scoobdog

You can't script a result based solely on prompts, though. At least in that respect, Sponges is right - there is a learning curve involved in these programs that is greater than the sum of just the inputs and the results. I would also argue that it isn't a valuable learning tool because of the fact it has the ability to learn.

I assure you it's not a gotcha. I'm really trying to identify point of divergence in this argument because this is more complicated an argument than just theft versus coopting. Let's start with this: So, you're out for a drive along the Lake Michigan coast and you see a duck floating along as you drive. The duck isn't uniquely native to the lake, nor is it out of place. Let's say it's a fairly common Mallard. Now, after you get back home, you decide to paint the duck you just saw, so you get out canvas and start drawing a basic sketch you can will use as an outline for your painting. You don't much think of it while you're drawing but, as soon as you're done, you think for a moment.... "Is this the duck I saw or did I copy it from something else I've seen?" The simple answer is, of course, that it can't be a copy... you saw the duck on the lake; it's a common duck that a lot of people have seen; and there are only so many ways to interpret a duck that are unique. There is commonality in our view of the world that we share with all humans, so what is or isn't a copy is almost always determined by whether or not you have an identifiable source. Supposing another artist comes up, looks at your paining and says "that looks almost exactly like mine," they would have to prove that you not only have seen their painting but that it's more likely that your painting could only be produced through seeing that painting and not by a common experience like taking a drive along the lake coast. But, assuming you've seen that other painting, it’s also true that it had some kind of influence on your work, regardless of whether or not you thought about it when you were painting yours. This, then is the first point: you process other people's images like the AI does, but you also have the ability to see it yourself. Can the AI, likewise "see" an image not produced by someone else and posted in the internet?

To put this disagreement to bed. You obviously are talking about something far different than everyone else is talking about. If you can generate an AI piece, then you can use it to illustrate the process that you’ve been describing.

You had to see it. MTU intercepted the Aztecs on SDSU’s 25, then they proceeded to give up four straight sacks and ended up giving the Aztecs the ball back on downs on the Raider’s 45.

With some in just t-shirts.

Alright dude. Create some AI work for us and post its here.

It’s piecing together this “shit that’s all fucked up” from other people’s work. The AI didn’t take draw an original image of Donald Trump from a photo, it found drawings of Trump and incorporated them.

We wouldn’t be having this discussion if the pattern seeking components didn’t generate images that looked almost exactly like existing images.

You came off as abrasive? The fact is, to a person every opinion against has focused on the theft of existing images being the central issue against both AI art as truly "art" and AI as being a viable medium for that art. To be perfectly clear, AI artists are "lazy" because they're utilizing existing images created by someone {or something) else, and that is a completely valid complaint. You can't grab an image, modify it, and repurpose it as your own work - that is theft. Warhol pushed the boundary by utilizing "popular" images in mostly recognizable forms, but his work is displayed in art museums because it (1) modifies those images into their deconstructed parts and (2) is direct commentary on these images as part of popular culture (hence "Pop Art"). There is a lot of back-end and off-canvas work that goes into repurposing these images into high art, and that work reflects a specific framework in which that art can be viewed and appraised.

That is an excellent point: framing it not as a feds versus states but as states versus states does change things considerably.

You would think. There's a whole lot to lose when the inevitable detente between the feds and the legalized states is broken.

I think it's simpler than that. Politicians across the spectrum have other priorities and they're not motivated either to expend their political capital to get it passed or have no particular reason to budge on opposition. The fact that we've gone as long as we have with state legalized pot with no real interference by the feds leads a lot of legislators to mistakenly think they can continue to punt the issue.

I think @NewBluntsworth might be interested, but you’ll have to PM him I think.

I am not. I didn't say it wasn't art, I just said it served no real purpose. You serve no purpose. Sorry that was childish of me. But seriously, that argument is ridiculous. How can it serve no purpose? Conveying meaning, evoking emotion, aesthetic beauty in and of itself? Advertising by ghoulish corporations? Because it's used for all of those things, which inherently means those things be their purposes by transitive property of fuck all. (In FESTIVE GREEN!!!) See below, the image doesn't convey anything because it's just an image created by a third party. Even if I know what your prompts are, how do I know what your intent at the start was and what is the computer's choice? Art isn't just an image, it's an image the artist wants his viewers to see. Art as a form of expression ultimately is defined not by what it says but who it says it to. Art isn't defined by what it says. But who it says it to. What. Art is absolutely defined by what it says, I mean, how could it not be? And yes, the interpretation of the audience absolutely helps define what the art says. Art isn't defined by what it says: Hey boss, drew this pineapple. No reason. But who it says it to: I am your boss and I am moved by that pineapple. I said what I said. As a writer, i understand art as having a fundamental barrier. I can tell you a story and use the most precise language my skill allows, but there will always be a point where my interpretation of a character's words, actions, and intents are different than that of my readers. The same applies to visual art: I can paint you a forest scene at sunset, but what that scene means to you will never be exactly what it means to me. Therefore, art is created with the fundamental understanding you aren't manipulating your audience, you're giving them something you reasonably expect them to interpret a certain way. Prompting an AI to generate a clown Trump out of stolen drawings might certainly be a mirror to your own wants and desires and as a form of art that has some inherent value, but it says nothing to other people because it doesn't include any of your intellectual framework. It's just an image that you told an AI to create without any context. To Buddy's point... You're being intellectually dishonest comparing the lowest common denominator-appealing images instead of things that actual thought has gone into generating. My drawing a weiner on a piece of paper with a pen does not denigrate the medium. More than just expression, art is a form of language, or more accurately, a class of languages. Structuring this in terms of accomplishments and results tends to obscure the proper intent; there is, nonetheless, a component of effort that must be factored. DaVinci is the gold standard in this metric because he is almost always lauded for his technique rather than his subject matter. We don't have records of his artistic process either directly from him or by eyewitnesses, but we can actually see the brush strokes on his canvasses and see the choices of pigment for the paint in certain places. Now, with the use of x-ray, we can even see the evolution the painting, so we can actually piece together the progression of the painting from an earlier draft to a final piece. To make a somewhat hackneyed comparison, each brush stroke, scratch, color change is a different "word" in the collective "novel" that is the completed painting because those are individual parts that can be interpreted and directly contribute to the final piece. How much human effort into alteration of an AI generated work would allow the piece to be considered legitimate artwork? Someone generates a concept for an image, opens it in photoshop, and edits it until they're happy. How much editing is the threshold? Shit, how about someone creates their own original image, uploads it, and edits it slightly using the AI? Or edit it a lot using the AI? Because you can do that too. If you: (1) directy input the images used by he AI, (2) prompt the AI how to interpret those images, and (3) can explain the process the AI used to generate the result (as in can explain the AI's process for it) you will have created a legitimate work of art. Condition one almost certainly mandates you create your own parent images, but you very well could use images with the permission of their original creator / owner (in the manner of, say, Andy Warhol). You still need to tightly control what images are used and have an understanding before you use them on how they will be used. Like Buddy says, the person who inputs the prompts isn't creating anything. The tool isn't a dumb implement like a brush or a paint palette, it has the ability to make choices on its own, and, consequently, there are no brush strokes or pigments to analyze. The artist has no say other than the inputs he or she puts into the AI. He or she doesn't even have the ability to select which images can be used by the AI to create the amalgamation. As the tool is currently structured, the AI results can't be considered true art because the artist doesn't make all the choices to create the final work. I think there's already a spectrum of degrees of artistic control when it comes to legitimate work. Many artists have utilized a lack of control when it comes to their medium. Droplets of paint raining onto a canvas doesn't require the artist to make all the choices to create the final work. No artist truly lacks control of his own work. He may choose to use random variables as a part of the process, but he still has to have a final vision that the work will ultimately meet.

Have you already exchanged gifts? I only said what I said because I haven't heard anything on my end so I assumed nothing has happened yet.

I am not. I didn't say it wasn't art, I just said it served no real purpose. Art as a form of expression ultimately is defined not by what it says but who it says it to. Prompting an AI to generate a clown Trump out of stolen drawings might certainly be a mirror to your own wants and desires and as a form of art that has some inherent value, but it says nothing to other people because it doesn't include any of your intellectual framework. It's just an image that you told an AI to create without any context. To Buddy's point... More than just expression, art is a form of language, or more accurately, a class of languages. Structuring this in terms of accomplishments and results tends to obscure the proper intent; there is, nonetheless, a component of effort that must be factored. DaVinci is the gold standard in this metric because he is almost always lauded for his technique rather than his subject matter. We don't have records of his artistic process either directly from him or by eyewitnesses, but we can actually see the brush strokes on his canvasses and see the choices of pigment for the paint in certain places. Now, with the use of x-ray, we can even see the evolution the painting, so we can actually piece together the progression of the painting from an earlier draft to a final piece. To make a somewhat hackneyed comparison, each brush stroke, scratch, color change is a different "word" in the collective "novel" that is the completed painting because those are individual parts that can be interpreted and directly contribute to the final piece. Like Buddy says, the person who inputs the prompts isn't creating anything. The tool isn't a dumb implement like a brush or a paint palette, it has the ability to make choices on its own, and, consequently, there are no brush strokes or pigments to analyze. The artist has no say other than the inputs he or she puts into the AI. He or she doesn't even have the ability to select which images can be used by the AI to create the amalgamation. As the tool is currently structured, the AI results can't be considered true art because the artist doesn't make all the choices to create the final work.

My sympathies

How do keep your job?

@SwimModSponges: You’re ignoring the fundamental point of artifice in its entirety. Art serves no real purpose if it doesn’t offer a unique perspective, and none of this has a perspective in that sense.

I’ll expound on what i said in the other thread. AI as an artist’s tool could be a very versatile and compelling means of expression. The same rules that artists in other media have for depicting someone else’s work apply here. More importantly, it’s the effort one puts into using the AI tool - providing the prompts, explaining how those prompts created the image, and explicitly acknowledging (and paying for) the art used by the AI - that justifies the result being considered art. The problem so far is that AI is being used not for legitimate artistic endeavors but as a novelty. Trump as a clown or Sonic as … pregnant? … certainly owe their origins to legitimate fan art and, even then, they don’t express unusual or unique perspectives. The AI art I’ve seen can at best be described as almost exclusively aesthetic reinterpretations of existing work. That kind of exploration is mostly harmless if it’s traditional canvas and paint (or original graphic design), but it’s highly problematic when using other original work.

Two or three participants?

The only way an AI generated piece could ever be considered true art is if the "artist" who inputs the prompts reveals what prompts he or she used, explains how those prompts were turned into a image that is uniquely from his or perspective, and properly documented where all of the images used to amalgamate the final piece came from and who originally created them. You have to justify the effort put into the work to make it art.

Just a thought, but it might be a good idea to create some kind of theme. I know we're well past the time doing Secret Santa will work, but you could conceivably change this to an "Epiphany" themed secret gift giving if you're still interested.

CR7? Really?

That is what I was getting at: there is distinct difference between the artist and the art. Historically, things that would never have been considered art in the true sense (like a Golden Age statue of Aphrodite) are art now because that's how modern societies appraise them, and whether or not the creator considers himself an artist at the time, he is still that piece's artist. Being an artist doesn't imply he will be able to monetize his work or even be considered talented now or in the future, it just means he had a hand in creating an original piece of art.