Current Events > The "AI Art" phenomenon has revealed some people with very odd beliefs

(+) Yeah! (+)

If you haven't been keeping it, it's been bouncing around social media around tech folk that AI art is "fast becoming superior" to the art generated by people. There have been examples posted, none of which I've found particularly compelling, but it seems like it comes from an odd place.

https://twitter.com/KyleTsetso/status/1576080405807083520

what a tool. i learned to draw about 28 years ago. drawing's fun i never got why ppl didnt like to draw.

I literally just typed up stuff relating to the subject, on the matter of if the AI make art and if the people who use the programs are artists.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_Work_of_Art

I don't think it's art as the AI lack any id and as such can't meaningfully interact with a culture. They're merely a tool and as such cannot independently produce art. But a person who merely takes what was made by the AI also can't be an artist as they only used a tool and everything the tool made without any meaningful creative process.

I don't really understand the reply. Different medium of art, but when I'm like "Wow I wish there was an orchestral suite featuring the music from <insert musical>", I don't think when I don't find anything that anything I would produce by sitting down and "making it myself" would fulfill my desires because that ****'s hard.

of course you arent really a great artist just using AI art. that's like claiming you can play Starcraft because you setup an AI vs AI match.

Art will go the way of Brickfields.
Everyone will be upgrading to AI generated Art, but there will be a few that will remember fondly the Brickfields and their family's legacy there -- but everyone else will move onto Brickworks.

Anteaterking posted...

I don't really understand the reply. Different medium of art, but when I'm like "Wow I wish there was an orchestral suite featuring the music from <insert musical>", I don't think when I don't find anything that anything I would produce by sitting down and "making it myself" would fulfill my desires because that ****'s hard.

it's not a different medium, it's the same mediums just using AI. it's like using a chess engine to play chess. it's FINE to use a chess engine, everyone does, but no one runs around saying they play as well as their engine--that makes 0 sense.

lazy ppl want to believe they can get some clout just by using an AI.

with that said, like anything else, digital art, collage, can blur the lines. are you photoshopping the ai's art? if so id say you're an artist.

are you just collecting AI art?

then you are the AI's coach and a curator.

Robot2600 posted...

it's not a different medium, it's the same mediums just using AI.

I meant music vs visual art.

Anteaterking posted...

I meant music vs visual art.

o ok. i mean AI will be able to do music too.

"Create me a cover of "Bad Romance" but done by Elvis in a straw hat"

and the music video to go with it!

Doesnt the AI scrub the internet for existing images to compile into the result? So youre actually like 2 or 3 degrees removed from the art at that point.

Robot2600 posted...

what a tool. i learned to draw about 28 years ago. drawing's fun i never got why ppl didnt like to draw.

Because we really suck at it. If I had more time I might learn to, though.

So the premise of AI-generated images being 'superior' to hand-drawn ones is flawed for a lot of reasons. I think the simplest way to say it is that, although AI may be more reliable at creating "Shiba Inu Made Out of Watermelon Slices, Photorealistic" than someone you commission, the truth is that there was about 0 interest for commissioning that in the first place, especially before images like that became used to demonstrate the capabilities of text-to-image software.

AI Art hasn't actually solved or iterated on many problems or challenges yet. It is very impressive to obtain an image from text that was generated by that text, and a lot of people have enjoyed themselves using the novelty. But as it stands, people aren't and won't be turning to text-to-image tools for their problems that would normally involve professional artists. Real artists have less measurable advantages like vision, inspiration, and the ability to adapt and respond to the "conversation" of art in the world and online in order to create visuals that deliberately shock and impress the viewer of today.

I think the main place the argument that AI Art is "beating" or "outpacing", etc, artist-made art is that a lot of the general public have no education with which to judge the value of art except "how close it looks to real life." An absolutely enormous amount of people do not understand art as expression or communication or rebellion or conformity. They only understand it in terms of "real," "stylized", "abstract". And they often conflate "abstract" with "bad", "lazy", "unskilled", and so on. This is a fault of modern education.

Let's also be real that there is not a meaningful percentage of artists who took the massive time and labor to develop the craft because they couldn't find a whimsical photo without doing so. They draw because they enjoy drawing. They paint because they enjoy painting. Artistic expression and doodling are well-known joys.

The snippet presented in the OP is not the full exchange, though the way it's framed here reads like the 'techbro' is being shamed for preferring to use an AI tool to create an image instead of drawing it himself. I don't see a problem with that honestly, especially if he's more interested in computing than fine arts. The only way I can imagine that exchange beginning reasonably is if the anti-AI poster was claiming that text-to-image AI is unethical because there's been evidence the currently available ones were trained on data that was copyrighted or otherwise not given with explicit permission. That's a fair argument to have, but as far as the info just in the OP tweet is concerned, I don't see a basis to deny someone using a text-to-image tool any more than you would deny someone using a digital pencil over a lead one.

HudGard posted...

Doesnt the AI scrub the internet for existing images to compile into the result? So youre actually like 2 or 3 degrees removed from the art at that point.

Yes, an AI model for generating art would train itself on huge amounts of existing images

Robot2600 posted...

what a tool. i learned to draw about 28 years ago. drawing's fun i never got why ppl didnt like to draw.

Drawing is difficult and time consuming and it looks like ass if you're not good enough and if I got good enough, I'd draw hentai but like I heard hentai artists get so used to drawing boobies that they don't get turned on by the boobies they draw and then it's just a job. I want to draw beautiful boobies AND admire them.

let's be honest. no one ever cared about "artists" anyway, so why is anyone trying to make excuses for what "art" or "artist" means? we're just here to argue semantics and forget about the whole subject entirely?

if art looks good, we care. if it doesn't, no one cares. that's how it's always been. and this is coming from someone who has dedicated their life to art and creativity. this is how it is.

I don't understand the discussion. What's an AI art apologist?

Close to realizing what? I'm so confused right now

The general utility of AI will eventually phase out a lot of the bottom tier, commission-only artists, but it will probably be a good while before it can match what extraordinarily good artists can put out. Though, who knows how quick this stuff will develop. Could be completely wrong and next year we'll see the first game with entirely AI generated art. I fear the day when they start making AI-generated mobile games and flood the market with them even more than the current trash.

Nemu posted...

Could be completely wrong and next year we'll see the first game with entirely AI generated art. I fear the day when they start making AI-generated mobile games and flood the market with them even more than the current trash.

Might be an improvement at this point.

C_Pain posted...

I don't understand the discussion. What's an AI art apologist?

Someone who will laud AI-created art as being "good enough" to replace art performed by humans, and yes, these people exist.

As has been referenced in this topic, the idea from a business standpoint is that this technology will replace hobbyists or commission-only artists.

Art is art

A rock can be art.

Drawing is absolutely fucking excruciating and the difficulty level outright embarrasses any video game I've ever played but it is also addictive like a video game and every now and then you get this very primal sense of accomplishment.

These AI art people remind me of those Gmod/SFM people who're all in favor of AI voices over sentence mixing and animation tools that fill the gap between a start and end point over hand animating something. Mostly in it to farm ad revenue on YT and want to mass produce SFM adaptations of other videos and references to popular things without much strain or hassle. Disappointing people.

I wouldn't characterize such a group as just "Gmod/SFM people" as Gmod machinima is an absolutely painstaking process. There are a lot of fellows who still work in Gmod and have really elevated their level of output. I did once see a video that was "[excellent machinima] remastered in SFM" or something to that effect and it had none of the joy of the original's movement. But sadly the comments were impressed. Very similar to how people seem to prefer "60 FPS versions" of anime OPs and scenes online, where the 60 is just arrived at by interpolating in-between frames resulting in an uncanny movement pacing.

Nemu posted...

The general utility of AI will eventually phase out a lot of the bottom tier, commission-only artists, but it will probably be a good while before it can match what extraordinarily good artists can put out.

Look out, DeviantArt.

While on one hand I disagree with him since I don't think I could jerk it to ai generated art like I can with some good ol fasioned hentai.

On the other hand the concept of "learning to draw for years just so you can see something" makes me want to vomit since I despise drawing and the thought of spending years learning to draw makes me sick.

The real solution for this dude is just to commission a drawing of a dog in a straw hat.

gunplagirl posted...

I literally just typed up stuff relating to the subject, on the matter of if the AI make art and if the people who use the programs are artists.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_Work_of_Art

I don't think it's art as the AI lack any id and as such can't meaningfully interact with a culture. They're merely a tool and as such cannot independently produce art. But a person who merely takes what was made by the AI also can't be an artist as they only used a tool and everything the tool made without any meaningful creative process.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/9/1/AAEqD0AADvAv.jpg

Tech people suck, in general tbh

There's been an influx of techbros on social media really pushing the AI art stuff. There's probably something more insidious behind it knowing these freaks.

TheGoldenEel posted...

Tech people suck, in general tbh

I should amend this.

the people that make stuff like AI art generators etc are brilliant and creative

its these tech bros who come at this with not actual skill whatsoever and only see the business applications for shit like this that are insufferable

TheGoldenEel posted...

I should amend this.

the people that make stuff like AI art generators etc are brilliant and creative

its these tech bros who come at this with not actual skill whatsoever and only see the business applications for shit like this that are insufferable

This. The people who make these generators are cool, as the generators themselves are absolutely unique phenomenon; works of art themselves. The "tech bro" leaches are just the new breed of NFT sleaze. Or, the same old breed.

Doe posted...

I wouldn't characterize such a group as just "Gmod/SFM people" as Gmod machinima is an absolutely painstaking process. There are a lot of fellows who still work in Gmod and have really elevated their level of output. I did once see a video that was "[excellent machinima] remastered in SFM" or something to that effect and it had none of the joy of the original's movement. But sadly the comments were impressed. Very similar to how people seem to prefer "60 FPS versions" of anime OPs and scenes online, where the 60 is just arrived at by interpolating in-between frames resulting in an uncanny movement pacing.

Oh I'm all too familiar. I'm only so cynical because it was my favorite thing for a while.
Gmod for the past decade or so has been working quite hard to go from what it was to SFM lite though. They have ragdoll movers that take the chaos out of the posing and moving, Stop motion helper gives everything this soulless look. If you watch for it it's mostly characters robotically zooming from pose to pose, makes you realise how endearing a bit of human error can make a video. The AI voices are on another level though, with these things it's become easier than ever to mass produce nothing-videos. Lots of videos are just "The mercs argue about a list of things I, the creator of the video am fond of and announce the positives of each." and these things do get substantial viewcounts. There's even a stand tool pose for people who cannot pick up the ragdoll or deem doing so an excessive waste of time. The hardware morph flailing epidemic is still going thanks to tools allowing further distortion of models. It feels like years ago Gmod was distilled down to a couple of formulas for successful videos, most borrow some the same pool of established jokes, contemporary references, Rubberfruit videos and all that.
The latest one which I really don't like is fighting game recreations. I can hardly watch these guys have a fight anymore without it being 2D, health bars on screen and the fight actually being a re-creation of pre-existing combos from fighting games. I've given up on the whole but it's very difficult not to come back every now and then and see how things have deteriorated.

As for SFM, I've never liked it beyond the meet the team videos. Production values sucked the fun and spontaneity out of the whole Gmod/SFM scene. It's what I blame for the outbreak of lore-friendly videos people make where everyone's in character and the name is always some sort of pun with "Mann" or "Fortress" in the title. Saxxies are also partially to blame for this too.

It used to be a game that people, through creative solutions, managed to use as video making software. Nowadays it's video making software and while the obstacles have disappeared, so have the creative solutions, for the most part at least. Give me chaos filled with outlandish depictions of characters and peoples' dumb OCs any day.