The choice made by the AI artist is made based on a myriad of factors and intuitions. The result is a snapshot of the latent space, modulated by the artist's artistic girl [grit?], technical prowess and unique perspective of the world based on a lifetime of experience.
You still need those things in order to make a compelling image with AI, especially if you're getting into the more advanced uses.
I'm glad you made this argument, because I think it helps illustrate the point. When we talk about photography vs. AI vs. other forms of artwork in highly abstract terms, they all sound superficially similar.
The moment you start to dive into the details behind each process, it's clear that they are entirely unlike each other. So yes, the AI "artist" is drawing on a myriad of factors and intuitions, but the nature of those factors and intuitions and the effect they have on the output are drastically different to the point that they don't resemble photography even a little bit.
For example, the photographer who wants to take a stunning photograph of a snowy mountain vista at sunrise often has to:
- Use their knowledge of basic astronomy and sun movement to plan the timing and location of the photo
- Use their body to physically hike to the location that will give them this stunning view
- Use their knowledge of survival to stay safe while they hike
- Once on location, use their knowledge of perspective, depth, camera angle, and composition to find a pleasing place to take the photo from (composition is one of the single most impactful choices and only comes from practice/skill)
- While under time pressure from the rising sun, dial in the correct depth of field and exposure
- When things go wrong (which they often do), quickly re-assess all of the above and try shots from new location
- When done, understand the properties of light and color to a degree that enables them to develop the photo so that it matches the original scene
- The wildlife photographer draws on yet another deep and potentially vast skillset
The AI "artist" types "a stunning photograph of a snowy mountain vista at sunrise" into a box and clicks the Generate button.
It may be that knowing how to formulate a sentence that describes the desired scene relies on a myriad of factors and intuitions, but to compare those factors and intuitions to those the photographer is using seems deeply problematic.
Which leads us to reason people find stunning photographs enjoyable to look at in the first place. Encoded in that photograph is the story of the person who took it. In every piece of traditional art (using the word traditional here to mean not AI), the artist's life experiences, thoughts, emotions, and personal investment are baked into the result. This is why many/most people find art compelling. Not just for its beauty, but for the humanity encoded into it.
AI imagery is its own form of deeply fascinating when you think of it as a distillation of the skills of millions of people baked into a single model. But when you see a piece of AI imagery, it cannot evoke the same kind of emotional connection to the source, because it's far removed from the original artistic process. It's something, but it's not compelling.
> You still need those things in order to make a compelling image with AI, especially if you're getting into the more advanced uses.
You need very little, relatively speaking, to make a compelling image with AI when compared to the life experiences of the people who made the imagery that powers current AI models. That's not to say you need nothing, but I don't think they can be compared.
Once you move beyond these abstract comparisons, the underlying processes show themselves to be entirely unlike each other.
I should also mention that I'm not saying AI imagery has no place. I think it's tremendously useful for the creation of educational content, to help people communicate ideas they previously didn't have the skills to communicate, etc. But I think it sits in a very different category.
Painting is painting. Photography is photography. AI images are AI images (a category that will be further subdivided as the technology matures, much like painting and photography make up a spectrum of skills and approaches).
They all sit in their own spaces, each with characteristics that make them more or less interesting. I'm personally far more interested in the kind of art that requires investment of human capital: mental, emotional, talent, skill, time, effort. I care about quality paintings and photos not just because of what they look like, but because of what it took to create them. Because of the emotions intrinsic to every brush stroke. Or the immersion of the photographer's consciousness in a real location that was difficult to reach. That human investment is core to the expression of the work, and to the interest it garners.
I do think AI tools will be transformative for traditional artists and will unlock new possibilities. They'll also enable a new generation of artists to turn their imaginations into visual artifacts they were previously not capable of creating. I think the same is true for LLMs and writing. But at the core of it all, these are all forms of human-to-human communication, and the process itself carries much of the message. Much of that message is lost to the medium when we abstract more and more of the process away.
As a thought experiment, consider food replicators in Star Trek. I can tell it what I want, and food appears. This is entirely unlike the process of making a high quality meal from scratch, and I wouldn't call myself a chef for having the ability to describe to a machine what I'd like it to do. This isn't to say there is no value in knowing how to instruct the machine well, but it's just a very different category of human activity.
A good artist will be able to use AI tools to create compelling art that communicates through decisive choices of their design. Other artists will get lucky and let the computer do most of the work.
Whatever art is, it is because of the value that humans have chosen to ascribe to it, which they do for countless reasons. Many of those reasons are simply not present in AI output, and AI will bring new reasons that will be compelling for some, but entirely uninteresting for others.
Clinging to an abstract three letter word as the ultimate definition of something nearly undefinable ignores both the richness of the form and the sociological factors that make the word hold any meaning.
Again, I’m not saying that artists won’t do great things with AI. I’m saying that the work done with AI will not hold the same kind of value that is intrinsic to other forms. Some people won’t care about the underlying process and it sounds like you may be in that category. Some people will continue to care, and I’d count myself in that category.
Many people point out that Photography is to Painting what AI is to Photography. And while I think the analogy is a bit stretched, the primary reason this comparison comes up is because photography is thought of as a “lesser skilled” method of producing images. And I think that’s a fair assessment. It is not debatable that producing a photorealistic or highly skilled representation of a scene with a paintbrush requires far more skill and far more effort than operating a camera, especially in the 2020s. If your enjoyment of a thing comes from appreciating a particular kind of process, e.g. you are fascinated by and enjoy the output of skilled painters, not just for the result, but for the entire process, then AI (or Photography) isn’t going to hold your interest.
Coffee is coffee. But there sure is a large spectrum of possible ways to experience coffee. Many people are happy with the Folgers instant stuff. Connoisseurs have a palate that knows that there’s more to coffee than caffeine and brown water, but not everyone is a connoisseur and some people are more interested in the utility of coffee (caffeine/energy).
That isn’t to say that instant coffee is not coffee, and people are welcome to enjoy it if they can. But it sure isn’t the same as a cup of recently roasted, freshly ground single origin beans carefully brewed at a temperature calibrated to the properties of the bean and roast. Foljers will wake me up. That carefully brewed cup will wake me up and produce a highly pleasurable taste experience that can alter my emotional state in a positive direction.
My point is that nuance abounds, and trying to reduce something like art of all things to a one dimensional description seems not very useful.
The value is literally not intrinsic, it is extrinsic and specifically socially/culturally ascribed.
And, yes, that's also true of different forms of art; while all have value, the kind and degree of value in any particular society of sculpture vs. representational oil painting vs. abstract oil painting vs. photography vs. 3d-rendered digital art are all different (and the difference between them aren't constant between times and places where they are present, either.)
Yes, art produceed using, e.g., diffusion models will be different from all the others in this regard, but different in the same way that all the others already differ among themselves.
> but different in the same way that all the others already differ among themselves
I’d argue it’s different in a very different way. The conceptual gap between AI and traditional forms of art is arguably much wider than the gaps/differences that already exist between traditional forms.
Using mental models to reason about AI art that liken it to those older forms can be misleading. I do agree that it’s a new form that will carry its own properties and to which people will ascribe different kinds of value. Whether or not that ascribed value is deserved is another question - a question that must be raised because again, someone with artistic skills was still required to create the AI output, they’re just long forgotten by the time the image is generated.
If nothing else, the massive unanswered ethical questions raised by the use of models that can only exist because of the content created by traditional artists puts this firmly in its own category.
It will hold a different kind of value. What that means to the individual is something they have to decide for themselves.
I for one love new things and progress, but I can also understand a more conservative mindset even if I feel differently.
I am also tired of people screeching „AI is not art!!1!“ and trying to deplatform and attack people who feel otherwise (not insinuating that you do this by the way).
I don’t think people should be screeching about this either. I do think people are screeching because they enjoy traditional art and they think traditional art is threatened.
I’m starting to see this more like computerized chess. When a computer first beat a human, it didn’t end chess. Chess is alive and well, because humans like playing chess. With that said, the chess community is also more susceptible to cheating than it has ever been, and has suffered controversy as a result.
I think AI art will be similar. People who want traditional art will keep wanting it. People who create it will keep creating it. The people on both sides of this exchange aren’t going to suddenly stop valuing the things they valued before.
But like chess, AI tools make it easy for people to misrepresent themselves, and people will absolutely try to pass off their creations as original. I suspect that over time, tools will catch up and people who eschew AI tooling will be valued for it. It’s just gonna be a mess for awhile.