Ted Chiang as eloquent as ever:
"The selling point of generative A.I. is that these programs generate vastly more than you put into them, and that is precisely what prevents them from being effective tools for artists.
[...]
Many novelists have had the experience of being approached by someone convinced that they have a great idea for a novel, which they are willing to share in exchange for a fifty-fifty split of the proceeds. Such a person inadvertently reveals that they think formulating sentences is a nuisance rather than a fundamental part of storytelling in prose. Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art.
[...]
The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world."
Read the whole essay. It's brilliant. #ai
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art
@tante AI creates art, but only in the same way that a photocopier creates art.
@BenAveling @tante GenAI doesn't create art. However, humans can use it, just as they use any other medium, to create art.
The thing is, the barrier to use it is extremely low, so everyone and their dog can have a go
at it. However, getting a good, meaningful, artistic output out of it is not trivial, and it's an art in itself.
My grandpa's neighbour was a self-proclaimed artist, who sit on his windowsill playing his songs on a guitar. Trust me, it was an horrifying experience. Yet, plenty of other people do create art using guitars (definitely not him, though).
I'm not a fan of the analogy with the photocopier, if not because it is technically wrong, and even if we forget the technicalities, collage art predates AI by at least a century.
Generative art has been a thing for a long time, way before the recent AI craze (for example, see Tyler Hobbs' work). Try it and you'll see how easy it is to generate something with it, and how incredibly difficult it is to generate something good with it.
Yes, with genAI you can type a quick caption to make "art" for your flyer (absolutely fine, maybe you don't have the budget to hire someone) or to post something on Instagram which will be forgotten the next day. OK let's move on.
But, aside from the fact that creativity isn't necessarily linked with difficulty, think of the possibilities when the new generation of artists will start mixing genAI content with live installations, or use it as base for their paintings or use it in creative ways that are not simply typing in a prompt and getting out an image.
We just need to learn how to filter out the noise.
