Claiming AI art isn’t ‘real’ art is just gatekeeping
Claiming AI art isn’t ‘real’ art is just gatekeeping
The question about the legal and moral aspects of training on works of other artists is related, but a different discussion.
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I think you’re confusing art with « content ». When I experience art (of any kind, painting, music, writing, highbrow or lowbrow), I’m interacting with the artist, their intention, sensibility, politics, etc. I don’t feel that connection with statistically generated images or prompt engineers, sorry.
I do photography and I've heard people analyze my work and try and find some meaning, intention or a message that I'm trying to convey with it.
The reality is that I took 150 pictures and that was the one I liked the best. There's nothing to it for me except how it looks. The fact that I managed to capture that specific photo is hardly anything but an accident. There is no meaning to it and whatever meaning one imagines seeing there is just in their mind. It's a story you're telling yourself and you'd come up with a similar story from a piece made by AI that you didn't realize was such. If it stops being art at the moment you learn it was made by AI but you accept it as art when it was made by human even if it was, in fact, an accident, then that's exactly the gatekeeping I'm talking about.
You took the pics and you chose the one you liked best. Enough said.
Tbf, that's a lot of what making a good AI image is as well, messing with prompts and parameters then finding something you like.
Art allows you to experience the world through someone else’s senses and unconscious. The AI didn’t choose to take pictures of something. The AI doesn’t have subjectivity, which is what makes art interesting. If I find a box filled with pictures and find one I like, that does say something about my tastes, but it doesn’t remotely make me an artist.
But TBF, as an artist, I wouldn’t expect to connect with anybody who doesn’t care about the difference between human-made art and fancy statistical averages of troves of pillaged art.
Best thing I’ve ever read by far on the subject. Thought I’d share. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art