Saying that your argument is based on a lack of familiarity with the topic being discussed is not.

I guess? But your insinuation that I have no familiarity with art, self expression or relevant fields is hurtful and an attack on my character.

I’ve spent enough time being upset that the best musicians of our age are forced to get second jobs while being upset at pop music before the advent of AI generated art. Corporate slop is still slop. Just because it was made in a boardroom instead of in a computer doesn’t give it any more soul.

I have also read about different fringe art styles, spent enough time on online , human generated art places to know what I enjoy and again, what I abhor due to the lazy, effort-free pieces they made that overshadowed better people.

I also messed around with AI art myself (NB : not “being an AI artist”, messed around with AI art generators). I also was interested in AI generated music by others, procedural generation of games, music and writing before the AI boom.

And let me assure you of a few things :

1. Re stating that yes, human beings also make unartistic slop which goes on to dominate human culture because it simply exploits markets and people that know no better.

2. a) Some of those sloppers found entire movements because of how their half assedness is a bold statement.

b) While ironically both de-legitimising and legitimising fields of art that would otherwise go un-noticed. Compare found objects with industrial design and set design. The initial idea is sound : what separates art from objects? Look at this thing and feel a feeling. Then after doing this shit for decades, we end up with basketballs in formaldehyde selling for millions. But again, Dieter Rams and other industrial designers have ideas they are communicating that deserve examination. Sets on films are also an underappreciated artform, but it’s “just finding a chair for a set”

3. a) There are two “axes” to art’s worth : what it means to a person, and the technical skill involved in making it. Some people aren’t artists. They might have “taste” or “desires” but no technical capability in executing it to a high degree of fidelity. Take children. When a child draws a portrait of a parent in about 30 seconds (I know that’s how long it takes my child, if I’m lucky), it is not “high fidelity”. The meaning, work and expression that drawing has for the parent and that child is more than all the Jackson Pollocks combined.

The AI artwork allows the person with no capability to express themselves in a field that was inaccessible to them before. Yes, AnYoNe CaN dRaW, but not to the degree they want to, without having to sacrifice so much time; perhaps time they literally cannot fucking afford.

b) Have you tried making art in a mechanically restrictive, not 100% controlled way? It takes a certain level of skill to make music by manipulating existing sounds with filters, or to make a piece of music relying on a specific piece of equipment like a guitar pedal to control not the pitch, but the timbre of the instrument. Or maybe you want to get a chicken to play the piano. These are also fringe ways of making art that isn’t 100% controlled, and relient on a manufactured machine , or non sapient animal. It’s still relevant, interesting and a worthwhile endeavour and a different way to express yourself.

c) Have you tried making art through AI? You too can stop basing your argument on a lack of familiarity if you want. I don’t mean slop “Make a cartoon of farm animals” into a generic supercomputer, actually fucking work with a raw ass, fine control seeking AI image generator. See how much effort you need to get something that looks both half decent and in line with what you’re trying to do. Because I’ve fucked around with it, and it needs at least some effort to make something that isn’t either mangled or completely sterile. You need some technical ability to get a balance of performance, fidelity, originality and certain vision.

4. What makes art and feelings, art and feelings? Who is the artist when you see a beautiful sunset? When you get feelings from being in the woods? When you see abstract art? If you see AI art that has an interesting concept that makes you think, is it invalid because it came from a machine? Is the person that came up with the idea negated by using a tool? Does there have to be a person involved in the curation of the experience for it to have meaning? Why do I need it to be validated by someone else?

If you think these are easily answerable questions in the field of art, you might be misguided.

Anyway, grats on baiting me into writing a paraphrased version of a rant I wrote over a year ago. I rate it b8 out of 8.

EDIT : I forgot to shoutout dadabots, which where exciting when they were the only horse in the race, in 2017 https://dadabots.bandcamp.com/album/coditany-of-timeness