Is AI Art good or bad?

[SwimModSponges]

For real though, this whole engagement is like that scene in jurassic park where they're discussing the ethics of genetic power, and im just over here banging silverware on the table shouting "DI-NO-SAURS! DI-NO-SAURS! DI-NO-SAURS!"

Very on-brand for me .

[scoobdog]

1 hour ago, SwimModSponges said:

But they're not, that's  the whole point of the third part of your argument. 

The AI is making shit thats all fucked up.

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.

[SwimModSponges]

We just went through the explanation of why that's not what it does.

[Raptorpat]

18 hours ago, SwimModSponges said:

the consensus is thus: I am being Hillary Clinton. I am speaking from a place of privelege and detachment.

[SwimModSponges]

Now thats stealing art.

[scoobdog]

6 hours ago, SwimModSponges said:

We just went through the explanation of why that's not what it does.

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

[SwimModSponges]

Why?

[SwimModSponges]

Aight, listen- as far as I'm concerned there are 4 main arguments in this thread and  we're all mostly in agreement on at least half of them.

1. Automation causes real harm to the individuals who find themselves outcompeted on the job market by machines.

- Full agreement. Myself, being a retail manager at a not-for profit organization rather than a professional artist, am speaking from a place of priveleged detachment (though my career [as well as the careers of most others] is just as likely in danger of automation due to the rapid pace of advancements in AI). I am therefore being insensitive to the realities of others and I am sorry for my excitement. 

2. It is not accurate to call the individual designing prompts an "artist". Nor is the AI itself an "artist".

- Full agreement. Every day billions of people experience inspiration. The vast majority forget about it almost as quickly as it popped into their heads or are otherwise uninterested or incapable of pursing it. A fraction of that billionth, however, are special. Most have spent year- decades honing their craft, and the works these people are capable of are monumental by the very definition of the word. These amazing examples of humanity are artists. And these people deserve a whoooooole lot more respect and reverence that society currently gives them. That same society which restricts the available numbers of such incredible individuals through myriads of barriers to entry of the craft, be it financially due to cost of materials or just the inability to spare the time needed to see their inspiration to fruition. Some of those folks stumbled upon this AI and type things into it. Those people are not artists. Full stop. The AI, though technically incredible in its creations, is inherently devoid of both agency and inspiration. The AI is not an artist. Full stop.

3. Images created through Human/AI collaboration are not art.

- Strong disagreement with the caveat that inherently it's a matter of taste. To paraphrase the precedent set by Jacobellis V. Ohio (1964), "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography " "art"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it." - Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart. You cannot tell me that you feel nothing when you look at an image just because you know it was done with AI. No, sorry, I phrased that badly. Art is subjective, and if you reject images made through AI, I accept your views. It's art in my eyes. And it's ok. Hell, I mean I've seen legitimate pornography I would define as art as well. That's me though.  There's no accounting  for taste, baby.

4. AI art is theft.

- Hard no. This statement is factually incorrect when one takes a moment to understand how the process actually works. It's just not true, and I will not budge on this.

[scoobdog]

On 12/23/2022 at 10:05 PM, SwimModSponges said:

Why?

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.

[SwimModSponges]

1 hour ago, scoobdog said:

To put this disagreement to bed.  You obviously are talking about something far different than everyone else is talking about. I don't understand this. I assume we're still on point #4? If what I'm talking about is different from what everyone else is talking about; what I'm talking about is how the process actually works on a technical level.  If you can generate an AI piece, then you can use it to illustrate the process that you’ve been describing. I mean not really, it's literally a black box. On page 1 I posted an article about how scientists are literally getting to the point that they don't know how the AIs actually work. Again, somebody didn't write a program to go out and steal pictures to mash together. They built a simplistic model of a brain and let it do its thing. 

All right, so... there's prolly a "gotcha" I'm walking into with this, but sure- I'll post something I used AI to generate.

And I'll use a good one instead of just typing "deez nuts" into the prompt bar. But goddamn it was a close call.

So, I'll give you the whole story first I suppose.

One day I saw a youtube video of some people taking an egg, encasing it in plastic resin, letting it sit for a few months, then cutting that motherfucker open to see what it do. Pretty interesting. I get this thought in my head one day... what about a space man? Y'ever see that episode of Futurama where Bender gets shot out into space and ends up being a god to a race of tiny people that grew a society on him? Well what about that, only darker. There's this line I like in a Manson  song of the Mechanical Animals album, about being a dead astronaut in space. Like... space man dies out there, floats off forever. Millions of years go bye and the soup he rotted into becomes the primordial stew for another race of microscopic alien beings existing wholly within the universe of his space suit... Fun to think about that. Actually that thought sticks in my head for a couple weeks. I mean it's not exactly an original idea I'm sure, but it popped into my head, I enjoy it... I figure I should try to maybe do something with it. Can't art for shit anymore. Loved to in high school, was never honestly any good, but loved it.  Arted a bit during lockdown, and I mean it was ok. I mean I was still terrible- actually honestly I'd say I drew exactly as well now as I did in the past- but I mean... just wasn't feeling it. Started brewing my own alcohol instead, man that was an incredibly good decision on my part. Anyways, I toss a couple sentences into my "novel ideas" word file, give it a few notes on some rough structure, protagonists, antagonists... Figure if we ever have another writing contest I adapt that story, but honestly I'd probably never have the chance to make it a point to sit down and write the story out otherwise. Still it's a fun idea, and I'm glad I got it out into words.

This was all happening around the time that the general public was first being allowed access to the AI, prior to that it was an entirely academic sphere. I figure, shit, put my name in the hat, see what happens. Like some real Charlie and the Chocolate factory vibes going on here. Eventually I get in, and after I use the AI to generate a couple leprechauns on acid (literally typed the first thing that came to my head when I got on. So excited.), I remember that story idea I had. Man, how the fuck you even sum that idea up in a single image, much less a string of words to describe that image? Man, this is gonna be a big ol' thinking session..... ... ....... ... ....... Aight. I got it. Rough idea in my head of what image direction I want to go with. Now to put that shit to words. Knock out the easy stuff, the type of composition, the context the image is in, the framing of the image, lighting, color saturation (I like it. a lot.), any other particular effects on the image... get into describing what the image actually depicts. Detailed as I can be. Scoob baby you know I can paint a room with words. Hammering it on home. How does the image make you feel? Disturbed? Hopeful? Melancholic? Forbodin-er..forboded? I really wanted there to be a distinction between light and dark, like the land in the sunlight of the spaceman's mask is this bright glistening city, but there's real darkness lurking down in the bones of the suit, or something like that. So I end up typing up like a paragraph and a half into this thing, and excitedly hit the button.

What happens now is very exciting. The AI reads what I am describing and uses its own neural network to form in its own mind a rough image of what I was describing. This is where I'd explain how the neural network works and the fact that its a black box etc, but I've done that in like 5 different posts now so eh.

In any case, what came back wasn't at all what I was going for though. I go back to refine my prompt, change a few sentences around, get things that work better or worse, finally I generate an image that's got real potential. So, I open it in paint, move some things around, feed it back through... yes, yes, now we're getting somewhere. Lets do that again a few times, yep that's about perfect. Well, no- eye sockets don't look right. Top of helmet too. And the background. redo the background. Yes, yes that's pretty.

All told, whole thing took about two hours I'd say.

And the urge to post a generated image of "deez nuts" is incredibly strong.

But no, here you go.

I (not an artist) used an AI (not an artist) to generate art (it's pretty [and also not stolen]).

 

[scoobdog]

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?

[matrixman124]

It's very simple. This isn't AI. AI is a buzzword. This is machine learning scraping existing works without their owners' permission and making art based on that input via prompts. Without that dubious scraping, there would be no output.

It's fine if you use this as a learning tool to become a better artist. It's fine if you share AI art casually like many of us are doing here. That's fine.

It's an entirely different matter having folks submitting AI art or barely cleaned up AI art as a work.  It's no wonder that many of the folks going all in on it were big into crypto. They think they can be artists with advanced enough tech when they are basically patrons telling the program what to do.

[scoobdog]

1 hour ago, matrixman124 said:

It's very simple. This isn't AI. AI is a buzzword. This is machine learning scraping existing works without their owners' permission and making art based on that input via prompts. Without that dubious scraping, there would be no output.

It's fine if you use this as a learning tool to become a better artist. It's fine if you share AI art casually like many of us are doing here. That's fine.

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.

[matrixman124]

7 hours ago, scoobdog said:

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.

It's a valuable learning tool for an artist.

You can use it to brainstorm new ideas, experiment with different kinds of form, etc.

The same as a tablet being a useful tool for a digital artist.

[scoobdog]

1 hour ago, matrixman124 said:

It's a valuable learning tool for an artist.

You can use it to brainstorm new ideas, experiment with different kinds of form, etc.

The same as a tablet being a useful tool for a digital artist.

There is room for nuance, but the AI isn’t critiquing your work, it’s providing an alternate vision to yours.  That’s fine when you’re using human artists as a gauge and inspiration.  An AI, however, is devoid of emotion, leaving just its (limited) technique as a source of collaboration.  How much you can derive from its product remains to be seen in such a limited scope.

[matrixman124]

1 hour ago, scoobdog said:

There is room for nuance, but the AI isn’t critiquing your work, it’s providing an alternate vision to yours.  That’s fine when you’re using human artists as a gauge and inspiration.  An AI, however, is devoid of emotion, leaving just its (limited) technique as a source of collaboration.  How much you can derive from its product remains to be seen in such a limited scope.

It entirely depends on if you want to use it to improve your own work or not. My problem is when people use it to supplant their work or replace any manual work. 

A good example is Shexyo. He was touching up AI generated art poorly and selling it on Patreon. He rightfully got in a lot of trouble for that.

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by matrixman124

[SwimModSponges]

Ok, so, I have to be brief today because this is my last chance to start my next batch of alcohol before the end of the year.

Hang on, first off I just made this and thought it was funny.

[matrixman124]

3 minutes ago, SwimModSponges said:

Ok, so, I have to be brief today because this is my last chance to start my next batch of alcohol before the end of the year.

Hang on, first off I just made this and thought it was funny.

Is this about me?

[scoobdog]

4 minutes ago, matrixman124 said:

Is this about me?

I think it's about Sponges himself.  He likes to make things even more complicated.

[matrixman124]

Also a lot of crypto folks have been going all in on AI art. I get spammed with shit like this like when I was being spammed with NFT and altcoin junk.

So I think it's very key to understand how the tech is implemented changes it's benevolent or malevolent properties.

Edited December 28, 2022 by matrixman124

[SwimModSponges]

14 hours ago, scoobdog said:

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?

Let's take this abstract idea of a duck and replace it with a concrete example. Anime fan art. Man, love me some Bleach. Really love the way Tite Kubo draws, his line style, alladat. Made this picture. Looks almost exactly like official artwork. Tite Kubo comes up and says "hey, that looks exactly like my art." I say "thanks, I tried to copy your style exactly." Tite Kubo say "neat. you uh, gonna draw her naked now?"

(Jesus christ, 2 new replies so far and I haven't even got to the first two. Gonna be here all day again)

People have been replicating images they liked since we were first able to replicate images. Varying degrees of success. Some fan art will look like hot garbage, some of it legitimately would be indiscernible from the original. It's been fine so far without anyone straight-up calling it theft. I don't know, do you think fan art is theft? I mean I suppose inherently it is using copyrighted characters, so case closed I guess? Well shit. Suppose it isn't though. Suppose there's some loophole. I didn't exactly "trace" it, I saw the character, studied your work, then created a new image of your work in as close a style as I could replicate. The image, though pretty-well indistinguishable from your work (except the hands, always fuck up the hands ) came from my head and my hand. Right? Well, I mean that's literally how the AI works too. There are two qualifications for this argument.  

1. The original image is not saved or stored perfectly within the mind - Your memory is not photographic. Your mind works as a series of densely connected concepts you've garnered throughout your experience. It's a black box and you can't see the individual connections, but the gestalt of them make up the thought. That's how the AI was built too.

(fuck three replies. gotta be brief)

2. The output image originated from an entirely unique point and the results came about through your own actions - The AI doesn't go out onto the internet, find a picture to use as a base, and modify it from there. That would take for-fucking ever. The AI also does not have a database of stored images to pull from and then modify. That would take for-fucking ever and require storage like you wouldn't believe- literally the internet's worth of pictures. AI takes its tangled concept web and generates an image-static seed. This random combination of pixels exists nowhere else on earth. Using its concept web, the AI looks for patterns in the static that reflect the thoughts and ideas presented. It then refines the pixels around those outline pixels to create the final image.

Yes, the AI inherently sees an image not produced by someone else and posted on the internet- the seed image it projects onto.

13 hours ago, matrixman124 said:

It's very simple. This isn't AI. AI is a buzzword. This is machine learning scraping existing works without their owners' permission and making art based on that input via prompts. Without that dubious scraping, there would be no output.

No, that's not how that works and I'm not explaining it any more.

It's fine if you use this as a learning tool to become a better artist. It's fine if you share AI art casually like many of us are doing here. That's fine.

Thank you I appreciate the permission. I'm sorry that was dickish and I'm trying to work on that. But legit, I'm glad we agree on some legitimate applications.

It's an entirely different matter having folks submitting AI art or barely cleaned up AI art as a work. "Submitting", like, an assignment? contests? Work? I mean the first one would obviously be cheating. There's also AI that can write an entirely unique, non plagiarized, accurately cited, A+ paper on economics. Contests- I mean hand-made art contests? Definitely but I really think there's room for like AI-only contests too- I mean you gotta have an idea and a decent handle at writing a  prompt, I'd say it's legit. Work? Well, fuck the free market, that's for sure.  It's no wonder that many of the folks going all in on it were big into crypto. I mean a certain segment of the populations inherently overlap being that both were pretty big things online, but I don't think that's fair to say considering the original userbase was pretty much all AI engineers, graphic scientists, researchers etc. They think they can be artists with advanced enough tech when they are basically patrons telling the program what to do. Calling AI users artist? No. We already agreed on that. Patron? No I don't think that word really fits either. I'm full on with calling them "prompt engineers". Of everything I think that defines what they do best.

 

[SwimModSponges]

11 hours ago, scoobdog said:

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.

Woohoo I'm right. 

4 hours ago, matrixman124 said:

It's a valuable learning tool for an artist.

You can use it to brainstorm new ideas, experiment with different kinds of form, etc.

The same as a tablet being a useful tool for a digital artist.

Agree to a point, it's an interesting tool, honestly I'd say it's best utility for an artist would be solidifying inspiration. 

2 hours ago, scoobdog said:

There is room for nuance, but the AI isn’t critiquing your work, it’s providing an alternate vision to yours.  That’s fine when you’re using human artists as a gauge and inspiration.  An AI, however, is devoid of emotion, leaving just its (limited) technique as a source of collaboration.  How much you can derive from its product remains to be seen in such a limited scope.

And I'll agree with that first statement pretty well. Collaboration is, I think the operational word here. You bring the inspiration and emotion, AI provides technical skill.

1 hour ago, matrixman124 said:

It entirely depends on if you want to use it to improve your own work or not. My problem is when people use it to supplant their work or replace any manual work. 

A good example is Shexyo. He was touching up AI generated art poorly and selling it on Patreon. He rightfully got in a lot of trouble for that.

 

I don't care if anyone wants to supplant or replace any of their own manual work. It's their work. Folks selling AI generated images? I mean, I've seen AI images I'd really like to put on my wall. Would it be ethical of me to just download and print off the picture? Fuck, I don't know. You know what I saw one time? This business- you send them $50 and a picture of your dog and they photoshop their heads onto one of five historical portraits and mail you the print. Shit I don't know how to feel about that one either.

53 minutes ago, matrixman124 said:

Is this about me?

Scrolled though quickly before I jumped into the argument, saw scoob saying I was right, saw you calling AI a buzzword. 

48 minutes ago, scoobdog said:

I think it's about Sponges himself.  He likes to make things even more complicated.

Goddamn ain't that the truth.

28 minutes ago, matrixman124 said:

Also a lot of crypto folks have been going all in on AI art. I get spammed with shit like this like when I was being spammed with NFT and altcoin junk.

So I think it's very key to understand how the tech is implemented changes it's benevolent or malevolent properties.

I have no idea what that tweet means, NFTs are just so goddamn stupid and those crypto goobers are just... goobers.

[scoobdog]

12 minutes ago, matrixman124 said:

It entirely depends on if you want to use it to improve your own work or not. My problem is when people use it to supplant their work or replace any manual work. 

A good example is Shexyo. He was touching up AI generated art poorly and selling it on Patreon. He rightfully got in a lot of trouble for that.

 

That's an obvious case of artistic dishonesty.  That also leads to the question of "How can AI generated images become art?"

Sponges has, to this point, not really touched on the actual definition of art.  For most people the Potter Stewart definition is sufficient, but AI forces us to reckon with art as a social implement, both as a means of conveyance and as a form of currency.  How much investment the artist puts into the art directly correlates to how much value it has as a conveyance but only partially correlates to its value as currency.  That brings us to our second point of divergence:  how much does the AI generated image's value as a conveyance determine its status as art?

If Shexyo is selling retouched AI work, the theft isn't so much in the fact he used AI, it's in the fact that he failed to disclose his use of AI.  The fundamental disconnect here is between those who purchase art and the artists themselves, namely how each defines art.  If it's a commodity, then provenance is part of how an image is appraised along with its aesthetic qualities and the difficulty with which it can be duplicated (as a genre piece, that is).  Yet, art isn't pursued as commodity explicitly.  If you trace the career paths of some of the artists that were most successful in their own lifetime, you notice that nominal value for their work doesn't correlate to the actual value.  A lot of them succeed through ancillary factors, like a patronage with a wealthy client, lucrative speaking engagements, or other fame related benefits, meaning there's a distinct difference between the cost of replacement for the art and the cost of replacement for the artist.  Such a distinction is important because it suggests that you can't use the art's value as a unique piece, an element of currency, to define it as art because the cost of replacement varies throughout the lifetime of the artwork and art itself is a static definition.  In this respect, Sponges is also right.

However, if it still holds true that investment correlates into value as a conveyance, then it stands to reason that its value as standalone art also correlates with that investment.  We don't just define art by its final product, we also include the various elements that comprise the completed work as having value.  In traditional art that might include the brushstrokes and peculiar pigment choices of the artist, but in digital art, that means more of how component elements are juxtapostioned and then "built upon" to create the final image.  (A familiar artistic trope is that no piece of art is ever truly complete, in part because each piece reflects not just on it's predecessors but provides a blueprint to future evolutions in the artist's techniques.)  With AI, the investment is mostly on the part of the computer because (as mentioned in a previous post) the only thing it can't perform itself is to "see" what needs to be reinterpreted into the new unique image.  Just as with a human artist, the AI "artist" is using past images not just to inspire its work but also to develop its technique and, also like a human, it can't create a final product and still learn from the process.  It's hard to overstate how contentious this point is, though:  by failing to see and emotionally interpret the inputs that are used to create the image, it's missing a very large piece of investment.  AI might be able to manipulate how the image is received by learning how to adjust perspective or how to use color that elicits an emotional response, but it's not sentient... it has no reaction to the images it uses.  At the very least, that suggests its worth as a language is limited by what it can't provide.

[scoobdog]

20 minutes ago, SwimModSponges said:

And I'll agree with that first statement pretty well. Collaboration is, I think the operational word here. You bring the inspiration and emotion, AI provides technical skill.

How do you do that?  Let's assume that you're not just providing the AI with prompts, you're also limiting its sources by only allowing it to use photographs you took yourself as primary inspiration (for POV, base colors, and peripheral landscape elements) and curating related images that can only be used as indirect secondary inspiration (color juxtapositions and degree of focus).  How are the choices it makes to interpret your vision also conveying emotional elements you can't express in prompt form?

[SwimModSponges]

1 hour ago, scoobdog said:

That's an obvious case of artistic dishonesty.  That also leads to the question of "How can AI generated images become art?"

Sponges has, to this point, not really touched on the actual definition of art.  For most people the Potter Stewart definition is sufficient, but AI forces us to reckon with art as a social implement, both as a means of conveyance and as a form of currency.  How much investment the artist puts into the art directly correlates to how much value it has as a conveyance but only partially correlates to its value as currency.  That brings us to our second point of divergence:  how much does the AI generated image's value as a conveyance determine its status as art?

Aight, let's say the Potter Stewart definition cuts it and the discussion of "what is art, really?" that AI forces us to have is just a fun little side-expedition.  

If Shexyo is selling retouched AI work, the theft isn't so much in the fact he used AI, it's in the fact that he failed to disclose his use of AI.  The fundamental disconnect here is between those who purchase art and the artists themselves, namely how each defines art.  If it's a commodity, then provenance is part of how an image is appraised along with its aesthetic qualities and the difficulty with which it can be duplicated (as a genre piece, that is).  Yet, art isn't pursued as commodity explicitly.  If you trace the career paths of some of the artists that were most successful in their own lifetime, you notice that nominal value for their work doesn't correlate to the actual value.  A lot of them succeed through ancillary factors, like a patronage with a wealthy client, lucrative speaking engagements, or other fame related benefits, meaning there's a distinct difference between the cost of replacement for the art and the cost of replacement for the artist.  Such a distinction is important because it suggests that you can't use the art's value as a unique piece, an element of currency, to define it as art because the cost of replacement varies throughout the lifetime of the artwork and art itself is a static definition.  In this respect, Sponges is also right.

Fuck yeah, I'm on fire today.

However, if it still holds true that investment correlates into value as a conveyance, then it stands to reason that its value as standalone art also correlates with that investment.  We don't just define art by its final product, we also include the various elements that comprise the completed work as having value.  In traditional art that might include the brushstrokes and peculiar pigment choices of the artist, but in digital art, that means more of how component elements are juxtapostioned and then "built upon" to create the final image.  (A familiar artistic trope is that no piece of art is ever truly complete, in part because each piece reflects not just on it's predecessors but provides a blueprint to future evolutions in the artist's techniques.)  With AI, the investment is mostly on the part of the computer because (as mentioned in a previous post) the only thing it can't perform itself is to "see" what needs to be reinterpreted into the new unique image.  Just as with a human artist, the AI "artist" is using past images not just to inspire its work but also to develop its technique and, also like a human, it can't create a final product and still learn from the process.  It's hard to overstate how contentious this point is, though:  by failing to see and emotionally interpret the inputs that are used to create the image, it's missing a very large piece of investment.  AI might be able to manipulate how the image is received by learning how to adjust perspective or how to use color that elicits an emotional response, but it's not sentient... it has no reaction to the images it uses.  At the very least, that suggests its worth as a language is limited by what it can't provide.

AI can't "love", but I'd argue it knows what love is. Again it's a black box so you can't see the actual connections going on between concepts, but if you define the emotional tone you want to see in the piece the AI will recognize what that means. But again, we don't know exactly what the black box does. It understands encouragement; an AI set up to solve math problems was found to improve its performance when "good job, now lets do another!" was added to the prompt.

 

1 hour ago, scoobdog said:

How do you do that?  Let's assume that you're not just providing the AI with prompts, you're also limiting its sources by only allowing it to use photographs you took yourself as primary inspiration (for POV, base colors, and peripheral landscape elements) and curating related images that can only be used as indirect secondary inspiration (color juxtapositions and degree of focus).  How are the choices it makes to interpret your vision also conveying emotional elements you can't express in prompt form?

You'd need a lot more data to create a sufficient neural network. It doesn't just rely on pictures, it replies on descriptions, discussions, analysis, the tone in which those discussions and analyses are presented. It knows the difference between someone describing an image that makes them angry because of its inherent message versus an image that makes them angry due to lack of quality, etc. And all of those things would fall under the secondary inspiration images.  As far as prompt work I'd say you can do a decent job of describing emotions through text. I mean that's a lot of what we do as humans.

[scoobdog]

31 minutes ago, SwimModSponges said:

AI can't "love", but I'd argue it knows what love is. Again it's a black box so you can't see the actual connections going on between concepts, but if you define the emotional tone you want to see in the piece the AI will recognize what that means. But again, we don't know exactly what the black box does. It understands encouragement; an AI set up to solve math problems was found to improve its performance when "good job, now lets do another!" was added to the prompt.

The question isn’t whether it knows how to portray an emotion or even elicit that emotion.  The question is whether it can have its own emotional interpretation of what you provide it.  You’ve already pointed out that the person giving the prompts isn’t an artist, but if not, who is?  Art still has to created by an artist.  Can the AI be considered an artist if it’s perspective is incomplete?

[scoobdog]

37 minutes ago, SwimModSponges said:

 

You'd need a lot more data to create a sufficient neural network. It doesn't just rely on pictures, it replies on descriptions, discussions, analysis, the tone in which those discussions and analyses are presented. It knows the difference between someone describing an image that makes them angry because of its inherent message versus an image that makes them angry due to lack of quality, etc. And all of those things would fall under the secondary inspiration images.  As far as prompt work I'd say you can do a decent job of describing emotions through text. I mean that's a lot of what we do as humans.

Indeed, but can any of that truly make it feel an emotion?

[SwimModSponges]

I'd argue again that the collaboration results in the gestalt.

Two entities which, in and of themselves, lack a particular part of the equation that the other makes up for.

The father doesn't have the abilty to gestate, the mother doesn't have the ability to fertilize.

A bit of a skewed metaphor, but it creates art nonetheless. 

[SwimModSponges]

I mean, can a synthesizer feel emotion? 

 

[SwimModSponges]

And to tie it all back to Mass Effect...

So I can't find the clip to confirm, but if I recall correctly the Star Child explains something like- biological life keeps creating synthetics because we strive for technical "perfection",  whereas synthetic life keeps taking over and killing everyone because they strive for an understanding of what y'all'ed consider a soul.

Put that shit together and it's like chocolate and peanut butter except I don't like chocolate and peanut butter.

[scoobdog]

3 hours ago, SwimModSponges said:

I'd argue again that the collaboration results in the gestalt.

Two entities which, in and of themselves, lack a particular part of the equation that the other makes up for.

The father doesn't have the abilty to gestate, the mother doesn't have the ability to fertilize.

A bit of a skewed metaphor, but it creates art nonetheless. 

It is a skewed metaphor and that's problematic because, unlike coitus, you're not working in tandem with the computer (or you shouldn't be).  Both sexual partners have a visceral emotional response to the act and, while it's not likely to be the same for both, both responses are valid and collectively define the act of intimacy.  If we're going to be crude about it, a marginally better comparison would be you and an inflatable sex doll:  Maybe you can't have an orgasm without the doll, but having sex with it isn't going to make it feel anything.

Stupid examples aside, the point here is that this isn't an equation.  The emotional intent of your parent images aren't going to be passed on to the AI:  it's going to guess at what you are feeling and project it on to the image with generic results.  An image created by an AI is going to be different than one created by you even with the exact same source material as influence, and it's necessarily going to be deficient.  How, then, can the AI be considered an artist if it can't full generate the image you tell it to?

[SwimModSponges]

AI isn't an artist. Neither is the human using it.

Bread isn't a sandwich. Neither is peanut butter. 

But there you go.

[scoobdog]

3 hours ago, SwimModSponges said:

AI isn't an artist. Neither is the human using it.

Bread isn't a sandwich. Neither is peanut butter. 

But there you go.

Doesn't answer the question, though.  If neither is the artist... who is?

[SwimModSponges]

Listen if you're not going to accept that the intetplay between man and machine can create something greater than the sum of its parts then we're stuck.

Its the freaking spirit of the radio man.

 

[cyberbully]

So, intersting article but not because of the shitty image that is in no way original but is supposedly gaining internet traction.

Intersting for the fact that the people using differnt prompts to alter it are being called artists.  This is the glaring problem. Its devaluing the entire industry when just anyone can flaunt thier talent of tenacity when it comes to not being bored easily by creating hundreds of prompts just to get what you want.

Also, this article seems to refute some of the arguments or how the AI is collecting "information" for it's art.

 https://www.sciencealert.com/a-nightmare-face-is-haunting-ai-art-and-theres-a-reason-we-shouldnt-look-away

Edited December 30, 2022 by cyberbully

[SwimModSponges]

Nobody's using prompts to alter a specific image, the article states that people are generating their own images that seem to show this scary lady (its a really clickbaity title and the whole article is really only focussed on one dude's twitter so lets take that claim with a grain of salt anyways).

What that means is that one of the connections in the AI black box seems to have labeled that particular scary lady concept "loab" and will generate what it thinks a "loab" looks like just the same as if someone asked for something labeled "duck".

This is the only sentence in the article that has anything to do with how the AI collects information for its images.

Quote

The explosion of AI-generated art in recent months has sparked concerns that algorithms are ripping off artists by replicating their distinct styles.

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by SwimModSponges

[SwimModSponges]

Oh shit, that actually brings up another fun fact about the AI- its words are almost always fucked up, but there's a high degree of internal constisancy.

Similar to the way the article states that it's like a parallel creativity or something, its got its own parallel language it built too.

[SwimModSponges]

NVIDIA has just birthed a new AI.

Good stuff.

[cyberbully]

You are just reading what you want to read....I'll try again even though the theft aspect isn't my real qualm....Sooooo, 

 

[SwimModSponges]

I read the entire article. Both the things you claimed were in there weren't.*

As far as signatures, thats another thing the AI remembers, that people sign their work and where people sign their work. The robot isnt signing a name, its recognizing a pattern.

No original image has not been removed, copied, or modified in any way, an entirely new image has been generated. The image contains a squigly line in the bottom right corner because the AI saw a pattern of pixels in the noise that it generated that looked like it belonged there.

*the article writer did call people working with AI artists, which i disagree with too, so take that up with them.

Edited December 31, 2022 by SwimModSponges

[cyberbully]

1 hour ago, SwimModSponges said:

I read the entire article. Both the things you claimed were in there weren't.*

As far as signatures, thats another thing the AI remembers, that people sign their work and where people sign their work. The robot isnt signing a name, its recognizing a pattern.

No original image has not been removed, copied, or modified in any way, an entirely new image has been generated. The image contains a squigly line in the bottom right corner because the AI saw a pattern of pixels in the noise that it generated that looked like it belonged there.

*the article writer did call people working with AI artists, which i disagree with too, so take that up with them.

So if i take your paycheck, remove you from it, add my name but never remove your bosses sig, then its my check. Bet, good to know i didbt steal it and made something new and exciting.

Edit, just so you know, my completely ridiculous parallel is the show you just how wild it is that it simply copied what saw, but didnt plagiarize it in any way. That's absurd

Edited December 31, 2022 by cyberbully

[SwimModSponges]

Buddy its not copied. No image has been modified besides the randomly generated static one.

Thats like saying "i drew a check from memory and put a squiggle where the signature goes."

 

Edited December 31, 2022 by SwimModSponges

[SwimModSponges]

 

This guys got the right of it.

[SwimModSponges]

If you're iffy about watching it for 1.5 hours, you should know he proves some of my statements wrong.

Which ones?

You'll have to watch and find out.

[André Toulon]

4 hours ago, SwimModSponges said:

Buddy its not copied. No image has been modified besides the randomly generated static one.

Thats like saying "i drew a check from memory and put a squiggle where the signature goes."

 

Spell that shit right you European plant. I'm not going to go play with that machine myself but I'm sure that modified the image and since most ais produce several results, you cherry picked the shittiest one.....not sure what any of this is for anyway. 

You know I'm not watching that fucking video....

[SwimModSponges]

I actually cherrypicked the best one.

And it's a lie that any image was modified.

Simple as that.

The process by which the generation actually works has been spelled out for you several SEVERAL times.

Don't tell me you don't understand it for any  reason other than you're choosing what you want to see.

Edited January 1, 2023 by SwimModSponges

[André Toulon]

26 minutes ago, SwimModSponges said:

I actually cherrypicked the best one.

And it's a lie that any image was modified.

Simple as that.

The process by which the generation actually works has been spelled out for you several SEVERAL times.

Don't tell me you don't understand it for any  reason other than you're choosing what you want to see.

No dude, I completely understand your bloated post explaining how it learns how to be a more effective thief. But plain and simple, it wouldn't put these insignificant squiggly lines in it's finished product if it didn't look at someone else's finished product and thinks that it needed to include it because what it decided it wanted to emulate had it.

I mean, I've done several of these disingenuous back and forth s with you and I know better than to take this at face value, but unless it credits it's sources after such a blatant pull, it's ....ok, let's not call it theft, such an ugly word....it's just good ol plagiarism....That Trump made great again over the course of his term

Edited January 1, 2023 by André Toulon

[SwimModSponges]

Ok cool.

Every single piece of factual evidence posted in this thread has been in support of my argument on this issue.

Every piece.

All the facts in the world won't change an opinion, and you're entitled to yours.

My point has been proven many times over.

Edited January 1, 2023 by SwimModSponges

[cyberbully]

How. Because you say so. How can you defend the signature thing in good faith....because you dismissed the plagiarism as squiggly lines the ai just thought went there?

I mean its a pretty cut and dry fact that it took from another image because it had no idea how to improvise. 

But because you say you proved some point, that's that. 

Cool....I'd probably do the same....

Edited January 1, 2023 by cyberbully

[SwimModSponges]

Everyone abandoned that argument a page ago because i posted the exact way the process works.

Thats why scoob got us lost in the weeds with his "what is art" discussion. 

Legally, factually, and morally my argument is correct. 

You can plug your ears, refuse to understand the actual poibts of the argument, repeat over and over how you think it works, and throw out all the insults you want.

It doesn't matter. 

Im right.

Its been proven.

Many times.

You're making yourself look foolish.

And when you come back and shit all over the checkerboard claiming that you're right because you said so and don't care about the facts, imma just say "ok, cool."

Because you don't have facts.

You have an opinion.

Its based on a flawed understanding due to your chosing to be ignorant, but hey its what you think and its 100% ok for you to be wrong.

You gonna call me Hitler now? Because if calling people "Trump" is going to become the new Godwins Law...

Well actually thatd be hilarious so keep it up.