> 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.