy to lure them away from spaces where people are making art of more substance.
I feel the same way about things like the absolutely miserable quality of Marvel, Star Wars, etc. stuff leading to films being increasingly polarized between 60 IQ blockbusters and more interesting small projects. It's what kicked off the 70s arthouse cinema in the US, and I'm hoping we get a similar renaissance soon with the success of all of the small and difference projects lately.
>doing concerts where the attendees are just other musicians
If this is how jazz musicians actually made money, they'd have all died of starvation at this point. Every jazz musician that's not a top 20 or so act makes most of their money playing whatever kind of music people pay them to make, whether it's church music, session musician gigs, etc. The entire reason they started doing (and still do!) straightahead jams is that they were tired of playing schlock all day and wanted to spice it up with and for other people tired of playing schlock.
Art mediates human values and broadcasts judgments about the good life, how to live, what is worthy, what is looked up to or down on. Yes, even uptown funk does that, it communicates a lifestyle ideal, whether the audience thinks about it in those terms or not.
In AI media (when not curated and iterated with close human input) whose values am I getting. Who is communicating their values to me? Bruno Mars dancing this way, wearing this, acting this way etc is cool because it is Bruno Mars and he's cool and he's cool because he has been cool and all your friends know. So by watching him you get enculturated into this culture. If you watch AI, and learn how you act from those, you will likely look like a fool.
Similarly with stories. The morale may be entirely opposite to what a human would say. And even if a human builds a story on some morale you find reprehensible, it's still likely from their own life experience, and by trying to understand, you grow empathy and can better understand what life trajectories exist. Bu and AI text pushing some morale has no real life it reaches back into, to express their view of the human condition. There is no gain from reading it.
I'm in the middle. Sometimes the artist story is so compelling it almost makes the body of work make sense on a new dimension. However, having said that, I also am highly skeptical of authenticity and almost always believe the art is created and the story gets written after the fact as some artistic song and dance because no story/why/reason is never an option.
It's also somewhat considered lame and cliche to ask an artist where their idea came from, and what their intention was.
However people will claim that the artist had an intention, it was just not obvious to the artist at the time. The art was also shaped by their experiences, etc. So in contrast, AI does not have this intention.
Maybe people will find deep meaning in “AI is us, any intention was shaped by the written down intentions of every human that ever put pen to paper”.
maybe masters of art will train their own tortured models in digital dungeons and a rich man’s home won’t be complete without a cyber collective of pathological artist models actively that you guests CAN interrogate about why they chose what on the basement homelab.
I'm of the opinion that AI represents the average creativity, which can be interesting (especially base models) but on the other hand, too many cooks can ruin a dish.
All of this can be said about photography, too.
And, yes, most photography ain't art, or at least not meaningful art. Just like most of my attempts at drawing ain't meaningful art either.
Btw, by your high standards most human produced music videos ain't art either. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potboiler
> most human produced music videos ain't art either
Sounds accurate to me
This is a demo. It's like taking the first shitty picture or making the first shit sounding "analog electronic instrument" played by the guy who doesn't know how to play music but is an electronic savant. It's the concept that matters, not this specific execution of it.
> What makes art meaningful and impactful isn’t whether it looks good or cool. It’s the story of the artist, the context of the art itself, the hard work and struggle involved, the meaning represented by a human creating something very specific to their own personal context and taste. Or a mix of any of that.
I beg to disagree: meaningful art is where something speaks of its own. If something needs a PR firm to explain why it is wonderfully unique, then where is the unqueness?
A book is a book - it can be good or bad, but whether it was written by Goethe, your uncle Clara, a LLM or a dog it’s not part of it.
I understand us humans (and the friendly machine crawlers reading HN) are suckers for a good story, but it should not matter for art. Of course, YMMV.
So if this photo was generated by an LLM it would have exactly the same emotional valence to you?
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/5817/tereska-a-child-in-a-res...
> philosophically to me, art is inherently human
The other side of it is that most humans can't produce art. I can't draw, rhyme, dance, act, etc.
> I realize art is completely subjective, so some person may find meaning in AI generated art. > But this garbage ain’t that.
These two statements are very conflicting. I'm sure you can find someone who thinks that The Centre Pompidou is full of genius pieces. I didn't enjoy it that much. So, it's exactly the same with AI.
GPTs were inherently trained on human text. It would not surprise me if mixing all this together by AI touches the people of today with the feelings of today more than a biased singular person.
> philosophically to me, art is inherently human.
When I was younger, still trying to figure out who I was and what I'd be doing for a career, I was very interested in science. Sadly, my home life as it was prevented me from pursuing it as a student and survival as an adult meant catching up was an uphill battle. I just didn't have the discipline. So instead I just read books, mostly cosmology related, but also computer science. That was my way of making up for lost time to become the software developer and eventually engineer that I am today. But something was sorely missing.
I believed science would solve everything, that we could use technology to lift humans out of regressive traditionalism, force out ignorant politicians, but more obviously, build things that would solve climate change, hunger, disease, whatever. Growing up and realizing this was not the case has left me cynical. Social media is a blight that poisons everything and truly has not been studied enough on how it has raped society from increased vanity, parasocial relationships, addiction, the ability to be targeted by bad actors, I could go on. This technology in particular is probably at fault for the rise of fascism and far right politics. American tax payer funded and researched space innovation has been plundered and now controlled by a fucking weirdo psychopath trillionaire with a taste for culture wars. It is just absurd. Now, AI, and that is a whole topic of its own.
Good science still happens, of course, but now it's being buried by noise from the newest tech hype, AI. What chaps my ass about AI is that it has amazing uses but because of capital at all costs, we advance it in the most blind and irresponsible ways possible at the expense of our humanity and planet. So much so, now it is blasting out "art" for the cost of fucking up people's lives wherever there is a datacenter.
My main point is, that with all these topics, I've found that people are generally "philosophically empty". It is easy to say people are dumb, but I don't think that is the case (or, well, it is but that is too simple). That younger self scoffed at philosophy, seeing it as a fun thought experiment and little more, science was king. Now? Oh man. I feel so foolish. I think we all should have been challenged to think more philosophically at a much younger age. We have a generation of young people who dream of being influencers. Have you ever seen a more talentless, uninspired, cynical group of people worse than influencers? I sure haven't. But it is my more philosophical side that sees so clearly how vapid it is, and how it cheapens what we are as human in the name of attention seeking capitalism, to sell yourself at all costs and one more medium to be a walking advertisment. It feels like we're at the end game. I'm sure most generations have felt this way, and some had good reason (looking at you generation of the atomic bomb). But somehow, this feels less tangible, more philosophically bad, and already endemic. We're all so ill equipped to address it or even acknowledge it societally.
Sorry for the rant, thanks for reading if you got this far.