Setting aside the usual arguments on the anti- and pro-AI art debate and the nature of creativity itself, perhaps the negative reaction that the Redditor encountered is part of a sea change in opinion among many people that think corporate AI platforms are exploitive and extractive in nature because their datasets rely on copyrighted material without the original artists’ permission. And that’s without getting into AI’s negative drag on the environment.
Typically, I don’t find anything offensive about the images ai creates. What I do take issue with is the outlandish claims of artistic ownership because they strung some words together.
Theres a lot of nuance that exists here.
There are many consumer apps based on stable diffusion where people just type what they want “astronaut sitting on a horse” most work is below the hud and therefor i agree with your sentiment, asking something isn’t a creative process. The results is usually decent but rarely amazing but anyone can recreate it with the right prompt and seed
But things change quickly when you use proper tools like comfyui where you get full control of what the tech can do. Not all models play well with plain descriptions and prompts start to resemble a lengthy magical spell of keywords that become unreadable to a human being. Some keywords perform consistently but are highly counter-intuitive but they only work with some models and settings.
Then there are all the modifiers that change the weights and interpretation of the prompt, latent information, customize noise generations. Mix/matching multiples models iterating on the same picture, using custom or native vae, clip skip 0, 1 or 2…
During the process of changing things the results are usually utter crap but the more you understand what your doing the closer you will get to a workflow that can consistently output good images.
A last step is taking the parameters/seed that generated best pictures from a batch and editing the prompt/settings further to fix the last details.
The process is a creative one and the result is impossible to recreate without someone knowing exactly all the steps involved so here i would say artistic ownership can be applied.
I like naunce so I do appreciate your post. I dream of a world where AI can assist all sorts of creatives bringing their imagination to life so they can share their inner world with others. If we go back to my OP, though, I stuck that word outlandish in there purposefully. Often these AI artist will have some hokey back story where you know they are attributing the AI’s creativity as their own.
I’ve never found an AI image itself offensive. It’s people shortcutting for profit and clout that irks me.
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Thats an unfair comparison. Were not talking about “painters” or “illustrators” but using the very general term “artist”
I literally started by saying i agree that just asking sm premade like bing to generate x with y isnt making art.
But there can be deep creative processes involved in getting an ai to generate just right and any actual professionals i do know use AI will more often then not use photoshop edits as parts of their process. The ai is a tool.
If you are intentionally using creative process to create an imagined output then you are by dictionary definition an artist.
Stable diffusion is also much more a technology then a product, anyone with a decent gpu can train their own models and many people have. Using someone elses models is no different then using someone else’s brushes in a painting program because what counts is what you do with it, which often involves alot more then just typing in a prompt.
If you want some examples of the creative freedom and complexity one can get just search for “comfyui workflow”
In your sport example, if you managed to step for step guide and train a basic robot (so not a toy preconfigured to play sports)into properly playing sports you wouldn’t perse fit the dictionary for an athlete but you having the knowledge to do this could create a reasonable assumption that you are. Otherwise i would say amateur-engineer could also apply because you probably need to know a lot about how the robot joints function. At the very least i would call you an artist because it would take a lot of creative trial and error to pull off.
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Well that’s very interesting for me personally to think about. Thanks for bringing this up.
I always really enjoyed programming but i hated being a developer.
Ive always loved making art but objectively suck at painting, not great at drawing while i am pretty good with computers, i’ve long realized i can use that to scratch my creative itch as opposed to traditional tools. I have dabbled in 3d modeling, scripting, creating custom theming, general indie game development but my real long time dream is opening a workshop where i reconfigure old hardware into cool looking contraptions operating silly programs that serve no practical use besides inspiring joy.
When i worked as a developer i was assigned a task and told to program x or y within z limits and standards. I had no creative freedom and really hated that job for that reason.
i guess when it comes to how i work with ai its fair to compare it to being a programmer much more then a conventional painter, it definitely taps into my technical insight on a similar level, but it does much more then scripting scratch my very real itch to create things.
On principle I’ve always been very openminded to what art can be, a literal toilet can be art so i also considered that the thoughts of a philosopher are art. Writing is art, cooking can be art, Video games are art.
Its absolutely ok to make distinctions yourself, if art is anything at all it is subjective but i hope you can see that following my logic i don’t see why my creative projects wouldn’t count towards the definition.
Everyone who has written a book: “HEY!”
Brief description = book
TIL
Imagine if anyone who commissioned a piece of artwork took sole credit for that art.
You’re a blast at parties, I’m sure
Sure, because as someone with social anxiety I can tell you all I ever dream of is going to parties.
Mood
All it takes to write a book is to string some words together?
Flagpole masonry tick Persepolis a reciprocity.
I’m an author!
See, now you’re getting it!
You are. A crappy one, but you’re an author. Try to do better.
Gatekeeping words like “artist” and “author” is very nasty. My 3 year old makes art. He’s bad at it but if I tell him he’s not an artist he’ll stop and who knows what could have happened. I choose to encourage him.
He also write like you did. And I encourage him to do better.
I don’t think saying “if you put random words together with no context, you’re not an author” is gatekeeping. It’s defining a term.
And I absolutely gatekeep the idea that anyone’s three-year-old is an artist or an author. Those are things that take skill.
My friend always said “if you can’t see it live with instruments it’s not music and they’re not musicians” and I disagreed with that for the same reason I disagree with you saying making art takes skills. I hope that makes sense. Making good art and popular art might take skill, but anyone can be an artist, anyone can be an author. “Anyone can cook.”
We can agree to disagree.
So a person who picks up a saxophone for the very first time is a musician? Really?
Sure, why not. Art teachers always defined art as the expression of an idea, and playing the saxophone for the first time is definitely that. Talent, time, skill and knowledge does not enter in this label as far as I’m concerned.
Now you’re not John Zorn but, hey, maybe you’ll be later with some perseverance and dedication. Edit: Or maybe you’ll become Duke Silver and you’ll be happy enough doing that. We need both in the world.
I disagree with the other poster, I’d say your child is an artist making maybe the purest form of art in the world, taking their life experience and putting it to paper. I’d dare to say that letting them type out a random prompt and getting a decent image out of their limited vocabulary would be much less impactful than the most crude stick figure drawing of the two of you together.