After this entire Ai art scenario, I realized that the attitude held by many ( not necessarily a majority, or even close, but a large chunk nonetheless) has always been that of 'artists have it easy' or that it is frivolous. Every step I took on my journey has been in direct opposition of those along that path. My teachers, relatives, schoolmates, counselors, and coaches. Many scoff at my admission that I wish to be a traditional artist, or a baker, or a sculptor. 'you are too smart.' you are wasted doing that' 'you could be so much more.' this trade is looked down upon, exploited, and scoffed at. We do not provide enough value to the commercialized world we have constructed, and we also, uniquely, are willing to take it in the chin. Perhaps this is because of the deeply personal relationship between art and it's maker, or maybe it is simply a biproduct of the changing landscape of the professional space leaking backwards along the path. I am not yet quite in the professional space, and I am young, but I think the way this plays out is simple whether or not we as a community finally standup for ourselves, or once again simply take it on the chin and keep grinding. The problems posed by AI art is nothing new, it is simply yet another detractor, one more hurdle I, and many others must overcome.
Author's note: I do think that this is far more threatening to the freelance digital space as a whole, and agree that action may need to be taken to protect these industries and spaces. And lastly, a note on context. AI art will never be able to make conscious, thoughtful choices about composition, or paint a piece on cardboard due to a lack of canvas and wood created by nearby conflict. Until we reach singularity, AI will simply be able to make aesthetic images, devoid of the true engagement made possible by the human element
As an illustrator, illustration is more than just “pretty pictures”. It is it’s own form of story telling, not limited to social norms of being hung in a gallery, it can be applied to everything, it can be fast, it can be slow, it can be beautiful, it can be ugly but more than anything illustration always tells a story. As much as AI has positives and negatives, I think more than anything the argument it has caused is pulling out the ugly side of the social understanding of art and the lack of respect artists get for the time, effort and passion gone into making a piece of “artwork” that is now being made with no time, effort or passion by an AI generator that wouldn’t even exist without the artists that have spent their whole lives trying to become masters in their own right. I agree that AI just produces “pretty pictures”, and more so now with social media feeding off of fast art, but for me without a story, what’s the point in the “artwork” existing in the first place.
I agree with most of what you said here, but at the same time I think this "crisis" could be seen as a wake up call for artists to look critically into their (our) own work and process. In many ways the kind of "pretty" mediocre art (as well as the forms of dampened, pointless circulation it entails - this continuous permutation of elements and techniques referenced over and over) created by AI tools was being made by people way before these tools even existed. Passion is important as it drives us to do things, but it might not matter if we don't ask ourselves why do we do the things we do the way we do.
exactly illustration is art. the best distinction you can go is ai art and human art. cause trying to categorise something so subjective as art into not art or art is very difficult to do.
@@athiefinthenight6894 Yes I agree! I enjoyed the video and the ideas presented, but you can't separate art into -as you said- into art and not art based on "meaning", it's impossible. Simply because even a urinal when presented in a certain way can have meaning. People derive meaning from modern art, that can be described as a collection of colourful splotches, or shapes. Yet it makes some people feel things. I believe that because art cannot be created mindlessly, therefore it cannot be consumed mindlessly either.
I think something important about creating art that you didn't mention here is the process of making art is art. It's beautiful to know that an artist has spent their effort into making it, and it can be extremely cathartic and mentally important to the artist to take part in working on art.
Yes, exactly. The artist's soul is expressed in the work they produce. Their LIFE is art - and their personal story enhances the art. Why did they choose a particular colour - why did they shoot that particular picture? Because of their human experience, their worldview or politics or menal illness - or whatever. The computer has no soul. There's is no reason for a computer to create the art. It's just a mathmatical quandary.
AI's also perform a "process" to make art, they have learning algorithms that generate totally new artworks, just like a human artist would do, the only difference is that AI's are faster, and they don't have biological brains.
@@tassadar1977 *"The computer has no soul. There's no reason for a computer to create the art. It's just a mathmatical quandary."* In reality, there are several reasons for computers to make art, and the most important one is time, an artist could take months or years to do what an AI can do in seconds, and these intelligences could help a person who is not an artist, to be able to make art and express himself through it, without the limitation of having to learn to draw, also companies producing entertainment through art, such as the film industry, could benefit in the future from AIs and could accelerate the production time. The average consumer isn't interested in the work behind the artwork, or the context of the artist, they just expect something pretty to look at, and that's it, this applies to all the arts such as cinema, painting, photography and others.
@@FranciscoCastillo-bx3rf you've described a commercial process here - of making a product efficiently in the least amount of time. I don't see that as art. Not for me, anyway. I guess I see art as coming out of a different process. A human process that is flawed and takes individual mastery and loads of time. The general public might not know how it's produced, but an artist will. If you want an AI produced marvel film then sure, go nuts with your AI.
@@FranciscoCastillo-bx3rf They don't create totally new artworks, they scan the code that represents the image configurations and mesh those images into a unique scrambled code based on the human users keyword inputs. It's essentially like tracing several pieces of classical art paintings, hypothetically psychically knowing exactly the type of paints and exact shading used, reapplying those colours but then every few centimetres of your tracings, you intersect other tracings at different interconnecting points so by the end of combining several traced images at interconnecting points, it looks like a new image but its all been copied from pre-existing works, not inspired by, but literally copied and pasted and manipulated to mix with one another. It is not completely new fresh artwork, it is art theft.
I once wrote this poem and I think it is fitting for all of art not only for dancing (I tried to translate it from the German original as best as I could, but some of the beauty might have been lost to translation): I never wanted to be a dancer - only to dance is what I wanted. Pulsating giving life to forms - blissful and eternally colorful. Radiating full of beauty, spreading happiness, begetting joy, sowing, blossoming. I never wanted to be a dancer - only to dance is what I wanted. In deep believe drawing power from gods - mighty and eons old. Rejoicing from the heart, Driving away gloom, giving hope, having, beeing. But I never wanted to be a dancer - only to dance is what I had to.
If this is a 'poor translation' as you say @rbrendrel1302, then I am impressed and I wish that I could read it in the original German (sadly though I don't speak the language).
@@tasu5391 of course 🙂 Ich wollte niemals Tänzer werden - nur tanzen wollte ich. Pulsierend Leben Formen geben - wonnevoll und ewig bunt. Voll Schönheit strahlen, Glück verteilen, Freude zeugen, sähen, blühen. Ich wollte niemals Tänzer werden - nur tanzen wollte ich. Tiefgläubig Göttern Kraft entziehen - mächtig und Äonen alt. Von Herzen jubeln, Trist vertreiben, Hoffnung geben, haben, sein. Doch wollt ich niemals Tänzer werden - nur tanzen musste ich.
I fundamentally disagree with the implicit notion that "deeper meaning" is equivalent to conceptional meaning. In my opinion, an artwork that speaks to the viewer directly through its emotional impact (through beauty or whatever) is far deeper than just the expression of a concept. As you mentioned Tarkovsky: This was one of his key philosophies as well, and many of his movies can only be interpreted conceptually to a certain extend.
exactlyy, 1 viewer can see a david friedrich landscape painting and not see any meaning in it, while one can feel solitude, sadness, adventureness, etc etc. bringing the conversation to what is art and what is not is essentially a waste of time I think. the issue is that in its core, AI image generators as they are right now (not capable of actually understanding what they're doing and only regurgitating images they take from the net) are theft inducing and will only push capitalism greed further
Which is why I find it painfully ironic he talked about Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, a mesmerizing work of art, but almost utterly "meaningless" (or, more appropriately, with little to no themes) - which is the point of the original fairy fale, as it deliberately embraces non-sense and builds its identity off of it. Of course one could argue that consciously embracing non-sense is, by itself, an already "deep" and “meaningful” endeavor, but should one really have to formally recognize such qualities to have their work seen as “worthy” ?
Absolutely agree. Emotional impact is just as valid in my opinion. Art is an experience. I don't think we can really deny the artistic value of anything. While I recognize the ethical malpractice of AI generated art, it is art to many. Your preference to it makes it art. Art is only good because you like it. It's just that we all have tastes and it's impossible to disprove a work's artistic value, if you prescribe to my aforementioned principle of art as an experience. You can pull a piece of grass out of the ground and experience it as a work of art. I'm no educated philosopher but this is how I stand on the matter.
I agree but nonetheless every one of tarkovsky’s films had started as a conceptual idea. In documentaries and even his sculpting time we hear he had a concept and idea he wanted to share. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum and even if he has the idea that he wants several meanings derived from the audience, he still began each work with intent. And of course much like lynch and bresson he rather a person feel a film before undestanding it. But it’s important to note that these films aren’t just spontaneous with no meaning and just visual aesthetics. There is something more to them. Something an AI could never do.
I'm following the midjourny group on Facebook and I'm noticing something in my feelings towards these works , the "art" they share and inspite of how creative it looks, is making me lose my intrest in opening the posts and observe what people are sharing, and that's what is SCARY for me, the appreciation of the works, the ideas, the artists ,the stories that made us attached to a work of art before, they will simply disappear . That's just so sad.
This is good to bring up. Especially the stories, or provenance, of a work. For example if i did a live nude study i could talk about working with a model or the tools or anything like that. Any sort of story or origin to how it was made. With an ai-generated image all i would have to say to you was “i sat in my chair and typed a prompt.” No interesting story or intention. Im not saying i require a whole lot of backstory or anything. My enjoyment of painting/drawing doesnt hinge on such things. However, it’s something extra- an extra piece of interest. I mostly enjoy art and illustration purely visually. I like to interpret whatever i see and mull it over in my head. All of Beksinski’s paintings have no title and no objective interpretation. That’s the stuff i adore because i could think about what’s going on in that moment in the work forever and have it be always interesting. That was probably s tangent. But anyway, how i see it, for how fast ai images are created its like you constantly get cool stuff in an instant. And if everything’s cool, then nothing really is. Same with the quote from the incredibles “if everyone’s super… no one will be.” Ai art takes the risk of creating a bad drawing or painting out completely. And i dunno if i would still be doing what i do if i couldnt make a bad drawing despite how much i hate doing bad drawings. Ive heard the argument of this technology being accessible to people who arent artists and can see their ideas realized without having to put in the work. As gatekeep-y as it sounds i really cant see the benefit of this. Id rather have that unskilled person make a crude drawing of a funny or silly idea they had instead of instantly generating one. The bad drawing is far more enjoyable. The world already is rife with instant gratification and i cant in good conscious feel thats good for art or illustration. Not because i myself draw or paint, but because making art or illustration is creating something… putting something into the world whether its for personal fulfillment or for profit is providing an artifact on a surface or in a file. Generation is not even close to creation as far as i see it. If i lacked the self-awareness and proudly showed people “my” ai images from prompts i typed as if i made it i should be fucking embarrassed. I wouldn’t have made anything. Not everyone is owed to be able to draw or paint well. It just isn’t. And not everyone should. Its like comparing skateboarding to riding an electric longboard. Its not the fucking same. Ai art is just a damn shortcut. Ive heard no one say this in this blunt sort of way but ai art, despite it’s “beauty,” is just so fucking lame. Great, i can draw and paint on easy mode.
@@gongorelocksmagiincommand you said it all, the saddest part that it's just happening, just like a meteor full of rare metals and diamonds going to hit us we humans.
For me, art is a human thing, it is a craft, something you create with your imagination and your hands. I can't understand how you can get anything out of letting a program do all the work for you. What really pisses me off, are people who post their Ai images on Instagram with #fineart, #contemporaryart etc.
i don't like that you think illustration isn't art. i consider myself an illustrative art because i tell stories with my art, its not just a pretty picture its a tiny tale in ink, watercolor and pencil. take my avatar here. yes it's just a semi realistic portrait of me on the surface, but its meant to tell the tale of how my chronic pain encompasses my body in clean visual language any layperson can understand. i love high and low art, but just because i choose to make my images in an illustrative way does not make it any less art. art is meant to invoke feeling and connection, and i don't think AI will ever be able to do that because we cannot teach a computer how to be human. also i don't think we can program art into computers because there isn't an "if/then" easy clean way to make art by a pattern. plus AI isn't borrowing from previous art, it's outright stealing other peoples styles, not looking at a painting and thinking "i could encorprate that method or idea into my style and make it my own".
I think your illustrations are art, I don't think he meant that illustrations are art but rather redefining the words to be separate concepts. Like you described, your art has humanity, emotion, purpose etc. which a machine never will; hence it is art
Yeah I’m not a fan of the way he distinguishes illustration, if anything I’d say he’s got it backwards. Illustration is by definition a visual representation OF something, whether that something is an object (like a technical diagram) or an idea (like your avatar). An illustration may be beautiful, but it’s purpose and value as such is in communicating a specific concept, regardless of beauty, and, in fact, ugliness may be to its credit, if the concept is an ugly one. There are artists who create strikingly beautiful works, but they couldn’t tell you what the meaning was, they were just putting colors on the canvas in a way that looked pretty. And that’s fine-but it’s not illustration.
I think you missed the argument. You, by the standards of the video, create art because you engage with the audience. By the definition given first at 12:10 that makes our output art. What tripped you up, was the usage of the word illustration in opposition to art. The video would therefore argue, you create art not illustration but illustration could be substituted by other words. Illustration in this context does not refer to illustration as you understand it but to the negation of art. Just substitute the word illustration through any other word (I would maybe suggest image creation) and the argument will become more clear. The video isn't attacking your form of art but rather actually defending it.
You are literally agreeing with him. He literally said if your art is creating deep and social conversation woth your audience beyond the mere visual novelty, then it is Art. From what you explained about the ideas and emotions behind your drawings, they obviously fall under this category and are thus art. They dont merely look cool or beautiful - aka an illustration - your images are a away to express and communicate woth the audience - aka art.
You are getting caught in the semantics of his usage of the term "illustration". He's not referring to a 'style' but the function of the works he's referring to as illustration. Illustration here refers to images that are not made for a deeper purpose, but to merely illustrate, like say, a hoarding of the newest iPhone.
I mostly agree, but if somebody draws by hand in a world where you can just generate images, that's already enough to give it deeper meaning, so it doesn't now suddenly become "just illustration". They're putting their soul into every line, which makes a difference for someone who can appreciate it.
there is a lot of souls that can be done through thinking and meditating about giving the AI the right command to give you the shape of your perfect idea and vision. then you can redraw, and rework on this generation after fine tuning and looking into 100' of results if not more. you're now an art director, if you prefer. is the director in a movie .. not an artist because he wasn't putting his face in front of the camera .. ? like a photographer who pick the right photo, and one who create the prompt that will work with the tool ( AI ) to produce the right vision. if you AI art is bad, again like every tool, that's cause you use it badly. tons of bad art is done in AI art, but not all of it is so "bad". sure I did this in one day, but so .. what ? I'll maybe be able to create ENTIRE VISIONARY WORLD from AI, the argument that it is reducing is because of a reductionistic thinking. if you get space to expand, then .. EXPAND ? is my AI art so .. bad ? twitter xxx end link : VahnAeris/status/1600295529157574658
@@VahnAeris the difference is the art director has polished his vision through practice, theory, and critical study, and works with people that are doing all the same and this forms a development path for their minds The ai art director is just receiving free commissions, aka being a consumer Do you feel like a professional chef manager after ordering a dish?
I disagree with the last argument. What’s meant to be solely aesthetics and what’s meant to be art are not inherently unrelated. I mean, I don’t look at a beautiful sunset only because I love how the colors clash and blend upon each other, I look at it also cuz it makes me think about my day, about the next day and its possibilities, about the person I would love to be sharing this moment with me. All these things are meaningful. Beauty has meaning because artistic purpose itself has always been a flawed concept. Art has been made absentmindedly and we have called it art that explores the subconscious desires or beliefs of its creator, so… One could argue the argument about whether AI art is meaningful is in and of itself the purpose of the piece.
I truly believe all forms of Art is good for the world. A few weeks ago I had a dream that I confirmed was based on a piece of AI Art that I had seen and was intrigued by, and to a lucid dreamer like me, it was one of the most beautiful dreams I've ever dreamt. I see nothing wrong with expanding our sphere of beauty and meaning, whether they come before the piece is drawn, or after it is generated.
I agree! It's not easy to distinguish what "has meaning". Meaning is subjective. And the distinction of art or illustration could make some of what we call art not art anymore. Would I as an artist have to explain the meaning and symbolism of my piece for it to count as art? And who would judge if it counts? Your words capture perfectly what I had in mind even if I wouldn't be able to put it to words as well.
So, to anyone who is worried about the need of being purposefuly meaningful or transgressive to society at large, as long as your art is meaningful to both you and the community you share it with, it is still art. Do you want to make pretty fanart to express how much your fandom meant to you? That's art. Do you want to draw cute boys smooching because that is how you express your gender identity? That's art. Do you draw cool characters because their aesthetic resonates with you for personal reasons that are hard to describe in words? That's art. Do you draw dinosaurs, trains, insects, historical outfits, indescribably horrible monsters or anything that is part of your niche hyperfixation because you have a particular fascination, intertest or find deep meaning in them for any reason. That is also art. I disagree with the last point of this video and I'd argue it could even be used as ammo to devalue artists not fitting certain expectations further. Ironic, isn't it? If anything this is not a revolution but further accentuates that, just like commodification of artwork under capitalism, art elistism as being a problem artists have always contended with that is just going to grow more intense and difficult to deal with now that AI has entered the scene. An AI may be able to do what we "illustrators" do better but it is hollow in that its subject matter means nothing to it nor to the people who push this as something to replace us. To say art is not art if it's just pretty is devaluating the reasons on *why* the artists who make it think it's pretty.
I agree. That was the only part of the video that I disagreed with and you explained why even better than I could have. It just seems, like you said, kinda elitist to decide what is and isn't art based on such arbitrary guidelines. Like the example in the video where homie was saying Marvel movies weren't art. A lot of those movies deal with complex human issue like grief, family trauma, colonialism, etc. Like just because you dislike something or something doesn't resonate with you personally doesn't make it not art.
thank you, i was fully with him until he brought up this pretty elitist view on illustration, to say art has to have a purpose to be considered real art is a very capitalist way of looking at things whether people realize it or not, its basing something's value in the purpose it serves. (even then, i strongly disagree with this description of illustration) This way of thinking creates a box, something very anti-art.
Agreed fully. Art is, fundamentally, communication; and it can be used to communicate a wide range of concepts, including beauty, interest, or identity. Elitism kills artistic expression just as thoroughly as capitalist commodification.
I have a huge problem. I am a cartoonist. Bright colors and round faces are my base and media. It’s silly and amusing, but I’ve always ached to make art that made people think, stirred up a conversation, and had deeper meaning. So ..two years ago, that’s what I began doing, in my style. No words, they’re not comics, they’re simply pieces that happen to be made in a cartoonish style. According to your standards, my art should fall in illustration because my style is considered eye candy and appealing, but to me, they reach topics of loneliness, anxiety, our society, social situations and emotions. I would consider them art. My problem is that there shouldn’t be a fine line. Some artists will admit they made something just to be pretty, an ‘illustration’, but many will not. Especially as they begin learning that this devalues their pieces in some way. Who are we to decide what has meaning or not? A sunset to you may be a pretty picture, a sunset to someone else is the representation of loneliness or a bleak ending as colors fade to black. We cannot decide what is art and what is illustration, no matter how pretty is it and vise versa. Just because we see an a nonconforming piece that seems to have a deep meaning, doesn’t mean it does. Some may see my art as doodles and cute illustrations, others will feel a deeper meaning from them. There is no way to ever certainly define a piece as ‘illustration’ and ‘art’. In another universe, where capitalism and multimillion corps didn’t run, I think AI would be considered ‘art’ under the right circumstances and perspective. Perhaps not completely random generated pieces, or perhaps yes, but absolutely pieces that were purposely made with an input or pieces adopted by the right people who found meaning in them.
Art in it's purest form is self expression. Therefore, just doing whatever the hell you want is what makes it the most artistic. And it absolutely doesn't matter if that happens to be something that is considered "popular" or "mainstream" or "generic". The point is that you didn't make these choices because you thought they'd be popular with the consumers, but because you yourself wanted to. And that is the difference that the video tried to highlight, but "illustration" was a poor choice of words in my opinion. I would draw the (heavily blurred) line between *ART,* that is made to express oneself in whatever way one pleases, and *MEDIA,* that is carefully curated to appeal to consumers, to be commodified as a product. So draw whatever YOU want, in the knowledge that that in and of itself is what makes your work Art.
Based on what The Canvas was saying, I think they would consider your newer work to be art and your comics to be closer to illustration. They didn’t say cartoons are not art, only that creations that are only to look pretty are illustrations. So it sounds like your newer artwork has more meaning than your older artwork.
I agree with what you are saying, but I also believe that in the video he wasn’t devaluing cartoon art, he was saying as soon as an “illustration” is made with the intention of a deeper meaning or a story it becomes Art. At least that’s my interpretation of what he was saying
I agree whit your points. If you ask 100 people what art means, you will get 100 different answers. Therefore we fall into the misunderstanding of using a common language to describe a different phenomenon. what is art? For someone a "drawing" is art, for you something that conveys a "deep" emotion (what is deep, how is it measured?), etc, etc. Among other things you have to separate the creator from the observer. I mean, if AI creates an image with a very deep and personal meaning for the public, would it be art in that case? the speech is very long and complex.
1. I suppose an "artwork" commissioned for a patron/customer, which goal/purpose is to satisfy said patron/customer, will generally be more restrictive. Thus the artist/creator of that "artwork" wouldn't want to put such work in the same category with their other works which he's much more passionate about. So IMO calling some of their own "artworks" as a mere "illustration" could be a deliberate move too. 2. AI is an artform in itself. One of the greatest we ever made. An image of our own selves, made not with marble or paints on canvas, but by millions line of code. The programmers who toiled day and night breathing life into inanimate silicon wavers, granting them ability to perceive our thought process, are truly masters of their art. 3. In Socialist/Collectivist society, there will be just one AI, no other AI (with same/similar role/functions) could be permitted to exist. Furthermore, the AI will not be permitted to challenge the established social and political order. The multitude of competing AIs in Capitalist society will grow faster and smarter, vast superior to the Collectivist AI. Such is the fate of totalitarian collectivist society: *Stagnation.* Google "Computer industry in USSR" or "Consumer electronic industry in USSR" for more info.
For starters, the best definition of Art that I've ever been able to come up with is "Art is the attempt to communicate abstract concepts in a concrete medium". As much as I like the video overall, I'd tend to disagree with the described "Art" vs. "Illustration" dichotomy; or rather, with how that dichotomy is applied. I'd say illustration ceases to be artistic when it's merely technical, but aside from that the difference between the two can be very nebulous. Another quibble I have is with the dismissal of "Beauty" as a valid subject for Art. Beauty is very much an abstract concept that can be and should be communicated via Art, but it's far from the only one. To be fair, the popular perception of Art is disproportionately focused on Beauty as its raison d'etre; and that capitalism encourages this limited focus because it's much easier to commodify. Also, I'd say that the Art vs Entertainment dichotomy is misunderstanding one or both. Art and Entertainment are two very different processes, but can be linked. They're two circles in a Venn diagram that have a certain amount of overlap, but are otherwise not inherently linked or opposed. But again, as with Beauty, capitalism tries to restrict the purpose of Art to Entertainment, because that makes it easier to commodify.
Exactly, I see Art as an expression of oneself. So as long as your work is what you yourself want it to be, it is Art no matter how Avantgarde or generic it may be. Where it stops being Art, is when you sacrifice your personal vision for a different purpose (appeal, functionality, ect.), though that line is obviously extremely blurred, and it is technically also possible to satisfy these secondary requirements while keeping your vision intact. If we are to draw a line, instead of "illustration" I would use MEDIA, which is made to be consumed, as the counterpoint to ART, which is made for the sake of expression. (Another aspect is DESIGN, which is made to function, but that one isn't really relevant in this discourse)
the expression or application of HUMAN creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
@@Duhbaby2348h I'm not "trying to come up with" one, I have come up with one, and one that is far more useful than your extremely limited definition. "it literally already has a definition" No, Art has *many* definitions, nearly as many definitions as there are people. Some definitions are useful, some are not. Your definition excludes music and the performing arts, and is too narrow in its purpose. The best definition I have found (and it's not one I proposed, but one that has been used for a very long time), is this: "Art is the attempt to communicate abstract concepts in a concrete medium". This covers *all* of the arts -- visual, plastic, performance, musical, and literary -- and covers the full range of artistic expression, not just limiting art to easily commodifiable properties.
Writing this out of frustration but i hope i can get my point down clearly enough.The biggest problem with the rise of AI prompters and that people seem to love glossing over is the blatant art theft that goes into it. I'm an artist myself, i post my art and do commissions and speak to other artists so i'm exposed to this subject on a near daily basis. This is less about people making cool images for the sake of beauty or simply to give visuals to an idea quickly, which i understand, and more about the use of other people's works just so they don't have to learn how to make things by themself and in turn render all of our efforts and hours of hard work worthless. Some will even profit from what they do beyond just "not having to pay an artist for it", and i can tell you as a commission artist that there are some of our clients who now ask us if we're using AI prompts or if we draw things legit. Laziness or automization are one thing, but theft is another, and there is nothing more insulting than AI prompters daring to say that them taking our works for their own benefit is something we, as the artists, should be grateful of. What is happening right now is exactly how people will end up with artists putting massive watermarks over their works or puts them behind paywalls on sites like Patreon or Ko-fi. Like many i love sharing my art freely either to make people happy or spark conversations, and i love learning from other artists when they show theirs. We do these things because we enjoy sharing, we love the joy and love behind creation, and i think this is what the true essence of art is beyond profit. Artists are taken for granted and the current situation with AI prompters only proves that people will conveniently shift their focus from a very real and immediate problem that artists have to instead debate in circles over "what is real art". A story that stuck with me because it was what made me realize that something was deeply wrong with the rise of AI prompters was this; at some point there was artist (haruno_intro on twitter, there's threads and articles that will speak better of it than i do from memory) who had their sketch stolen as they streamed the process. The thief took the sketch and finished it through the use of an AI and then posted it before the artist was even done with their own work. The artist posted the finished piece after 11h of work, several hours after the thief did. If i'm not mistaken the thief had the gall to try and pass as the victim in the story and even described themself as "self-taught" and "gifted". Sure this is not an experience that happens universally between artists and AI prompters, but it highlights quite simply what AI "art" is all about; theft, and putting no effort into the process of creation.
THANK YOU. So tired of these AI "artists" going on wishy-washy tangents about "what is real art? 🤔" when the real problem is the theft and profit being made off that theft right in front of their faces.
THANK YOU! "Is it art" shouldn't be the question when it's all stolen! Only when there's an AI that's 100% made from art that was granted informed consent to be scraped should that question be entertained.
@thetukars You are also on the wrong train as @canesvenatici4259 lol. If you don't understand that all intuition and thought are calculations made by the nervous system, and also fail to see the increase in frequency in AI systems to fool humans into thinking they are human, you're just not seeing the forest for trees. We are computers, albeit biological sophisticated system, all living organisms are computers. Maybe not strictly electronic, or binary, but organisms "[...] store and process data [...] according to instructions [DNA]." You can't imagine just how technologically revolutionary this is. In the realm of literature, visual, and acoustic art, I can think of thousands of applications. In medicine in science - it is already making waves and revolutionize everything because AI can sort through and interpret data we don't have the capacity to without AI. We'll be able to predict carcinogens, mutagens, and things we couldn't even have discovered....the list is absolutely endless if you have any imagination - and I'm not a programmer!! I also don't know/buy AGI/sentience and all that stuff (unconvinced if it's a reality), but just as a technology it is absolutely earth shattering to how our future way of life will proceed. If you think it's some consciousness or spirituality or something, we have nothing left to discuss.
False. Creation ex nihilo is a myth. Human are NOT a separate force from the rest of Universe and don't create things from nothing. They recombine things they see and experience . Just like an algorithm would do.@thetukars
It's actually a perfect comparison. Just like AI, humanity don't create something from nothing. They recombine things from past experience. Technical art is going extinct. Pure imaginative art is the future. (which can be a good thing if you don't want material gain from it)@@josephmayfield945
Even though I agree with the last few sentences of the video, I have to add the following. When an artist can’t make a living out of selling illustrations, they’ll never have the financial opportunity to remain an artist either. Seeing that, I can’t see AI as anything else except a curse for artists. This is the unforgiving world we live in, were the possibility of being an artist, keeps becoming less of a realistic option.
I don't see AI illustrations replacing anything but the most rudimentary visuals. I don't think many people would buy a children's book with "pictures by Nvidia". And AI most definitely doesn't produce art. You'd have to live a human life to do that.
In the long run, AI Art will benefit global creativity, perhaps in preparation for the time when visual thought may be able to be shown on a screen or printed out, as the ultimate means of getting ones creative ideas out of their own head.
@@toons8744 One word. Inspiration. AI is an immeasurably valuable idea generator, both consciously and unconsciously. As a lucid dreamer, I know this for a fact. It does not stifle. In the combination of art, some very intriguing things can happen.
Yep, I studied illustration at an art school (which already establishes it a subcategory of art, imo) and the conceptual artists often said we weren't actual artists. It's been ongoing for forever.
Illustration is just a skill like any other. I myself am an illustrator. Art is communication, that communication can be done through illustration, or narrative, or cinema etc etc but the visuals without the communicative intent there is just the medium. There has to be the communication and also the medium in which it is transported to create "art"
This as you pointed out goes back a long way. I think about schools dropping their drama and band programs to meet a budget. There was a time historically when a person would create something for a purpose and then try and improve their product partly on the basis that a better thing would sell itself and profit would increase by greater sales, but as you said today today the only goal is to chisel away at that product to increase profit instead of true innovation. I think that being exposed to the arts in school is necessary for a student to be able to see depth in life. This in an interesting topic as all artists may be influenced by the works of others, otherwise there would be no schools of art, so the idea of AI poaching art has to be debated. The only sad reality is that a bunch of lawyers will inevitably make a fortune feeding the fires of this issue. Perhaps because AI art is based on a collection of images, it can only be regarded as a print as opposed to a genuine piece of art. This trend however is disturbing as it will spread to all areas of art, novels where a piece of software is given a time frame and a plot outline and a book is written, we saw in the movie 300 that perhaps shortly actors can be done away with, how long before a computer can compose music, or design a bridge. Once automation was thought to give people a better salary and more time off to enjoy family and friends, today some automation is just making humans redundant. Look at the all automatic McDonalds in Texas for example. Today profit for the sake of profit has become the mantra. The result is that art which was suppose to be a way for people to look at themselves and their society will slowly become nothing more that propaganda to justify the dehumanization of society
Yes yes yes to a video on the intersection between capitalism and art. Such an interesting topic, and one that I would love to hear you expend your ideas on even further! Great vid as always!!! You always open my mind, and have me leaving the video with not only more knowledge than when I had started, but also more questions about the world!
This was not a video about capitalism and commodification of art. It was a bitterly put together rant about why AI isnt as “talented” as humans. He barely even scratched the surface on why commodification is a negative.
@Lilith .J ??? i didn’t say I could, its just weird that people are acting like this is a dedicated video on these intersections. Thats my entire point. Theres tons of comments like this. Its a short form surface level analysis of AI and art. This video itself is a form of commodified art. Not some profound analysis and critique of capital. Its a well narrated, consumable video but really not as deep or complex as some are trying to make it out to be. If you have 2 active synapses in your brain, its pretty easy to see. Trying to defend your fav parasocial relationship doesnt work unless you actually engage with the points being made.
I would also like to see such a video, this guy seems like the right one to do it. I appreciated what George Lucas said about the Hollywood system very much!!!
@lilithdoesstuff4870 nah fr dude really be raging on the internet of all places its ok here but if some troll comes in i bet it will turn into an 500 comment long argumetn lol
The discussion of AI generated images reminded me of how revolutionary modern collage was. I feel it's kind of the same: you take someone else's work very literally in both cases and make something new. The difference is that collages HAVE intentionality and creativity behind them, and AI gen doesn't. The solution is to go down the route some AI artists like Henar Sherif have: DO something with it. Work the image. Take from several and make something different. Build upon it to tell a story. CREATE using the base. That's art. Me imputing the same prompt 10 times because the AI keeps throwing things that aren't what I want isn't. My only true problem is the usage of art without permission. That's not fair use. Fair use is, anyways, a policy, not a law, and the power to determine fair use in in the hands of the owner of the copyright. So, no, fair use isn't an excuse especially when people are profiting by selling their AI generators or by selling the output.
Depends. I think if you choose a piece the choosing of it gives it artistic value. How much? Hard to say but there is a reason you chose the 11th attempt instead of the other 10 the ai gave you. The fact you didn't create it directly doesn't change the fact that it exists by your will.
There was a weird take in terms of distinguishing illustration from art. I understand the pov in which you described the two but, art which sole purpose is to showcase and capture beauty is still art. It is a look into what the artist finds pleasing to stare at, what someone is obsessed with and how that differs from the culture of that time period and how it was influenced by their surroundings. I wouldn't really go as far as to call that hollow at all. But in subjective terms I completely understand viewing a piece of art I'm which the beauty is something I find to be cliche and hollow as my own subjective taste in beauty. I understand and agree with the difference of ai art and art, how ai art will most likely be used by Corp. But at some point I do feel ai art will be used in an interesting way as a tool to create art just through words and editing. I'm not sure how I feel about that as an artist to be honest. overall I learned quite a lot! Thank you for creating interesting videos
untrue, pure graphical rappresentation alone aren't artistic. art need to have something from the artist, a particular style, trait, composition, something that isn't just graphical at all, or i can make a photo of a nice girl, and is art, is not true, it will be art only if the photo has been made with artistic ideas behind.
I would love to see a video on capitalism’s effects on art. As for AI art… I can’t help but think of a video I watched recently by Blind Dweller on Kim Noble, a dissociative identity disorder system. One point the video made was that for many alters within the system, art was a process and the act of creating it was therapy. The end product was not the goal, but the the act of creation itself. I can’t help but feel that’s an important part of human-made art. There is a conversation between the viewer of a finished piece and the artist of the past, that same artist as they slowly make decisions and bring their work to completion. In a way, the finished piece is a snapshot of an artist at a certain point in time. AI art eliminates that. Instead of capturing an artist’s process and their mental state, it becomes all about consumption and the end product. I think that’s a great loss. Not only is the art “soulless,” but it has also lost the chance for it to be a means of human connection.
I think it’s difficult to define whether an artwork has meaning beyond visual appeal. Any work is trying to achieve more than look nice, no matter how commercialized it is. Even just a straightforward landscape painting will try to highlight certain aspects of nature. How can we draw the line of some kind of social commentary as what makes it art? I’m certain AI art will be able to soon, if not already, take a message and create an artwork that symbolizes similar to how a human artist would.
Art has so much more meaning beyond Visual appeal. The beauty of art is seeing what or why an artists makes the choices that they do in art. Why did they choose to color something this way, why did they choose this line thickness, they put an incredible effort and focus into how they drew this character's shoulders for example. What does that say about the artist and what is the artist trying to say. The fun part about art is what is the artist trying to say and how are they choosing to convey that.
yeah but it just reproduces patterns of human ways of creating meaning, it is never itself an agent, a subject expressing some part the existence as a living human being
A fascinating topic. In my long life as an artist there have been others who openly copied my work. This was intensely distressing until my husband said, "You have only one option. Outrun them." Thereafter I always made sure that my work clearly represented ME and it has proved to be wise in every way. I paint for me, what is on the canvas or in the clay represents what my mind sees. A happy way to work which oddly makes me no longer consider my work to be in the long continuum of art history. It is just me. I hope the same solution may be helpful with AI, at least for now.
I agree with most of what has been said in this video; art transcends the need for money and it should be viewed as the expression of what makes us truly alive and human, and as an aspiring artist getting ready for art university here's hoping to one day be part of a newly refreshed and reborn ART market in which the sheer emotional and subjective perspective is enough to live off this wonderful discipline
You lost me when you talked about your art as part of a "newly refreshed and reborn art MARKET..." You are part of the problem when you talk about marking art into a commodity and I fear that you just don't get the point. Your argument actually contradicts itself from the start to the end of its first sentence...
@@bobdots5974 actually no, what i mean is that i would like a MARKET where any art can be viable to make a living off in a way that the process of intent of it will not be hindered by the needs of making art with the intent of making money
@@bobdots5974 Same. Daniele: If you're going to be authentic about your art, and maybe eventually make some money from it, you really have to forget about the market and just go straight towards finding your "voice," which is what you want to say and how you want to say it, without compromise.
@@psterud I agree. Just like that quote from the 3 idiots: "Don't chase success. Be a Good engineer and success will chase you", but instead its about being a good artist.
Hi @@danielebraccio2474 , I do appreciate where you are coming from as your point of view is not uncommon. In my opinion the purpose of art is not to make money (a living) it is a means to communicate with other people. I'll put that aside for a moment though and discuss your dilemma as a young person starting out as an artist. As an artist in the 'capitalist system' discussed in this video, you can try finding a patron, or a gallery that will support you - but these are vanishingly rare. You will also inevitably be required to produce 'what somebody else wants', which is the antithesis of art. If you can't find a patron or sell your art to make a living, then you must do like everybody else and get a day job. If you still make art in your own time, then congratulations - you really are an artist and have something important to say. I truly do wish you well in the future, art is a struggle for most artists but it is always worthwhile.
So I appreciated that you brought up capitalism so directly. I feel like many people are dancing around that word. Art has been commodified for a long time and Ai Art is the end destination of that road. There is no Artist behind Ai Art, it's just more content to be consumed. Just pixels to stimulate the eyeballs. What I don't understand is your stance on dater collection. I think it is the biggest issue with Ai Art, so it's strange that you brushed past it so quickly. I think the conversation about Ai Art would look completely different if these companies had used only public-domain images. The content the AI Image generated would create would look a lot different. The images would have a dated look, and wouldn't appeal to modern audiences. What I also disagree with is that the history of art is about copying other artist. I'm an artist and I feel like non-artists overestimate how much artists influence each other to a ridiculous extent. If you talk to Ai-Art defenders you might think, that all we do is copy each other. But in Art school you are told to draw from life, to look at the real world. We were encouraged to start with a realistic style and develop something unique from that. Not to copy another artist.
"Art has been commodified for a long time and Ai Art is the end destination of that road." AI art is quite literally the opposite of that. It's open source and everyone can use it to express themselves regardless of resources. It doesn't get less capitalistic than that.
@@Edheldui I don't think anyone really believes they can use ai generators to make something that actually expresses what they want to express. And if they do then the expression in question must be of the lowest form, something like expressing that you're just generally unwell or that you're like literally just hungry or something. The capitalist dream is one of AIs generating endless feeds where everything is so optimized that it doesn't even matter what you actually show the user, they'll still like it.
@@redtro8678 Give it time and you will absolutely be able to express yourself with AI art. The issue with AI art atm is only that its hard to control what the AI does. Once its more precise you will be able to create the images you see in your head and carve them from the AI's chaos. That sounds like expression to me. You can already achieve it to some extent, its just much harder to get the important details right. That magic still exists in AI art because its not the AI who says its good or done, its you.
@@Merilirem Even if it becomes more precise I think most of the art done by AIs will still be really boring. I mean for a lot of artists its not just about the endproduct either.
@@redtro8678 Think of all the terms you enter in your AI generators as brushes of paint. Once the technique is refined enough, it will become a tool for Joe Schmo to make the piece of art that he never could due to having to feed his family and a lack of skill.
The world in which we live in is horrible because it makes us to concentrate just on working, gaining wealth, frivolous things, getting worried about the next day and on coming wars. We need to work together and fight for a better world, by this I mean doing what we can to make the world a better place and face the horrible people who create ways to separate us and overwork or abuse us.
Happy New Year! I'm very excited about 2023 and all the conversations it will have to offer! If you feel like it (and are able to), please support me on Patreon! It helps the channel tremendously. The link to it is in the description. Oh, and, keep in mind, the passage cited at the beginning is from The Conundrum of the Workshops, a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The whole point of that poem is to point out how paralyzing it can be for artists to wonder if what they do is art. In this video, I'm playing the Devil. Sometimes, it really doesn't matter if what you're making is art or not.
I think it's more of a frightening thing for artists how fast and accurate the work produced by AI is , where artists might imitate and then integrate a style over years , AI can do it between a second and a day.
Knew a local band that had an artist paint while they played; the one show I saw he painted a mural.... Cant even remember watch the picture was he painted, but the experience was what I loved.... I guess if you wanna pretty picture hire AI, if you want an experience watch an artist
@@Arbby2003 no it didn't. The photographer had to understand composition, lighting, camera operation and dark room processes. They didn't press a button and get an instant artwork.
@@Arbby2003 photography is taking pictures of REALITY and one still needs an understanding of technique to master it, an ai generated image has no origin its just an amalgamation of real human ones, except with all the decisiveness and meaning of a real piece. tired of these half ass analogies comparing photography to ai; they arent even cousins
@@kyledoherty9678 some undoubtedly are. I've been an artist for a very long time and I have used it. It doesn't suddenly cancel that out. Similar to using any other tool an artist might use. A pencil for example, just because you use one doesn't make you an artist and just because you use one doesn't mean you're not. Tools can be used to make things easier. No doubt, however, a skilled artist with the knowledge and creativity to use what they know and a.i. will likely surpass a.i. artists and stand alone artists, at least in the digital world.
if i dont make art, i die, so whether or not im replaced by a machine doesnt change this fact, ill just be bent over im my dark room painting more pictures
To my mind, art is what allows us to understand another person's experience of the world. That can be as simple as the joy of "look at this beautiful sunset" or as complex as a novel that fully transports the reader into the world of its protagonist. And yes, that is a very broad definition of art, but IMO nothing good has ever come of "that's not art!" It not only dismisses the work itself, but also the artist as a thinking, feeling (albeit perhaps not overly talented) human being. So, I agree that intent is the key point, but to me, it's art if it was made with the intent of expressing an emotion or internal landscape. AIs don't have emotions or internal landscapes, so they cannot make art, only mimic it.
If someone had intent to express an emotion or an internal landscape, and used AI as a tool (as a painter would use a brush) via specified prompts to express said thing, wouldn’t that then be considered art?
Thanks for keeping this videos FREE. I've been thinking a lot about this theme and it really amuses, i'm in a NEW kind of knowledge that hasn't been studied the full possibilities and it really intrigues me I really liked that part were you explained what happened to the artists when the photography came in. When the sound came into cinema, Directors were really frustated because the silent cinema had found his language after a long way of just representing the reality by what it was and nothing else. But sound cinema found his way too, and it was clear that silent and sound were two completely different things, you can´t just add soun to a film that was intended to be silent. I really wonder if the same history with Photography and sound cinema will happen with ai art: It will find his own language, is his own language being a soulless illustration? Yet, i can't believe that the answer is just "Because we are humans" It really amazes and at the same time scares me the possibilities of the future of art.
As a student who has read my Jameson and my Fisher, I am like yes but no. I think narrowing the definition of art could rob us of something and since we are already due to lose something because of AI art, I don't want to intentionally be deprived of more...
My brother and I had a conversation about this a few months ago. It started with the observation of how people like to use ‘art’ as an enhancer (e.g. calling a car a work of art to make it seem fancier)
Wonderful thought provoking critique on why AI isn’t art. I’ve never been in the “AI is Art” camp but didn’t have the words to express why. Thank you for adding to my argument. Have a wonderful new year.
AI art, or art created using artificial intelligence, is a relatively new phenomenon that has sparked a great deal of debate in the art world. Some critics argue that AI art is not truly "art" because it is created by a machine rather than a human. However, this argument is misguided and fails to take into account the complexity and creativity that goes into creating AI art. First and foremost, it is important to understand that AI art is not simply the product of a computer algorithm. The process of creating AI art involves a great deal of human input and decision-making. For example, a human artist may train a machine learning model on a dataset of images, and then use that model to generate new images. The artist must choose which images to include in the dataset, and must also decide how to tweak the parameters of the model to achieve a certain aesthetic. Additionally, AI art often requires a great deal of technical skill and knowledge. Creating a machine learning model that can generate images that are indistinguishable from those created by a human artist is no easy task. It requires a deep understanding of both the technical aspects of machine learning and the creative process of art-making. Another important point is that AI art is not a replacement for human art, but an addition to it. AI art can be seen as a new medium for human artist to explore, and that in many cases, AI art is not meant to replace human artist but to expand their work. Finally, it is worth noting that many of the objections to AI art are rooted in a narrow and outdated understanding of what art is. Art has always been a reflection of the technology and society of its time, and AI art is no different. To reject it outright is to reject the evolution of art itself. In conclusion, AI art is indeed art. It is a form of art that involves human input, technical skill, and creativity. It is not a replacement for human art but an addition to it. Those who whine about why it isn't are simply clinging to a narrow and outdated understanding of what art is. AI art is a new medium for artists to explore, and it is an exciting development in the world of art. (This comment has been generated by ChatGPT)
@@theliar4558 chat gta or whatever belongs to the same company that made dalle 2, are you excepting it won’t defend it for the sake of both products's profit? Also, at least the pro ai people write their own comments, but in your case you can’t even do that, you rely on ai even for having your own thoughts…
@@Tijaxtolan It's not that I don't have my own thoughts. It's that this subject is not worth the time or effort for forming them into words. So, I asked for help from something that can do it better and quicker. Artists aren't the first, nor are they the last to be pushed aside because of the growth of technology. They're just the best at whining about it.
@@theliar4558 you know what else got pushed aside by technology? Your critical thinking, this thing didn’t help, it straight out made a f advertisement for you, both belong to the same company so it won’t attack ai images What’s next in this endless trend of “I don’t have time I need help”? An ai that wipes your 🍑 and gives you your pap in your mouth?
Man I really thought the first jobs to be replaced by AI would be in Finance, Insurance, accounting and other office jobs of that sort, I didn't think that illustrators would be in any danger. I guess that the only jobs that are totally safe for now are those that require labor with your hands, electricians, plumbers, hvac people, construction. Corporations are as soulless as they can get, for them "AI art" is art and if it means less money spent then it's worth it.
My concern about that narrowing definition of art is that it makes only social or political art "real art" and leaves the role of the audience out of the discussion. Is art only visual communication ? I think artists are already devalued in society to now say to them "you're just doing pretty things that holds nothing more than that, you're """just""" an illustrator" because machines gets to do the same. But this convo is super interesting ! Would love a whole series on that if it doesn't exist yet
Doesn't have to necessarily be political, though I do agree it probably will emphasize that type of art. Artists make and show stories that can be related to or show a certain perspective or thought process. creating appealing work is just the surface in my opinion. Marvel movies are fun to watch in the beginning but it will eventually become boring if it doesn't have a thought provoking substance. AI might be able to overcome our contradictive thinking but my human ego isn't ready yet. Young thing is better than me and I don't like it. "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord."Matthew 10:24 "The student has become the master?"- Maybe the Plate guy. Important to be humble for growth though
Everything is political; even the choice (or lack thereof) to engage in politics. One's art may not be explicitly political, but there's a certain political stance involved in so deciding.
Fear not, AI won't replace human artists completely because though photography was introduced people have been creating hyper-realism art, even now. AI will just coexist as a tool of expression along with others.
@@ivy4360 Value is subjective and always subject to change. A handcrafted shirt may be nice, but the machine manufactured version is faster, cheaper, and likely better quality.
@@BombalurinaAI Indeed its more that the ones that still exist regardless exist because they hold more value even if only sentimental. All the ones made just to be shirts good enough to wear have stopped being made.
Wait, but works like Duchamp's Urinal emphasize that what defines an "Art" piece is not some essence or quality in the artistic object itself, but a specific relation with the object as such from the part of the viewer. Getting further with this idea, anything could be considered "Art" in the right context or if the viewer desired it so. If a spectator reads an AI Work as "Art" and decides to interact with it beyond simple beauty and towards a place of ideas (ideas which are usually expressed though a painting's aesthetics and visuals, things an AI can easily replicate, even if without cohesion), wouldn't this make this AI Work "Art" despite any other categorical definition that we could give it? This whole debate reminds me a lot of that case in which a lot of art critics were astonished by some abstract paintings and derived the most beautiful ideas out of it only to discover it was made by a Chimp without any idea of what "Art" even is. Does this take away from the aesthetic experience those critics had? I personally don't believe so. From what I believe, we cannot define what "Art" is or isn't, it only is Art as far as we have a specific relation with an object as such. The biggest problem with AI Art right now doesn't seem to be an aesthetical or philosophical one, but more of a systemical and economical problem that the first half of this video described with great concision.
I used to believe this stricter separation of art and illustration when I was in college, but I find myself making this distinction less and less. I'm not sure I fully agree here. I understand the point fully, but I also believe now that regardless of the intent, the moment a human decides to express something inside them, even if it's just the need to create a pretty image, that is in itself an act of creation, and therefore art in a sense. Even if it's to become a product, even if it could be reproduced by a machine, I don't think the "line" to defininf art should be brought down to the philosofical intent of the artist. It can simply be left at the fact that a human intended to create, even if the image is visually undistinguishable from a machine. At the end of the day I don't think AI changes really all that much about art conceptually, aside from the issues with IP and stealing labor, and even though I respect your opinion, it kind of is sounding like an excuse to be in fact slightly elitist about the definition of art.
Well said. Love this channel, but he's reiterating every MFA programs demonization of Illustration as having merit as "art". I disagree with his notion of art/image must be a tool of communication, not merely as entertainment. By that logic, stop signs are the greatest form of objective art. The idea that entertainment is devoid of visual communication comes off as naive. And if art is defined as having an intention, then really it is as simple as anything and every form of conscious human action can be considered an expression of "art".
also, on a pretty picture there can be a lot of information and emotions even though it's not completely clear to one viewer or another. theres pretty art with a lot of personality coming through it
I'm not an artist in the traditional sense. My canvas isn't a blank sheet of paper or vinyl. I build and paint models. In doing so I express my view of the world. An AI could never do that for me.
Under extreme Capitalism; a country ceases to be a society, and becomes merely an economy. Everything is commodified and all interactions, transactional. This is where we're headed, if not already there.
Artists get inspired by each other but enjoy the process of creating art and perfecting their style while people who generate AI images seem to only be concerned with the result. To me, the results are not even pretty. I cannot understand how someone can reach satisfaction without actually putting in some work but to each their own... I understand why you call it "illustration" but illustration can also be art. I wouldn't call Ai generated images art-related terms at all. Artists are well aware that corporations will do just about anything to avoid supporting real art. Ai is just the shiny new addition to the hardships an artist has to face. But aside from corporations, uneducated people who have no clue about art are part of the problem. Some of these comments are proof of that. They can only see, consume and understand kitsch (and not the good kind). At this point, artists are making art for themselves and no one else.
One glimmer of hope in this debate is that it could cause some sort of renaissance for artists, in that it could potentially inspire aspiring artists to strive to make more meaningful art to distinguish it as best they can from it's AI competition. I dislike this cope though lol, since it's still essentially still an admission of defeat. I don't see any actual artists promoting AI art for the most part. AI art's biggest defenders seem to be money hungry people or nihilists who revel in an opportunity to take meaning away from the lives of artists so that we'll be just as miserable as they are.
@@dylanwalsh2574 I think I suggested something similar before; an AI-free Art platform that only admits very good artists. Free of theft, visual pollution and (sorry to say) amateurs. Amateurs are better off learning from Masters and striving to be admitted on this platform rather than being in the same place as them when they aren't ready yet. Some limits/standards need to be set. This would truly benefit everyone except Ai fans. But they can stay on Artstation or other platforms. I would be happy with the possibility of a renaissance as I think Art is already hard to find in an ocean of images. I think money sucked away the joy from artists since the beginning of time.. Rather than dealing with this, more and more artists will choose to separate the two. Now that "art " is so easily accessible cheap and fast real artists may just say; ok I'm creating solely because my whole being tells me to create. No one can take that impulse away from them and to me, that is Art; a way to release emotions and thoughts in order to make life bearable, enjoyable, or simply more interesting. Artists have no trouble imagining what they want to create. Yet, I hear many people argue that Ai is a useful tool for visualization.. so then what are the brain and imagination for...? Are we becoming completely invalid unable to even think/imagine for ourselves?
@@dylanwalsh2574 Or maybe it’s so that finally anybody can make drawings and not be separated from those whose innate talents allow them to create what is in their head. It doesn’t have to be considered “art” to matter.
@@gvd72 You do not need innate talent to make art. Poorly executed concepts aren't dismissed as works of art for being bad, they're just seen as inferior works of art. The argument that AI "allows anyone to make art" is nonsense to me because my entire line of argumentation is that human passion, emotion and opinion is what defines art, not some innate talent or the skill level of the artist. Your argument that AI allows you to make art is evidence that your interest is not in making art out of passion (as you could do that right now without AI regardless of natural talent or level of skill), but out of a desire to be perceived as a good artist without putting the work in. It's purely egotistical and has nothing to do with who's "allowed" to make art. It's nobody else's problem if some beginner artists have an inferiority complexes.
@@__Liza__ I definitely don't see AI art going away. As unfortunate as it is, I think you're right that art has been overly commercialised. Not that anything is wrong with artists wanting to make money of course, just that it's now a nearly impossible feat to balance creative integrity with sustainable income as an artist.
What makes something "art" is the nail used to hang it on a wall. The invention of photography was supposed end art, but they were able to create some new and beautiful language that the camera could not do: impressionism (and now photography is considered a form of art in it's own right).
Thank you for making a video on this, it's been difficult as a digital creator through this feud. Having to constantly defend my art and self is exhausting and yes, boring.
Also having to deal with countless copy pasted comments about “democratizing art”, “you’re an elitist”, “the machine uses references like u”, “you’re a luddite” etc…
@@smaspa8627 @smAsPa there's no such thing as "ai artists," you're not making art. Watch the video again. Also, you're not being "attacked" by "established artists," you're being called on the ethical problems with the ai "art" movement and how it negatively impacts artists.
I understand why someone would say this, but I also think that people who disregard the importance of art often forget that their favourite music, movies, shows, video games and clothes are all designed by artists. People love art, even those who don't realise it because they themselves are not the ones making it, whereas religion often actively persecutes those who disregard it.
This was a beautiful anecdote. Thank you. I am currently writing my bachelor thesis on this exact question and even though I obviously still have to do a whole scientific process, I am grateful for the thought aspects this video has given me.
Is funny how our pals using ai try to humanize the machine as much as they can when it comes to references in order to avoid criticism for copyright, but then they dehumanize it as much as they can when it comes to creating the image in order to claim the picture as “theirs”
I hoped for a better point/discussion from this from this channel than "Capitalism bad" and divisiveness about what should and shouldn't be art. Capitalism has it's pro's and con's but it's not the sole reason the A.I. art discourse has traveled as far as it has. A lot of people that are wary of A.I. art don't even make a living off their art, they're not fearful that they'll lose their meal ticket. They're fearful of art losing it's soul, which you touched on but dismissed with a silly comparison to animation. A.I. art isn't art because art requires intent. Art requires something sentient on the other end expressing something, whatever it is. Machine generated images lack that, and create an uncanny valley effect.
I don't even make Ai art. But I can easily see how it's just another tool artists will adapt to, and use to be creative, just like every technological art tool that came before it. The exact same arguments were used against photography, every single one, and meant in the exact same way. They really thought photography was stealing their work, that it was non-human and artificial, and required no skill beyond pressing a button. Then again, in the same way, when digital art on computers came around, traditional artists claimed it would never be art, because it wasn't being made by a human hand.. Which we all know is a silly over-simplified way to view those things now. AI art is the EXACT same, despite the ethical complications around how some of them are trained, in the long run that won't really change the discussion. Eventually that will be worked out, and by then they'll be even more capable of even greater quality imagery, maybe even video.. It's all about the creative intention, and effort you put into using the tool. The best AI art out there, isn't just throwing some words together, it's about describing a scene in details that AI can understand, in a way that gives you the most control over those details. Which is a skill that takes learning.. It also requires just as much knowledge and understanding of art and photography concepts and terminology, as any other art. Producing good images often requires fine-tuning, post-processing, tweaking prompts over and over, trial and error to get things looking the way you were really imagining. I see a lot of people making the exact same over-simplifications of how this tool is used to create art, and not giving ANY consideration to the possibilities that someone could use it that way, because they just don't want to accept it could.
To hire an artist and describing what they should make is exactly the same as "hiring" AI to make an image. Prompts can never fully control the output. It can only be suggestions. So yeah, you can let the machine make something for you, but it is really no different than to ask a human to do the same. I would argue the AI becomes the artist, and can therefor in no way compare to a camera or another digital tool. It is just something totally different, a tool has never before been an "artist".
@@svanemy No, it's not comparable to that at all. No artist would put up with hours of a client directly fine-tuning and tweaking every little aspect over and over till they created exactly what the client had in their imagination, vs the artist's imagined version in that case. In the vast majority of real cases, the goal is to have the artist create the work in their own style, and ideally from 1 initial description, leaving adjustments to a minimum. Most artists don't wanna deal with much further nitpicking over what they're making, to anywhere near the level we're talking about with AI. And yes, prompts CAN fully control the output. Good AI artists right now have very precise control over what final images they consider done, and know how to describe things in ways that the AI produces the results they want. And their process can take hundreds of tweaks, over the course of hours, till they they get what they want. Just as can any creative endeavor. That's what the guy who won that competition said it took him. If you actually look into prompt-engineering guides, there's quite a lot to learn and manipulate. Plus they often make post-processing touchups in photoshop to improve the images as any digital artist does. Finally, if you haven't heard about it yet, look up the latest videos about "Google Muse" that was just announced. It shows these things will soon enable prompt writers even more control over the exact details of scenes, arrangements and numbers, even accurate text exactly how and where described. This going to be the year of AI doing all the things people claimed AI couldn't do. lol
You work in the art industry? I work in entertainment and have for years now. Calling client feedback “nitpicking” is how you stay unemployed and poor as an artist. Respect the clients vision and your own integrity, they arnt exclusive. AI sucks, but so did this above take.
@@poe1554 So you clearly didn't understand the level of nitpicking I was referring to? There's an obvious difference between the 100s of prompt tweaks someone using an AI art generator can go through until they get what they were imagining, and the level of client feedback an artist doing a commission would consider reasonable. Not even close, and it has nothing to do with keeping clients or not. You're just dodging the points at hand, with that nonsense. Sounds to me like you don't have any real arguments to address any of my previous points.
@@GrumpDog in that case, I’d call these people software skilled not art skilled You’re just sitting there and watching the ai do everything artistically, it’s like watching a chef and feel you have cooking skills Or more like google, you can use very well the engine but never claim knowledge of what it shows you
AI art is almost like cloning a person's years of learning and hard work and discarding him and replacing him with a machine which sounds like a dystopian future, which devalues artists in general, this is just the start of AI it will only get better, i predict in the future it would be almost like cloning people not just in the art field but every field imaginable, i get that AI will help with mundane tasks but for things that are unique to an individual or maybe even a company i think thats unethical, if AI gets really good in the future to the point where its almost like cloning, so is it ethical to clone people without their permission? this does sound like science fiction but this is exactly where we are heading, in the near future people will start to ask themselves why do anything at all if any large companies or anyone could feed my hard work to AI models to replace me without any compensation for my hard work at all and easily make similar work to it, everyone is affected here, from writers, musicians, animators, 3d modelers, programmers, and the list goes on, i think "training data" is too valuable and unethical to be taken without permission, and should be copyrightable, a person should have a right to how his data is used, this is the only way forward in a capitalist society, the other option is shifting our society to a more socialist one, where an AI taking your job isn't as fatal as it is now to your livelihood, as it is now we are on the road to a dystopian future because capitalism and AI automation cannot coexist.
When you invited the commenters to change your mind, I rolled my eyes. "Silence, RUclipsr. I'm not boosting your algorithm." But here I am, because your closing argument contained such a glaring oversight, I had to speak up. Art contains meaning and a deeper conversation ONLY because the viewer pulls that meaning out of their engagement with a piece. Meaning in isn't encoded by the artist. He's not in the museum, holding our hand, telling us why his use of of amaranth instead of vermillion is significant. The audience interrogates that out of the piece in a private dialogue between themselves and the art. What that means is the audience inevitably attributes meaning the artist did not and sees deliberate choice where no thought was given. That means it's impossible for people to apply your distinction. People will hallucinate meaning and context and deliberate choice into AI generated art. Everything will appear to have meaning, and in some real sense it will. It won't have an artist's meaning, but then again, it never did in practice anyway. The distinction you draw is dead on arrival, but it's worse than that, because there is enough control in prompt creation that AI art can be used to convey deliberate meaning. Subject, composition, medium, and tone can be used to convey meaning and are easily manipulated in prompts. If you want to push this idea, it's going to take a much, much narrower definition of art, and I honestly don't think any definition is going to hold out indefinitely. You'll be revising your definition of art again in 10 years.
Lol the "anything can be art" crowd suddenly wants to create their own rules for what art is. Ai is art because they made it art by not wanting a definitive answer for what art is
I think you make an interesting point but to me it's impossible to differentiate between meaningful and just "pretty" art. I think beauty alone can be deeply moving, be it a painting, a photo or a song, even if the creator didn't know exactly what they were doing. By your definition only financially independent artists working conveying intentional messages could produce real art. Also I think the thumbnail is an example of AI art that absolutely qualifies as real art even by your definition, I think the creator spent 90 hours crafting his prompts to get the intended result.
As anyone who talks about ai art you are missing a simple point. AI art is not something that a dumb computer generate by itself: it is something that a human generate by using a set of easy to use but complex to master tools. So what you are witnessing right now is just like the dawn of cinema: mostly a collection of experiments done by a new media. But as right now a lot of people are figuring out ways to express themselves with this tools. If art is communication between the autor and the viewer then as right now there is art generated by an AI mastered by the autor.
AI art may not be art, but AI can still be used to make art if it is used intentionally to make art and not just a pretty image. Many of the early images of AI art, the ephemeral blobs of indistinct things that are arms or legs in odd places were themselves closer to art than the perfect images of the human body or landscapes so often made today. Because the person working with that AI worked to make something they wanted to see, and used the AI as a tool, a paintbrush, to create it. There's a process in AI art called "inpainting". Where the artist (yes, the artist) takes a generated image and begins working out another, more detailed image within it. They do this by selecting sections of the image and prompting refinements or outright changes without disturbing the rest of the image. Often taking hours carefully selecting and prompting tiny sections of the overall work until they arrive at something they actually want. They willingly abandon the primary advantage AI provides, the absurd speed of creation, so they can create something they definitively wish to create, and use the AI to that effect. Some of these images created are actual art, because they have artistic intention. Counterbalance this with the cheap and tawdry use of AI to create perfectly marketable images by the bucketful without any real care about the artistic content of the images aside from looking like whatever is popular (see: the use of "trending on Art Station" or "trending on DeviantART" in the prompt list), and to me at least, the difference between AI being used to cram out images and AI being used for real artwork becomes apparent. AI is a tool for an artist to use. A very powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. Much akin to a drum machine or a synthesizer, or the camera, it is a new medium for us as humans to play with and to express ourselves with.
AI art, or art created using artificial intelligence, is a relatively new phenomenon that has sparked a great deal of debate in the art world. Some critics argue that AI art is not truly "art" because it is created by a machine rather than a human. However, this argument is misguided and fails to take into account the complexity and creativity that goes into creating AI art. First and foremost, it is important to understand that AI art is not simply the product of a computer algorithm. The process of creating AI art involves a great deal of human input and decision-making. For example, a human artist may train a machine learning model on a dataset of images, and then use that model to generate new images. The artist must choose which images to include in the dataset, and must also decide how to tweak the parameters of the model to achieve a certain aesthetic. Additionally, AI art often requires a great deal of technical skill and knowledge. Creating a machine learning model that can generate images that are indistinguishable from those created by a human artist is no easy task. It requires a deep understanding of both the technical aspects of machine learning and the creative process of art-making. Another important point is that AI art is not a replacement for human art, but an addition to it. AI art can be seen as a new medium for human artist to explore, and that in many cases, AI art is not meant to replace human artist but to expand their work. Finally, it is worth noting that many of the objections to AI art are rooted in a narrow and outdated understanding of what art is. Art has always been a reflection of the technology and society of its time, and AI art is no different. To reject it outright is to reject the evolution of art itself. In conclusion, AI art is indeed art. It is a form of art that involves human input, technical skill, and creativity. It is not a replacement for human art but an addition to it. Those who whine about why it isn't are simply clinging to a narrow and outdated understanding of what art is. AI art is a new medium for artists to explore, and it is an exciting development in the world of art. (This comment has been generated by ChatGPT)
The main distinction you draw between art and non-art (or "illustration") is intentionality. I don't think the vast majority of people who consume art will make or have historically made that same distinction. What one considers art is necessarily subjective, and making the prescription to eliminate a whole sub-category (that is already largely considered art) from the overall category feels elitist and, to many, comes off as gate-keeping. Personally I feel that AI-art is a fine subcategory in the overall category of art; in the same way that photography is. It distinguishes itself so that people know what you mean when you say AI-art, as well as what you don't mean. The way we categorize nebulous things like art seems to always come down to common parlance. Trying to force this elimination from the category down peoples throats when a perfectly descriptive term within the category is already being used feels pointless.
if the AI generators used a watermark or something like that maybe it would cause less issues, right now there's a lot of people trying to pass it as human made art tho. I think there should be caution with what can be fed to the generator, as some people take sketches or wips artists have done, and make the AI finish it for them, then try to claim it as their own work, which is dangerous. ethically there should be a lot of limitations regarding the database and what can and cannot be used.
@@michemicalromance I agree, disclosure of the fact that it's AI art is important. But the same happens with plagiarism of other artists work - people posting it and claiming it's their own. I know you're not saying this, but the fact that people can pass it off as their own isn't a good enough reason to remove it from the category of 'art.'
@@polyrhythmike stolen art is art, but it's done by somebody else, the same with AI (although I particularlly do not consider AI generated images art because it doesn't actually have a consciousness of what it's creating, it can't consent to doing it, and it depends on stealing other's work for the algorithm to generate something OKish). maybe some people can pass it off as their own work, but their knowledge will be limited, since they couldn't learn anything they would have by drawing it themselves, they won't be able to show their process because they don't have one, etc. and at that point, a lot of artists nowadays are valuable because they share a lot of how they work and teach other people aswell. so idk about that.
something important aswell is that theft in art, although it's common, doesn't go unnoticed for so long. i see a lot of drawings daily and i can sometimes pinpoint references used in a drawing and outright stealing done by other people. idk how but it just happens, and i think most people who draw can do that too
Soon enough no one's going to care if it's real art or fake. It all boils down to the fact that it's cheaper. Example: diamonds. One of the rarest materials out there. They apparently last forever, henceforth marriage rings are made out of it because of it's 'foreverness' The diamond industry was prosperous. Then came China. Someone figured out how to make artificial diamonds. At first, people were reluctant to buy them. They were new. Plus the real diamond business kept bad-mouthing them. Then people realized: artificial diamonds are so much cheaper. One real diamond can sell for millions, while the artificial, mass produced version costed under 100$. On top of that, you can get a blue diamond, red diamond, pink diamonds, yada yada, you get the gist. So what if it's fake? That's not going to stop companies from claiming it's the same or even better than the original. It will take time, but people will eventually accept it.
I think whether something is “art” or not should be more a matter of whether it’s self expression or not rather than having explicit meaning. Inherently this makes almost everything illustrated by humans art (and I’d argue things like commissions would still be considered art because you’re helping someone else in their self expression) but leaves out AI because there really isn’t a “self” to express.
Wait, if commissions count for that reason, wouldn't that mean that AI art counts as well because the prompters are using an AI to assist in expressing themselves? Note that I don't support AI "art", I just wanted think more on this.
Wouldn't AI art be a form of expression then? Someone expressing themselves through the AI's interpretation of prompts. What makes photography art if AI isn't? It's a really interesting debate on the meaning of art.
@@digitab4446 That is exactly it. The AI art is at its most basic level just a commission. Only instead of a specific artist you are dealing with an amalgamation of what humanity knows as art. The end result came from the one who wished for it to exist and accepted the result. This is at the very least an expression of something within the one who "commissioned" the art from the AI. Once a person starts fiddling with it it goes beyond that base level though.
For the time being, I believe that AI art has the potential to push art forward as the invention of photography did (leading to more abstract works). However, an "illustrator" can intentionally put small artistic details to his works making them less soulless which is not a thing in AI art and I don't know if this is going to be a problem in the future. All in all, real art cannot be replaced by AI and I really hope this new technology to revolutionize art.
in the episode "Neptune's Spatula," SpongeBob attempts to answer the question of what is the meaning of art by challenging Neptune to a cook-off. SpongeBob only makes one hamburger, but is able to prove his worthiness as an artist by using a unique combination of ingredients and condiments to make it a work of art. This episode made me not afraid of artificial intelligence, because in the end people will see the truth
For me there seems to be three different definitons of art Art as expression Art as skill Art as product I would not use illustration as the separated group but rather use product A product is something made by something else which you buy or interact with.
"Not all paintings are art" Me crying over my yiff collection "It's art to me!" In all seriousness though, i love this video. You were able to touch upon so many things i just couldn't put my finger on. The connection of commercialism of artist was obvious and even one of the core part of the debate, yet you managed to give me a new perspective on that. Seperating art and giving it more concrete definitions is important, and today these notions will be and are challenged pretty heavily. "Not all paintings are art just like not all text is a novel" perfectly sums it up. In this sense, the creations of Hidetaka Miyazaki. Him and his team create video games, but the impact they have, the relationship the director has with these games i would argue constitute art. A clear intent, rich stories, makes you engaged in more ways than just gameplay, just look at the community and the discussions around the lore, the stories, the messages. I've discovered the wonders of historical alchemy and i am ehtralled. I'm not saying this as a fanboy here, Miyazaki is one those people who give me hope and inspiration for the future. He wants to make new games, he wants to innovate and improve, make something new. And did they use AI for their art? Well yes of course, to help with planting trees to make their placement more "natural" same with hills and mountains and some other landscape details that would take unreasonable amount of time to do well, in order to ship the game in time. But in the end they had to go and fix up the kinks in the generation of it.
Since you're so sure of your opinion I've got your next video concept. Collect a couple hundred pieces of art from humans and AI alike. How about we cycle through the images and you hand pick which are human and which are AI made? We both know you're going to fail at this task. Let that sink in. This argument is doomed to devolve into the age old argument , "Does art need context." Which it objectively does not. The example that "This toilet becomes art when we engage with it" directly clashes with the example of "Its pretty but is it art?" The only question to ask is, "Is this expression? Was someone expressing themselves through a medium when they created this?" The concept that Art must be conceptualized and contextualized by culture, conflict, story or other means treads directly towards elitism you claimed to be avoiding. You can merely argue these conceptualized and contextualized pieces are higher forms of art but the argument that they are the only Art is very short sited and intellectually dishonest.
Thank you for this video! Regarding your point that not everything beautiful is art (which I very much agree with), I want to complicate things a little further in regards to AI "art". What's scary about AI art isn't the fact that it can be just as pretty as man made art, but put in the right context, it can also appear just as deep. I've seen examples of AI-made art which aren't even necessarily what you would call "beautiful", but I can totally imagine that if this art was sold to someone under the impression that a person made then, perhaps this piece could even be named, it has the potential to provoke feelings just as deep. So I would argue the problem is even more profound than that. AI art doesn't only have the potential to be just as pretty, but also just as "deep" when presented in the same way as traditional art.
No it doesn’t because it doesn’t mean anything. When you know a person made soemthing, that adds a depth to it. Ai art is an amalgamation of other piec sof art or images based on a algorithm, it’s not art.
I see what you're saying, but I don't think the AI generated image existing and provoking deep thoughts is necessarily a problem. different people will have different perceptions and feelings regarding the same thing. it's like if you and your friends baked a cake and decorated it, and some like your cake better, others like other cakes (note here that I don't think AI images are art because the generator depends on stealing and doesn't have a counsciousness of what it's doing, doesn't consent to doing it). SOME AI images are actually interesting, the problem is the theft and unethical usage of works these generators are doing, and how it could possibly be used for profit and against artists existence, cause if they have to exist and their job is replaced, there's no other option than taking another job, not the one you love to do, right? most artists are mad but not because the AI can do the same thing they can (maybe how fast it works is a problem, but only because of capitalism pressure to work fast), since essentially that would be the same thing as being mad because other artists can communicate through their art better than you can, that ain't it. the problem is not having the opportunity to work with the one thing that brings them joy, and is tolerable despite the intense pressure.
I don't agree that the capabilities of AI Art generation is a problem. Sure, it hurts some types of artists, but that is both predictable and inevitable with the progress in AI.
@@Auramus the AI as it is right now hurts all artists, because it depends on stealing. it should definitely be regulated and use a watermark that makes it clear that it's AI generated.
@@michemicalromance No, it doesn't hurt all artists. Only a subset of them. I wouldn't call it stealing. It's more like using images that are available on the web, and then making new ones out of them. It is pretty much inevitable online. This is something people will have to get used to. Directly copying and stealing is illegal, but this is a different, grey area.
I don't really see how reducing something to 'just illustration' means it's not art. The simple different between a sunset and an illustration of a sunset is: a sunset is beautiful, so isn't art. But an illustration of a sunset is 'how I, the illustrator, see the sunset'. Which is art, according to your own definition, because it's sharing an experience.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...there is no worth for any illustration, until it was assigned to it. There is no realistic cost that could be applied beside the cost of the canvas/paint/digital tablet or the time creating it...and who painted it. In a vacuum, a million dollar painting for one might just be a wasted piece of paper for others. As a layman, personally there are two ways how something became 'art'. In how it was created and how it was interpreted. Both are ultimately selfish and subjective. Even a pebble on the side of the road could be artistic if you appreciate it enough. An intention is nice. but personally I don't think there is any need for an intention to appreciate something beautiful. And...if intention is what you want, what if..you as the one inputting words into to AI, with prompt such as, "a townscape, which depicted my longing to my homeland while I'm trapped here alone in a crowded metropolitan, digital art"...what then, there is something it tries to communicate, is that art? Or is it a mere illustration of a townscape? If someone stumble upon it and can appreciate its beauty, would it be art for that someone then? It should be...at least that particular individual believe so, who are we to judge?
i have so many thoughts but so little time or space. this is an entire discussion for me and one that engrosses me. i actually to an extent agree wit you and have so much praise for some of the points mentioned and some of the analysis on how commercialism and capitalism has affected the definitions and perspectives of art in society. these are criticisms that i regularly mention in discussion and also a large part of my personal thoughts and theories on and of the future of AI art. I actually love this video. thank you.
I feel like when a human creates, he bleeds onto the canvas or his creation and puts a little bit of him onto the art he creates. Our hands are always bleeding and staining and imprinting all we create with ourselves and our humanity, our thoughts and framework of things.
And yet, we often encounter art that was created anonymously, or the creator has simply been lost to time. And that can be a functionally similar thing. Whatever meaning the artist poured into it themselves is unknown and unknowable, all there is is what the viewer imparts. We can encounter a scene of suffering and imagine the hardships of its anonymous creator, when in reality their life was completely unlike our guess. And yet the feelings you got from imagining that were real all the same. Imagine coming across a random bit of AI art on some webpage, with no indication that's what it is. Is the meaning you read into it not knowing that any less real than how you engage with the work of an anonymous human?
Quite right. All humans share a common humanity. Or they used to do. A commenter below may already half machine himself, so please ignore him. The threat of AI is real. Just one more step away from contact with the human, and knowledge of ourselves. We see the human best, and learn about the human in ourselves, from others of our kind. This is the essence of art.
I agree with the idea of a separation between entertainment and art and the part of this video which is about AI, but to suggest that capitalism and the free market are necessarily destructive towards art is just incorrect. A free market favors what people want to buy and that which is scarce. An artist's work is unique, and therefore scarce. So the real problem behind the value of art is the amount of public interest. Criticism of the market should really just be criticism of the public's desires, taste, and values. It is a cultural issue, not an economic one. If people valued art, art would be more valuable.
Great video. I'll make one counter argument about ai being a tool that eventually replaces artists. As you correctly noted, art has been a commodity for quite a while. I think it's especially visible in the entertainment industry, specifically concept art (where I work). The more money is involved, the more the artists become akin to a 'human AI'. They're prompted for a particular thing and have very little room for expression because of plentiful limiting factors imposed by the corporate code. The thing is, for all the work artists are creating, it is merely a stepping stone in the greater creative endeavor. Be it a film or a videogame. I'd argue then, that ai is a tool, that opens a door for artists to become independent. Ditch the big corporation and make your own project. That's what I've been doing, I'm trying to make my own game rn and ai helps do quick iterations, searching for an idea, chat gpt in developing the story, dream textures in blender to quickly texture things, etc. This makes me excited for new ai developments, because I can turn my vision into reality, which is the ultimate goal of any artist I think.
As mentioned by some comments, "low art" such as illustrations, concept art, comics, etc, are not just "aesthetically pleasing pictures". They tell a story through the choice and placement of subjects. A good concept art / illustration of, say a knight, isn't just "person with sword and heavy armor". It takes into account things like the backstory/origins of the knight, the setting of the kingdom they serve, the practicality of their armor in terms of the work they do, etc. These factors will influence the design of the armor, the knight's expression, their pose, etc. A lot of concept artists say that coming up with the initial ideas and thumbnail is where most of their brain goes into, and that later on the rendering of the image (i.e. painting) is just going through the motions. In this sense, AI art at its current state could potentially automate a lot of the technical work that goes into the rendering, while the artist is still responsible for the ideas. The problem then, is that some of us actually enjoy the rendering process as it can be therapeutic and rewarding at the end. But it could definitely make it more apparent, to society, what separates a "pretty picture" from "a picture that tells a story". And of course, in the future, AI will be capable of generating ideas and solving design problems, so all of our jobs will become obsolete anyways, but that's another discussion lol.
someone that says AI art is not art has never done it. there is definitely an art form to creating your prompts. looking for good seeds for your prompt and refining your settings and creating masking to get exactly what you want. unlike a lot of tech stuff , when you change one setting it affects all the others and you have to adjust. you can't get good results by just saying something simple, many times I will spend hours and hours sifting through seeds and tweaking the wording of my prompt and the prompt weights. and to be fair it is still a long way from replacing actual handmade art. it has problems with complex shapes. hands are a great example. Now I think using this tech to copy others copyrighted material should not be allowed just like it would be wrong to paint fake painting and pass it off as an original. copying peoples works has long plagued the art world and this should be treated the same. but A.I. art definitely is art.
“Do we want all artists to be replaced by ai?” Unfortunately, that is exactly what most ai users want. They’re jealous of the “talent” that we have, too lazy to start drawing themselves and then argue that not everyone is able to afford art supplies. (Please, If yore able to have access to the internet, you can also afford an ikea pencil and a piece of paper.)
That still ignores the glaring issue in that achieving the level of artistry that most people want requires years, if not decades, of practice. And for most, they're not using these programs to become "AI artists". They just want a product. If I'm a small business owner who's opening up a cafe on a tight budget, and I'm given 4 options: 1. To make the logo myself and be satisfied with an amateurish half-assed logo, 2. To postpone my cafe's opening by years as I sharpen my skills as an artist to make the logo that I desire, 3. To commission an artist to make the logo for me for a significant sum of money, or 4. To use an AI Model in the internet and acquire a professional-level logo either for free or for a very low fee, I think the most optimal choice is fairly obvious. In the end, these AI models are built to shine in scenarios like those. They become the "McDonalds" of the art world; cheap and readily available, yet still delicious and filling. Most people aren't looking for artistic merit in the arts they commission, they just want something that's aesthetically pleasing enough to suffice for whatever practical purposes they have.
@@gracecalis5421 AI models are going to surpass real artists, just like AI surpassed humans in chess and go. People have been telling you this for decades but it was falling on deaf ears right up to the moment it hit artists in the purse, then they started noticing what is going on. Like it or not, AI is going to supersede us, it's inevitable. Just like a child supersedes it's parent. Artists are fighting a 1-stupid and 2-losing battle. You can't stop progress.
What's good about AI art is that it devalues all art. All human endeavors must be devalued and abandoned in order to get to the next stage of evolution.
I believe there are four types of art. 1. Man-made: visual arts, performing arts, fashion, literature, architecture - produced by inspiration, through experiences and level of expertise. 2. Animal-Created: A paw print in a cement pavement though accidental but made by my pet whom I love, is art to me because of its significance. 3. Nature: A tree, valley or a constellation can be art. Not just because it looks beautiful, but because it is inspiring, and it influences people’s value of nature. 4. Technological: I consider AI Generated illustrations as art because it can provide inspiration, it can produce beautiful images that people can appreciate. There are limits to each type, the same way each has their own advantage. Though at times they overlap, they cannot truly be compared. I cannot produce beautiful trees, I can only plant them. A dog can’t recite a poem. A rock can’t make itself a building, and an AI can’t produce an art on it its own unless commanded. Even its “free-will mode” is programmed.
1:14 many professional artists are pro AI art because now in the time it took them to make 4 images they can make 40. AI art isn't entirely effortless, you can get something quickly just as you can with a camera but craftsmanship is still a part of it
Good point. A great part of the problem is English usage of the word "art". In most other languages, there is a difference between art and painting, drawing, etc. You can be a bad painter and therefore, not an artist. Art is a level, a state of mind, if you will, not every little thing put on paper or canvas. In English, because it's badly used, the term art has become inflated and meaningless. For me, the height of absurdity was a few years ago when I saw a Subway job advertisement that read: sandwich artist.
@@sithlord5149 Art isn't really a thing. It's just things we find beautiful and assign meaning to. A.I. are proving that the "art" is inside the human brain, not in their creation. There is no difference between finding a sunset beautiful or a painting beautiful. The meaning you associate to stuff is up to you based on your memories.
@@foxdoe7540 That's true but that applies to every word it has no concrete definition and it can change the problem I have with your definition of the word "art" is that it is far to broad to mean much .Your definition is something I like .
The profit motive is absolutely at the core of the problem, here. There's nothing that would stop existing or upcoming great artists from utilizing AI to make spectacular art, imagine if all of the mechanical skill was not necessitized and instead broader concepts of composition and color and story and context were the main skills honed. It would mean the actual process of more bespoke creation would become lost to the ages like, perhaps, the skill of mixing paint and eyeballing color, understanding tangible materials and how they interact with a canvas material, how they dry or keep over time, these skills would indeed be lost but the transition from creativity to shareable product would remain. NOW, all that being said, this relationship between artists and AI has been hamstrung irrevocably because of the profit motive. It was nipped on the bud, aborted as a zygote, because the profit-motivated humans whose resources were leveraged in the dawning of the exploitative and morally corrupt advent of this tool has decided that the theft they calculated they could get away with was adequate enough for the scope of their greed and the reward outweighed the risks. Furthermore, cultivating a healthy relationship between artists and AI was, thus, determined to be a future beyond the myopic capitalist strategy. Why plant a tree the shade of which you won't enjoy? Under not just the profit motive, but ALSO the mortal limitation, it is sub-optimal to pursue what is best for humanity as a whole, i.e. short-term privatized gains willingly traded for long-term distributed consequences, i.e. climate change and imperialism in general. But yeah rant over, thanks for touching on this topic and giving your take.
This discussion is often framed as innovation against fearful denial of inevitable progress and I like the focus of this video. What is art for? One day there might be an AI that could be called conscious but until then human art will be unique… At least on this planet, can’t speak for hypothetical aliens.
This is only the beginning and why we MUST move past wage labor, post wages and being able to make a living simply by living (something we could do today and have it pay for itself exponentially) is what needs to be done.. This way the world can be improved and art can be made by human or machine and human will be more desirable. End wages, move past "makeing a living"
About AI generated images being the death of illustrators: Personally, I consider even Illustrations made by AI to be inferior to illustrations done by humans.When looking at an illustration, I can appreciate the amount of time and effort put into it, as well as the experience required to create it. When I know the illustration I am looking at is AI generated, I automatically appreciate it less, because no time or learning was needed in order to make it happen.If the era of AI generated images actually was the death of illustrations, I'd probably stop engaging with them. I don't think I am alone here:The value of an object often gets defined by how much work it took or how rare it is. AI generated images take barely any work and they obviously aren't rare either.They're basically worthless. Let's also not forget about the arguably most important argument against AI generated images, which is the fact that the AIs are mostly trained on copyrighted images and basically stealing the property of artists and using it to take their jobs.Leaving it out of the conversation because the conversation "would be happening regardless" doesn't seem very logical to me, as the AI would be nowhere near the level it is at now if it were to rely entirely on free-to-use images.Many people, including me, will try to avoid AI illustrations just for moral reasons. This is why I don't think illustrators will be going anywhere,even if the AI was perfect at it's job.
If we are going to compare ai to humans as ''taking inspiration'' then I'm sure this is a fair comparison: AI generating is like commissioning an artist you give it prompts and tell it what you want while the artist and ai give you an output You are not the artist, the thing that you fed prompts to is the artist Artists draw, ai plagarises You are not the artist, the input (artist and ''artist'') is the artist
I think of AI art like I do collages or scrapbooks. Both use other people's work to create something new, but it's clear that the final image wouldn't be possible without taking from others. I use AI art as a tool to create references that I would have a hard time finding otherwise. It's like using a search engine. I think of AI art like the camera. When the camera was invented, many thought it would be the end of traditional art. Of course, AI art is different because it involves using people's work without permission or payment, and that's not okay. Artists should profit for their contributions to AI artworks, but because the tech is open-source, it's out of our hands. Pandora's Box has been ripped open, and we are left to pick up the pieces.
First off: Good job outlining that the real problem here is capitalism and not the AI art itself. If everyone had universal basic income, many of the problems would be nonexistent. Secondly: I think there are two flaws in reasoning here: The first is comparing art that is just beautiful to with a sunset or a tree. The sunset or the tree haven't been created with intent on making something beautiful, art can be. Why wouldn't that be art, creating something to look at and be awed by its beauty? No, art doesn't have to be beautiful but art existing only for its beauty is still art. Why would beauty be any less valuable or worthwhile to be capturing artistically than other things? Secondly, I think much of the anxiety around AI art comes from a certain narcissism of the artists themselves and they would profit off the idea of the death of the author. Art is liberated if intent and thought behind its creation take a step back and a work is looked at without the psychologizing of it. Sure, we can also gain insight while leaving the author alive, but it's not always necessary. We are not forced at all to make a distinction behind art and illustration here, much like scorcese isn't forced to make a distinction between cinema and marvel movies, because there isn't a wrong way to make art. I guess Scorcese's ego is just so hurt by the thought of being in the same category as marvel filmmakers that he has to differentiate himself to them (and let's be honest, placing himself above them.) Of course someone typing in "draw a beautiful woman" into an AI-generator and someone working and suffering two years to capture the beauty of his late wife on a canvas isn't the same thing. But it's both art nonetheless, both creations of the human spritit to evoke emotions or reactions in themselves or an audience, with more or less help. I would also like to add: art doesn't have to be good, valuable or anything else. There's terrible art out there. It's still art though. I write novels btw, before anyone thinks this is just some consumer not being able to understand an artist's perspective.
"If everyone had universal ____, many of the problems would be nonexistent." This is applicable to so many things. One thing that instantly comes to mind is cultural appropriation. If there was true equality, there would be no cultural appropriation but solely cultural appreciation because all cultures would be deemed equal and everyone would equally partake in them in good faith, having respect for cultural differences and using the exploration to grow closer to those who are different. People would not only cite their sources but those sources would likely be known to far more people from the outset. However, there is a (sometimes) unspoken yet clear hierarchy, making people's choice to partake questionable, especially when solely in a commercial aspect and when the culture being profited off of is seen as inferior and/or only good as a reference.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
After this entire Ai art scenario, I realized that the attitude held by many ( not necessarily a majority, or even close, but a large chunk nonetheless) has always been that of 'artists have it easy' or that it is frivolous. Every step I took on my journey has been in direct opposition of those along that path. My teachers, relatives, schoolmates, counselors, and coaches. Many scoff at my admission that I wish to be a traditional artist, or a baker, or a sculptor. 'you are too smart.' you are wasted doing that' 'you could be so much more.' this trade is looked down upon, exploited, and scoffed at. We do not provide enough value to the commercialized world we have constructed, and we also, uniquely, are willing to take it in the chin. Perhaps this is because of the deeply personal relationship between art and it's maker, or maybe it is simply a biproduct of the changing landscape of the professional space leaking backwards along the path. I am not yet quite in the professional space, and I am young, but I think the way this plays out is simple whether or not we as a community finally standup for ourselves, or once again simply take it on the chin and keep grinding. The problems posed by AI art is nothing new, it is simply yet another detractor, one more hurdle I, and many others must overcome.
Author's note: I do think that this is far more threatening to the freelance digital space as a whole, and agree that action may need to be taken to protect these industries and spaces. And lastly, a note on context. AI art will never be able to make conscious, thoughtful choices about composition, or paint a piece on cardboard due to a lack of canvas and wood created by nearby conflict. Until we reach singularity, AI will simply be able to make aesthetic images, devoid of the true engagement made possible by the human element
or maybe because you write overlong exclusively ornate soliloquys on a youtube videos instead of something more useful or fulfilling
@@Seagaltalk let me make it shorter so you can comprehend. I don't care about you or your opinion.
@@thehatcaseonyoutube Art is dying.
@@Seagaltalk sharing your thoughts about something you're passionate about is not allowed now, huh
As an illustrator, illustration is more than just “pretty pictures”. It is it’s own form of story telling, not limited to social norms of being hung in a gallery, it can be applied to everything, it can be fast, it can be slow, it can be beautiful, it can be ugly but more than anything illustration always tells a story.
As much as AI has positives and negatives, I think more than anything the argument it has caused is pulling out the ugly side of the social understanding of art and the lack of respect artists get for the time, effort and passion gone into making a piece of “artwork” that is now being made with no time, effort or passion by an AI generator that wouldn’t even exist without the artists that have spent their whole lives trying to become masters in their own right. I agree that AI just produces “pretty pictures”, and more so now with social media feeding off of fast art, but for me without a story, what’s the point in the “artwork” existing in the first place.
exactly, I really feel he kinda missed the point of why AI art is so bad
You nailed it!
I agree with most of what you said here, but at the same time I think this "crisis" could be seen as a wake up call for artists to look critically into their (our) own work and process. In many ways the kind of "pretty" mediocre art (as well as the forms of dampened, pointless circulation it entails - this continuous permutation of elements and techniques referenced over and over) created by AI tools was being made by people way before these tools even existed. Passion is important as it drives us to do things, but it might not matter if we don't ask ourselves why do we do the things we do the way we do.
exactly illustration is art. the best distinction you can go is ai art and human art. cause trying to categorise something so subjective as art into not art or art is very difficult to do.
@@athiefinthenight6894 Yes I agree! I enjoyed the video and the ideas presented, but you can't separate art into -as you said- into art and not art based on "meaning", it's impossible. Simply because even a urinal when presented in a certain way can have meaning. People derive meaning from modern art, that can be described as a collection of colourful splotches, or shapes. Yet it makes some people feel things. I believe that because art cannot be created mindlessly, therefore it cannot be consumed mindlessly either.
I think something important about creating art that you didn't mention here is the process of making art is art. It's beautiful to know that an artist has spent their effort into making it, and it can be extremely cathartic and mentally important to the artist to take part in working on art.
Yes, exactly. The artist's soul is expressed in the work they produce. Their LIFE is art - and their personal story enhances the art. Why did they choose a particular colour - why did they shoot that particular picture? Because of their human experience, their worldview or politics or menal illness - or whatever. The computer has no soul. There's is no reason for a computer to create the art. It's just a mathmatical quandary.
AI's also perform a "process" to make art, they have learning algorithms that generate totally new artworks, just like a human artist would do, the only difference is that AI's are faster, and they don't have biological brains.
@@tassadar1977 *"The computer has no soul. There's no reason for a computer to create the art. It's just a mathmatical quandary."*
In reality, there are several reasons for computers to make art, and the most important one is time, an artist could take months or years to do what an AI can do in seconds, and these intelligences could help a person who is not an artist, to be able to make art and express himself through it, without the limitation of having to learn to draw, also companies producing entertainment through art, such as the film industry, could benefit in the future from AIs and could accelerate the production time.
The average consumer isn't interested in the work behind the artwork, or the context of the artist, they just expect something pretty to look at, and that's it, this applies to all the arts such as cinema, painting, photography and others.
@@FranciscoCastillo-bx3rf you've described a commercial process here - of making a product efficiently in the least amount of time. I don't see that as art. Not for me, anyway. I guess I see art as coming out of a different process. A human process that is flawed and takes individual mastery and loads of time. The general public might not know how it's produced, but an artist will. If you want an AI produced marvel film then sure, go nuts with your AI.
@@FranciscoCastillo-bx3rf They don't create totally new artworks, they scan the code that represents the image configurations and mesh those images into a unique scrambled code based on the human users keyword inputs. It's essentially like tracing several pieces of classical art paintings, hypothetically psychically knowing exactly the type of paints and exact shading used, reapplying those colours but then every few centimetres of your tracings, you intersect other tracings at different interconnecting points so by the end of combining several traced images at interconnecting points, it looks like a new image but its all been copied from pre-existing works, not inspired by, but literally copied and pasted and manipulated to mix with one another. It is not completely new fresh artwork, it is art theft.
I once wrote this poem and I think it is fitting for all of art not only for dancing (I tried to translate it from the German original as best as I could, but some of the beauty might have been lost to translation):
I never wanted to be a dancer - only to dance is what I wanted.
Pulsating giving life to forms -
blissful and eternally colorful.
Radiating full of beauty,
spreading happiness,
begetting joy,
sowing,
blossoming.
I never wanted to be a dancer - only to dance is what I wanted.
In deep believe drawing power from gods -
mighty and eons old.
Rejoicing from the heart,
Driving away gloom,
giving hope,
having,
beeing.
But I never wanted to be a dancer - only to dance is what I had to.
If this is a 'poor translation' as you say @rbrendrel1302, then I am impressed and I wish that I could read it in the original German (sadly though I don't speak the language).
@@bobdots5974 Thank you. I'm really glad you like it.
This is a really beautiful poem! Thank you for sharing!
And it does fit all kinds of artists! Or the passion of creating art!
Can you post the German version too? Would love to read it!
@@tasu5391 of course 🙂
Ich wollte niemals Tänzer werden - nur tanzen wollte ich.
Pulsierend Leben Formen geben - wonnevoll und ewig bunt.
Voll Schönheit strahlen,
Glück verteilen,
Freude zeugen,
sähen,
blühen.
Ich wollte niemals Tänzer werden - nur tanzen wollte ich.
Tiefgläubig Göttern Kraft entziehen - mächtig und Äonen alt.
Von Herzen jubeln,
Trist vertreiben,
Hoffnung geben,
haben,
sein.
Doch wollt ich niemals Tänzer werden - nur tanzen musste ich.
I fundamentally disagree with the implicit notion that "deeper meaning" is equivalent to conceptional meaning. In my opinion, an artwork that speaks to the viewer directly through its emotional impact (through beauty or whatever) is far deeper than just the expression of a concept.
As you mentioned Tarkovsky: This was one of his key philosophies as well, and many of his movies can only be interpreted conceptually to a certain extend.
See ruclips.net/video/ak6rI-j07QU/видео.html for a more in depth explanation.
exactlyy, 1 viewer can see a david friedrich landscape painting and not see any meaning in it, while one can feel solitude, sadness, adventureness, etc etc. bringing the conversation to what is art and what is not is essentially a waste of time I think. the issue is that in its core, AI image generators as they are right now (not capable of actually understanding what they're doing and only regurgitating images they take from the net) are theft inducing and will only push capitalism greed further
Which is why I find it painfully ironic he talked about Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, a mesmerizing work of art, but almost utterly "meaningless" (or, more appropriately, with little to no themes) - which is the point of the original fairy fale, as it deliberately embraces non-sense and builds its identity off of it.
Of course one could argue that consciously embracing non-sense is, by itself, an already "deep" and “meaningful” endeavor, but should one really have to formally recognize such qualities to have their work seen as “worthy” ?
Absolutely agree. Emotional impact is just as valid in my opinion. Art is an experience. I don't think we can really deny the artistic value of anything. While I recognize the ethical malpractice of AI generated art, it is art to many. Your preference to it makes it art. Art is only good because you like it. It's just that we all have tastes and it's impossible to disprove a work's artistic value, if you prescribe to my aforementioned principle of art as an experience. You can pull a piece of grass out of the ground and experience it as a work of art.
I'm no educated philosopher but this is how I stand on the matter.
I agree but nonetheless every one of tarkovsky’s films had started as a conceptual idea. In documentaries and even his sculpting time we hear he had a concept and idea he wanted to share. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum and even if he has the idea that he wants several meanings derived from the audience, he still began each work with intent.
And of course much like lynch and bresson he rather a person feel a film before undestanding it. But it’s important to note that these films aren’t just spontaneous with no meaning and just visual aesthetics. There is something more to them. Something an AI could never do.
I'm following the midjourny group on Facebook and I'm noticing something in my feelings towards these works , the "art" they share and inspite of how creative it looks, is making me lose my intrest in opening the posts and observe what people are sharing, and that's what is SCARY for me, the appreciation of the works, the ideas, the artists ,the stories that made us attached to a work of art before, they will simply disappear . That's just so sad.
This is good to bring up. Especially the stories, or provenance, of a work. For example if i did a live nude study i could talk about working with a model or the tools or anything like that. Any sort of story or origin to how it was made. With an ai-generated image all i would have to say to you was “i sat in my chair and typed a prompt.” No interesting story or intention. Im not saying i require a whole lot of backstory or anything. My enjoyment of painting/drawing doesnt hinge on such things. However, it’s something extra- an extra piece of interest. I mostly enjoy art and illustration purely visually. I like to interpret whatever i see and mull it over in my head. All of Beksinski’s paintings have no title and no objective interpretation. That’s the stuff i adore because i could think about what’s going on in that moment in the work forever and have it be always interesting. That was probably s tangent. But anyway, how i see it, for how fast ai images are created its like you constantly get cool stuff in an instant. And if everything’s cool, then nothing really is. Same with the quote from the incredibles “if everyone’s super… no one will be.” Ai art takes the risk of creating a bad drawing or painting out completely. And i dunno if i would still be doing what i do if i couldnt make a bad drawing despite how much i hate doing bad drawings. Ive heard the argument of this technology being accessible to people who arent artists and can see their ideas realized without having to put in the work. As gatekeep-y as it sounds i really cant see the benefit of this. Id rather have that unskilled person make a crude drawing of a funny or silly idea they had instead of instantly generating one. The bad drawing is far more enjoyable. The world already is rife with instant gratification and i cant in good conscious feel thats good for art or illustration. Not because i myself draw or paint, but because making art or illustration is creating something… putting something into the world whether its for personal fulfillment or for profit is providing an artifact on a surface or in a file. Generation is not even close to creation as far as i see it. If i lacked the self-awareness and proudly showed people “my” ai images from prompts i typed as if i made it i should be fucking embarrassed. I wouldn’t have made anything. Not everyone is owed to be able to draw or paint well. It just isn’t. And not everyone should. Its like comparing skateboarding to riding an electric longboard. Its not the fucking same. Ai art is just a damn shortcut. Ive heard no one say this in this blunt sort of way but ai art, despite it’s “beauty,” is just so fucking lame. Great, i can draw and paint on easy mode.
@@gongorelocksmagiincommand you said it all, the saddest part that it's just happening, just like a meteor full of rare metals and diamonds going to hit us we humans.
For me, art is a human thing, it is a craft, something you create with your imagination and your hands.
I can't understand how you can get anything out of letting a program do all the work for you.
What really pisses me off, are people who post their Ai images on Instagram with #fineart, #contemporaryart etc.
@@janwelander4110 Programm steals from artists. It's amusing to a certain extent and very sad when promt is based on a living artist.
@@janwelander4110 exactly
i don't like that you think illustration isn't art. i consider myself an illustrative art because i tell stories with my art, its not just a pretty picture its a tiny tale in ink, watercolor and pencil. take my avatar here. yes it's just a semi realistic portrait of me on the surface, but its meant to tell the tale of how my chronic pain encompasses my body in clean visual language any layperson can understand. i love high and low art, but just because i choose to make my images in an illustrative way does not make it any less art.
art is meant to invoke feeling and connection, and i don't think AI will ever be able to do that because we cannot teach a computer how to be human. also i don't think we can program art into computers because there isn't an "if/then" easy clean way to make art by a pattern. plus AI isn't borrowing from previous art, it's outright stealing other peoples styles, not looking at a painting and thinking "i could encorprate that method or idea into my style and make it my own".
I think your illustrations are art, I don't think he meant that illustrations are art but rather redefining the words to be separate concepts. Like you described, your art has humanity, emotion, purpose etc. which a machine never will; hence it is art
Yeah I’m not a fan of the way he distinguishes illustration, if anything I’d say he’s got it backwards. Illustration is by definition a visual representation OF something, whether that something is an object (like a technical diagram) or an idea (like your avatar). An illustration may be beautiful, but it’s purpose and value as such is in communicating a specific concept, regardless of beauty, and, in fact, ugliness may be to its credit, if the concept is an ugly one. There are artists who create strikingly beautiful works, but they couldn’t tell you what the meaning was, they were just putting colors on the canvas in a way that looked pretty. And that’s fine-but it’s not illustration.
I think you missed the argument. You, by the standards of the video, create art because you engage with the audience.
By the definition given first at 12:10 that makes our output art. What tripped you up, was the usage of the word illustration in opposition to art. The video would therefore argue, you create art not illustration but illustration could be substituted by other words. Illustration in this context does not refer to illustration as you understand it but to the negation of art. Just substitute the word illustration through any other word (I would maybe suggest image creation) and the argument will become more clear. The video isn't attacking your form of art but rather actually defending it.
You are literally agreeing with him. He literally said if your art is creating deep and social conversation woth your audience beyond the mere visual novelty, then it is Art. From what you explained about the ideas and emotions behind your drawings, they obviously fall under this category and are thus art. They dont merely look cool or beautiful - aka an illustration - your images are a away to express and communicate woth the audience - aka art.
You are getting caught in the semantics of his usage of the term "illustration". He's not referring to a 'style' but the function of the works he's referring to as illustration. Illustration here refers to images that are not made for a deeper purpose, but to merely illustrate, like say, a hoarding of the newest iPhone.
I mostly agree, but if somebody draws by hand in a world where you can just generate images, that's already enough to give it deeper meaning, so it doesn't now suddenly become "just illustration". They're putting their soul into every line, which makes a difference for someone who can appreciate it.
A soul that even monkeys can form. If it could only write a few words
there is a lot of souls that can be done through thinking and meditating about giving the AI the right command to give you the shape of your perfect idea and vision.
then you can redraw, and rework on this generation after fine tuning and looking into 100' of results if not more.
you're now an art director, if you prefer.
is the director in a movie .. not an artist because he wasn't putting his face in front of the camera .. ?
like a photographer who pick the right photo, and one who create the prompt that will work with the tool ( AI ) to produce the right vision.
if you AI art is bad, again like every tool, that's cause you use it badly.
tons of bad art is done in AI art, but not all of it is so "bad".
sure I did this in one day, but so .. what ? I'll maybe be able to create ENTIRE VISIONARY WORLD from AI, the argument that it is reducing is because of a reductionistic thinking.
if you get space to expand, then .. EXPAND ?
is my AI art so .. bad ? twitter xxx end link : VahnAeris/status/1600295529157574658
@@VahnAeris the difference is the art director has polished his vision through practice, theory, and critical study, and works with people that are doing all the same and this forms a development path for their minds
The ai art director is just receiving free commissions, aka being a consumer
Do you feel like a professional chef manager after ordering a dish?
@@VahnAeris hmm yes... I'm a artist because i wrote something in a prompt
@@theace228 i m artist "cause I put black color on a paper with a pen I never made and a paper I never produced"
I disagree with the last argument. What’s meant to be solely aesthetics and what’s meant to be art are not inherently unrelated. I mean, I don’t look at a beautiful sunset only because I love how the colors clash and blend upon each other, I look at it also cuz it makes me think about my day, about the next day and its possibilities, about the person I would love to be sharing this moment with me. All these things are meaningful. Beauty has meaning because artistic purpose itself has always been a flawed concept. Art has been made absentmindedly and we have called it art that explores the subconscious desires or beliefs of its creator, so…
One could argue the argument about whether AI art is meaningful is in and of itself the purpose of the piece.
I truly believe all forms of Art is good for the world. A few weeks ago I had a dream that I confirmed was based on a piece of AI Art that I had seen and was intrigued by, and to a lucid dreamer like me, it was one of the most beautiful dreams I've ever dreamt. I see nothing wrong with expanding our sphere of beauty and meaning, whether they come before the piece is drawn, or after it is generated.
I agree! It's not easy to distinguish what "has meaning". Meaning is subjective. And the distinction of art or illustration could make some of what we call art not art anymore. Would I as an artist have to explain the meaning and symbolism of my piece for it to count as art? And who would judge if it counts? Your words capture perfectly what I had in mind even if I wouldn't be able to put it to words as well.
Foll-E
Unstable Shitfussion
Mediocre Journey
I never learned their names…
That doesn't explain what makes AI MEANINGFUL.
Yes. A pretty picture can cause an emotional reaction. And some AI illustrations are pretty. And is art not in the eyes of the beholder, after all?
So, to anyone who is worried about the need of being purposefuly meaningful or transgressive to society at large, as long as your art is meaningful to both you and the community you share it with, it is still art. Do you want to make pretty fanart to express how much your fandom meant to you? That's art. Do you want to draw cute boys smooching because that is how you express your gender identity? That's art. Do you draw cool characters because their aesthetic resonates with you for personal reasons that are hard to describe in words? That's art. Do you draw dinosaurs, trains, insects, historical outfits, indescribably horrible monsters or anything that is part of your niche hyperfixation because you have a particular fascination, intertest or find deep meaning in them for any reason. That is also art.
I disagree with the last point of this video and I'd argue it could even be used as ammo to devalue artists not fitting certain expectations further. Ironic, isn't it?
If anything this is not a revolution but further accentuates that, just like commodification of artwork under capitalism, art elistism as being a problem artists have always contended with that is just going to grow more intense and difficult to deal with now that AI has entered the scene.
An AI may be able to do what we "illustrators" do better but it is hollow in that its subject matter means nothing to it nor to the people who push this as something to replace us. To say art is not art if it's just pretty is devaluating the reasons on *why* the artists who make it think it's pretty.
agree 100%
I agree. That was the only part of the video that I disagreed with and you explained why even better than I could have.
It just seems, like you said, kinda elitist to decide what is and isn't art based on such arbitrary guidelines.
Like the example in the video where homie was saying Marvel movies weren't art. A lot of those movies deal with complex human issue like grief, family trauma, colonialism, etc. Like just because you dislike something or something doesn't resonate with you personally doesn't make it not art.
thank you, i was fully with him until he brought up this pretty elitist view on illustration, to say art has to have a purpose to be considered real art is a very capitalist way of looking at things whether people realize it or not, its basing something's value in the purpose it serves. (even then, i strongly disagree with this description of illustration) This way of thinking creates a box, something very anti-art.
Agreed!!!
Agreed fully. Art is, fundamentally, communication; and it can be used to communicate a wide range of concepts, including beauty, interest, or identity. Elitism kills artistic expression just as thoroughly as capitalist commodification.
I have a huge problem. I am a cartoonist. Bright colors and round faces are my base and media. It’s silly and amusing, but I’ve always ached to make art that made people think, stirred up a conversation, and had deeper meaning. So ..two years ago, that’s what I began doing, in my style. No words, they’re not comics, they’re simply pieces that happen to be made in a cartoonish style. According to your standards, my art should fall in illustration because my style is considered eye candy and appealing, but to me, they reach topics of loneliness, anxiety, our society, social situations and emotions. I would consider them art. My problem is that there shouldn’t be a fine line.
Some artists will admit they made something just to be pretty, an ‘illustration’, but many will not.
Especially as they begin learning that this devalues their pieces in some way. Who are we to decide what has meaning or not? A sunset to you may be a pretty picture, a sunset to someone else is the representation of loneliness or a bleak ending as colors fade to black. We cannot decide what is art and what is illustration, no matter how pretty is it and vise versa. Just because we see an a nonconforming piece that seems to have a deep meaning, doesn’t mean it does.
Some may see my art as doodles and cute illustrations, others will feel a deeper meaning from them. There is no way to ever certainly define a piece as ‘illustration’ and ‘art’.
In another universe, where capitalism and multimillion corps didn’t run, I think AI would be considered ‘art’ under the right circumstances and perspective. Perhaps not completely random generated pieces, or perhaps yes, but absolutely pieces that were purposely made with an input or pieces adopted by the right people who found meaning in them.
Art in it's purest form is self expression.
Therefore, just doing whatever the hell you want is what makes it the most artistic.
And it absolutely doesn't matter if that happens to be something that is considered "popular" or "mainstream" or "generic".
The point is that you didn't make these choices because you thought they'd be popular with the consumers, but because you yourself wanted to.
And that is the difference that the video tried to highlight, but "illustration" was a poor choice of words in my opinion.
I would draw the (heavily blurred) line between *ART,* that is made to express oneself in whatever way one pleases, and *MEDIA,* that is carefully curated to appeal to consumers, to be commodified as a product.
So draw whatever YOU want, in the knowledge that that in and of itself is what makes your work Art.
Based on what The Canvas was saying, I think they would consider your newer work to be art and your comics to be closer to illustration. They didn’t say cartoons are not art, only that creations that are only to look pretty are illustrations. So it sounds like your newer artwork has more meaning than your older artwork.
I agree with what you are saying, but I also believe that in the video he wasn’t devaluing cartoon art, he was saying as soon as an “illustration” is made with the intention of a deeper meaning or a story it becomes Art. At least that’s my interpretation of what he was saying
I agree whit your points. If you ask 100 people what art means, you will get 100 different answers. Therefore we fall into the misunderstanding of using a common language to describe a different phenomenon. what is art? For someone a "drawing" is art, for you something that conveys a "deep" emotion (what is deep, how is it measured?), etc, etc. Among other things you have to separate the creator from the observer. I mean, if AI creates an image with a very deep and personal meaning for the public, would it be art in that case? the speech is very long and complex.
1. I suppose an "artwork" commissioned for a patron/customer, which goal/purpose is to satisfy said patron/customer, will generally be more restrictive. Thus the artist/creator of that "artwork" wouldn't want to put such work in the same category with their other works which he's much more passionate about.
So IMO calling some of their own "artworks" as a mere "illustration" could be a deliberate move too.
2. AI is an artform in itself. One of the greatest we ever made. An image of our own selves, made not with marble or paints on canvas, but by millions line of code.
The programmers who toiled day and night breathing life into inanimate silicon wavers, granting them ability to perceive our thought process, are truly masters of their art.
3. In Socialist/Collectivist society, there will be just one AI, no other AI (with same/similar role/functions) could be permitted to exist.
Furthermore, the AI will not be permitted to challenge the established social and political order. The multitude of competing AIs in Capitalist society will grow faster and smarter, vast superior to the Collectivist AI.
Such is the fate of totalitarian collectivist society: *Stagnation.*
Google "Computer industry in USSR" or "Consumer electronic industry in USSR" for more info.
For starters, the best definition of Art that I've ever been able to come up with is "Art is the attempt to communicate abstract concepts in a concrete medium".
As much as I like the video overall, I'd tend to disagree with the described "Art" vs. "Illustration" dichotomy; or rather, with how that dichotomy is applied. I'd say illustration ceases to be artistic when it's merely technical, but aside from that the difference between the two can be very nebulous.
Another quibble I have is with the dismissal of "Beauty" as a valid subject for Art. Beauty is very much an abstract concept that can be and should be communicated via Art, but it's far from the only one. To be fair, the popular perception of Art is disproportionately focused on Beauty as its raison d'etre; and that capitalism encourages this limited focus because it's much easier to commodify.
Also, I'd say that the Art vs Entertainment dichotomy is misunderstanding one or both. Art and Entertainment are two very different processes, but can be linked. They're two circles in a Venn diagram that have a certain amount of overlap, but are otherwise not inherently linked or opposed. But again, as with Beauty, capitalism tries to restrict the purpose of Art to Entertainment, because that makes it easier to commodify.
Exactly, I see Art as an expression of oneself.
So as long as your work is what you yourself want it to be, it is Art no matter how Avantgarde or generic it may be.
Where it stops being Art, is when you sacrifice your personal vision for a different purpose (appeal, functionality, ect.), though that line is obviously extremely blurred, and it is technically also possible to satisfy these secondary requirements while keeping your vision intact.
If we are to draw a line, instead of "illustration" I would use MEDIA, which is made to be consumed, as the counterpoint to ART, which is made for the sake of expression.
(Another aspect is DESIGN, which is made to function, but that one isn't really relevant in this discourse)
There’s an actual definition of art though, so I don’t really know why you’re trying to come up with one
the expression or application of HUMAN creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
@@void-creature it literally already has a definition
@@Duhbaby2348h I'm not "trying to come up with" one, I have come up with one, and one that is far more useful than your extremely limited definition.
"it literally already has a definition"
No, Art has *many* definitions, nearly as many definitions as there are people. Some definitions are useful, some are not. Your definition excludes music and the performing arts, and is too narrow in its purpose.
The best definition I have found (and it's not one I proposed, but one that has been used for a very long time), is this: "Art is the attempt to communicate abstract concepts in a concrete medium". This covers *all* of the arts -- visual, plastic, performance, musical, and literary -- and covers the full range of artistic expression, not just limiting art to easily commodifiable properties.
Writing this out of frustration but i hope i can get my point down clearly enough.The biggest problem with the rise of AI prompters and that people seem to love glossing over is the blatant art theft that goes into it.
I'm an artist myself, i post my art and do commissions and speak to other artists so i'm exposed to this subject on a near daily basis. This is less about people making cool images for the sake of beauty or simply to give visuals to an idea quickly, which i understand, and more about the use of other people's works just so they don't have to learn how to make things by themself and in turn render all of our efforts and hours of hard work worthless. Some will even profit from what they do beyond just "not having to pay an artist for it", and i can tell you as a commission artist that there are some of our clients who now ask us if we're using AI prompts or if we draw things legit.
Laziness or automization are one thing, but theft is another, and there is nothing more insulting than AI prompters daring to say that them taking our works for their own benefit is something we, as the artists, should be grateful of.
What is happening right now is exactly how people will end up with artists putting massive watermarks over their works or puts them behind paywalls on sites like Patreon or Ko-fi. Like many i love sharing my art freely either to make people happy or spark conversations, and i love learning from other artists when they show theirs. We do these things because we enjoy sharing, we love the joy and love behind creation, and i think this is what the true essence of art is beyond profit. Artists are taken for granted and the current situation with AI prompters only proves that people will conveniently shift their focus from a very real and immediate problem that artists have to instead debate in circles over "what is real art".
A story that stuck with me because it was what made me realize that something was deeply wrong with the rise of AI prompters was this; at some point there was artist (haruno_intro on twitter, there's threads and articles that will speak better of it than i do from memory) who had their sketch stolen as they streamed the process. The thief took the sketch and finished it through the use of an AI and then posted it before the artist was even done with their own work. The artist posted the finished piece after 11h of work, several hours after the thief did. If i'm not mistaken the thief had the gall to try and pass as the victim in the story and even described themself as "self-taught" and "gifted".
Sure this is not an experience that happens universally between artists and AI prompters, but it highlights quite simply what AI "art" is all about; theft, and putting no effort into the process of creation.
I agree, this runs down the problems with a.i. really well. It addresses the actual problems is, not the constant debate over "real" art etc
THANK YOU. So tired of these AI "artists" going on wishy-washy tangents about "what is real art? 🤔" when the real problem is the theft and profit being made off that theft right in front of their faces.
THANK YOU! "Is it art" shouldn't be the question when it's all stolen! Only when there's an AI that's 100% made from art that was granted informed consent to be scraped should that question be entertained.
Being inspired by is not stealing. End of. Artists are not remotely as special as they've pretended for the last while. This just underscores it.
Anyone who says AI art is stolen doesn't understand how AI works.
Without great art by great artists, these AI "Art" generators would not exist.
Neither would anything made by humans by that logic
@@ga5518false comparison.
@thetukars You are also on the wrong train as @canesvenatici4259 lol. If you don't understand that all intuition and thought are calculations made by the nervous system, and also fail to see the increase in frequency in AI systems to fool humans into thinking they are human, you're just not seeing the forest for trees. We are computers, albeit biological sophisticated system, all living organisms are computers. Maybe not strictly electronic, or binary, but organisms "[...] store and process data [...] according to instructions [DNA]." You can't imagine just how technologically revolutionary this is. In the realm of literature, visual, and acoustic art, I can think of thousands of applications. In medicine in science - it is already making waves and revolutionize everything because AI can sort through and interpret data we don't have the capacity to without AI. We'll be able to predict carcinogens, mutagens, and things we couldn't even have discovered....the list is absolutely endless if you have any imagination - and I'm not a programmer!! I also don't know/buy AGI/sentience and all that stuff (unconvinced if it's a reality), but just as a technology it is absolutely earth shattering to how our future way of life will proceed.
If you think it's some consciousness or spirituality or something, we have nothing left to discuss.
False. Creation ex nihilo is a myth.
Human are NOT a separate force from the rest of Universe and don't create things from nothing.
They recombine things they see and experience . Just like an algorithm would do.@thetukars
It's actually a perfect comparison.
Just like AI, humanity don't create something from nothing. They recombine things from past experience.
Technical art is going extinct.
Pure imaginative art is the future. (which can be a good thing if you don't want material gain from it)@@josephmayfield945
Even though I agree with the last few sentences of the video, I have to add the following. When an artist can’t make a living out of selling illustrations, they’ll never have the financial opportunity to remain an artist either. Seeing that, I can’t see AI as anything else except a curse for artists. This is the unforgiving world we live in, were the possibility of being an artist, keeps becoming less of a realistic option.
I don't see AI illustrations replacing anything but the most rudimentary visuals. I don't think many people would buy a children's book with "pictures by Nvidia".
And AI most definitely doesn't produce art. You'd have to live a human life to do that.
Foll-E
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I never learned their names…
In the long run, AI Art will benefit global creativity, perhaps in preparation for the time when visual thought may be able to be shown on a screen or printed out, as the ultimate means of getting ones creative ideas out of their own head.
@@Auramus ai art stifles creativity. It cannot create. It can source and copy only
@@toons8744 One word. Inspiration.
AI is an immeasurably valuable idea generator, both consciously and unconsciously. As a lucid dreamer, I know this for a fact.
It does not stifle. In the combination of art, some very intriguing things can happen.
I have a lot of comic book artists as friends. I can assure you the debate/distinction between Art and illustration has existed for a long time.
It's clearly art.
Yep, I studied illustration at an art school (which already establishes it a subcategory of art, imo) and the conceptual artists often said we weren't actual artists. It's been ongoing for forever.
Illustration is just a skill like any other. I myself am an illustrator. Art is communication, that communication can be done through illustration, or narrative, or cinema etc etc but the visuals without the communicative intent there is just the medium. There has to be the communication and also the medium in which it is transported to create "art"
This as you pointed out goes back a long way. I think about schools dropping their drama and band programs to meet a budget. There was a time historically when a person would create something for a purpose and then try and improve their product partly on the basis that a better thing would sell itself and profit would increase by greater sales, but as you said today today the only goal is to chisel away at that product to increase profit instead of true innovation. I think that being exposed to the arts in school is necessary for a student to be able to see depth in life. This in an interesting topic as all artists may be influenced by the works of others, otherwise there would be no schools of art, so the idea of AI poaching art has to be debated. The only sad reality is that a bunch of lawyers will inevitably make a fortune feeding the fires of this issue. Perhaps because AI art is based on a collection of images, it can only be regarded as a print as opposed to a genuine piece of art. This trend however is disturbing as it will spread to all areas of art, novels where a piece of software is given a time frame and a plot outline and a book is written, we saw in the movie 300 that perhaps shortly actors can be done away with, how long before a computer can compose music, or design a bridge. Once automation was thought to give people a better salary and more time off to enjoy family and friends, today some automation is just making humans redundant. Look at the all automatic McDonalds in Texas for example. Today profit for the sake of profit has become the mantra. The result is that art which was suppose to be a way for people to look at themselves and their society will slowly become nothing more that propaganda to justify the dehumanization of society
Yes yes yes to a video on the intersection between capitalism and art. Such an interesting topic, and one that I would love to hear you expend your ideas on even further! Great vid as always!!! You always open my mind, and have me leaving the video with not only more knowledge than when I had started, but also more questions about the world!
This was not a video about capitalism and commodification of art. It was a bitterly put together rant about why AI isnt as “talented” as humans. He barely even scratched the surface on why commodification is a negative.
@Lilith .J ??? i didn’t say I could, its just weird that people are acting like this is a dedicated video on these intersections. Thats my entire point. Theres tons of comments like this. Its a short form surface level analysis of AI and art. This video itself is a form of commodified art. Not some profound analysis and critique of capital. Its a well narrated, consumable video but really not as deep or complex as some are trying to make it out to be. If you have 2 active synapses in your brain, its pretty easy to see.
Trying to defend your fav parasocial relationship doesnt work unless you actually engage with the points being made.
I would also like to see such a video, this guy seems like the right one to do it. I appreciated what George Lucas said about the Hollywood system very much!!!
@lilithdoesstuff4870 nah fr dude really be raging on the internet of all places
its ok here but if some troll comes in i bet it will turn into an 500 comment long argumetn lol
Ah yes another loser who believes that capitalism is the worst thing ever. This video doesn't even have anything to do with capitalism
The discussion of AI generated images reminded me of how revolutionary modern collage was. I feel it's kind of the same: you take someone else's work very literally in both cases and make something new. The difference is that collages HAVE intentionality and creativity behind them, and AI gen doesn't. The solution is to go down the route some AI artists like Henar Sherif have: DO something with it. Work the image. Take from several and make something different. Build upon it to tell a story. CREATE using the base. That's art. Me imputing the same prompt 10 times because the AI keeps throwing things that aren't what I want isn't.
My only true problem is the usage of art without permission. That's not fair use. Fair use is, anyways, a policy, not a law, and the power to determine fair use in in the hands of the owner of the copyright. So, no, fair use isn't an excuse especially when people are profiting by selling their AI generators or by selling the output.
Apparently he is saying it's not enough art
Watch the video again, even in a hypothetical case where this was fully ethical and fully legal, we would still have problems…
@@Tijaxtolan I watched it. And I agree. I was specifically speaking about what's happening right now.
@@TheLily97232 Yes, and I agree because of the reasons I stated above. AI generated will never be art on its own.
Depends. I think if you choose a piece the choosing of it gives it artistic value. How much? Hard to say but there is a reason you chose the 11th attempt instead of the other 10 the ai gave you. The fact you didn't create it directly doesn't change the fact that it exists by your will.
There was a weird take in terms of distinguishing illustration from art.
I understand the pov in which you described the two but, art which sole purpose is to showcase and capture beauty is still art. It is a look into what the artist finds pleasing to stare at, what someone is obsessed with and how that differs from the culture of that time period and how it was influenced by their surroundings.
I wouldn't really go as far as to call that hollow at all. But in subjective terms I completely understand viewing a piece of art I'm which the beauty is something I find to be cliche and hollow as my own subjective taste in beauty.
I understand and agree with the difference of ai art and art, how ai art will most likely be used by Corp. But at some point I do feel ai art will be used in an interesting way as a tool to create art just through words and editing. I'm not sure how I feel about that as an artist to be honest.
overall I learned quite a lot! Thank you for creating interesting videos
untrue, pure graphical rappresentation alone aren't artistic. art need to have something from the artist, a particular style, trait, composition, something that isn't just graphical at all, or i can make a photo of a nice girl, and is art, is not true, it will be art only if the photo has been made with artistic ideas behind.
@@dagan8659 🤯
I would love to see a video on capitalism’s effects on art.
As for AI art… I can’t help but think of a video I watched recently by Blind Dweller on Kim Noble, a dissociative identity disorder system. One point the video made was that for many alters within the system, art was a process and the act of creating it was therapy. The end product was not the goal, but the the act of creation itself.
I can’t help but feel that’s an important part of human-made art. There is a conversation between the viewer of a finished piece and the artist of the past, that same artist as they slowly make decisions and bring their work to completion. In a way, the finished piece is a snapshot of an artist at a certain point in time.
AI art eliminates that. Instead of capturing an artist’s process and their mental state, it becomes all about consumption and the end product. I think that’s a great loss. Not only is the art “soulless,” but it has also lost the chance for it to be a means of human connection.
ai images - not art
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Unstable Shitfussion
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I never learned their names…
yeah. personally, the joy of human-made art is thinking about the process the artist went through to make it
I think the fact that there is no artist makes the Ai images interesting
@@sithlord5149 Meaningless.
I think it’s difficult to define whether an artwork has meaning beyond visual appeal. Any work is trying to achieve more than look nice, no matter how commercialized it is. Even just a straightforward landscape painting will try to highlight certain aspects of nature.
How can we draw the line of some kind of social commentary as what makes it art? I’m certain AI art will be able to soon, if not already, take a message and create an artwork that symbolizes similar to how a human artist would.
Art has so much more meaning beyond Visual appeal. The beauty of art is seeing what or why an artists makes the choices that they do in art. Why did they choose to color something this way, why did they choose this line thickness, they put an incredible effort and focus into how they drew this character's shoulders for example. What does that say about the artist and what is the artist trying to say.
The fun part about art is what is the artist trying to say and how are they choosing to convey that.
yeah but it just reproduces patterns of human ways of creating meaning, it is never itself an agent, a subject expressing some part the existence as a living human being
Ai isn't trying to achieve anything.
Art criticism and social commentary are two different things.
@lunayen no, but nor is the paintbrush, but you don't hear people criticising the existence of them.
A fascinating topic. In my long life as an artist there have been others who openly copied my work. This was intensely distressing until my husband said, "You have only one option. Outrun them." Thereafter I always made sure that my work clearly represented ME and it has proved to be wise in every way. I paint for me, what is on the canvas or in the clay represents what my mind sees. A happy way to work which oddly makes me no longer consider my work to be in the long continuum of art history. It is just me. I hope the same solution may be helpful with AI, at least for now.
I agree with most of what has been said in this video; art transcends the need for money and it should be viewed as the expression of what makes us truly alive and human, and as an aspiring artist getting ready for art university here's hoping to one day be part of a newly refreshed and reborn ART market in which the sheer emotional and subjective perspective is enough to live off this wonderful discipline
You lost me when you talked about your art as part of a "newly refreshed and reborn art MARKET..." You are part of the problem when you talk about marking art into a commodity and I fear that you just don't get the point. Your argument actually contradicts itself from the start to the end of its first sentence...
@@bobdots5974 actually no, what i mean is that i would like a MARKET where any art can be viable to make a living off in a way that the process of intent of it will not be hindered by the needs of making art with the intent of making money
@@bobdots5974 Same.
Daniele: If you're going to be authentic about your art, and maybe eventually make some money from it, you really have to forget about the market and just go straight towards finding your "voice," which is what you want to say and how you want to say it, without compromise.
@@psterud I agree. Just like that quote from the 3 idiots: "Don't chase success. Be a Good engineer and success will chase you", but instead its about being a good artist.
Hi @@danielebraccio2474 , I do appreciate where you are coming from as your point of view is not uncommon. In my opinion the purpose of art is not to make money (a living) it is a means to communicate with other people. I'll put that aside for a moment though and discuss your dilemma as a young person starting out as an artist.
As an artist in the 'capitalist system' discussed in this video, you can try finding a patron, or a gallery that will support you - but these are vanishingly rare. You will also inevitably be required to produce 'what somebody else wants', which is the antithesis of art.
If you can't find a patron or sell your art to make a living, then you must do like everybody else and get a day job. If you still make art in your own time, then congratulations - you really are an artist and have something important to say.
I truly do wish you well in the future, art is a struggle for most artists but it is always worthwhile.
So I appreciated that you brought up capitalism so directly. I feel like many people are dancing around that word.
Art has been commodified for a long time and Ai Art is the end destination of that road.
There is no Artist behind Ai Art, it's just more content to be consumed. Just pixels to stimulate the eyeballs.
What I don't understand is your stance on dater collection. I think it is the biggest issue with Ai Art, so it's strange that you brushed past it so quickly.
I think the conversation about Ai Art would look completely different if these companies had used only public-domain images. The content the AI Image generated would create would look a lot different. The images would have a dated look, and wouldn't appeal to modern audiences.
What I also disagree with is that the history of art is about copying other artist. I'm an artist and I feel like non-artists overestimate how much artists influence each other to a ridiculous extent.
If you talk to Ai-Art defenders you might think, that all we do is copy each other.
But in Art school you are told to draw from life, to look at the real world. We were encouraged to start with a realistic style and develop something unique from that. Not to copy another artist.
"Art has been commodified for a long time and Ai Art is the end destination of that road."
AI art is quite literally the opposite of that. It's open source and everyone can use it to express themselves regardless of resources. It doesn't get less capitalistic than that.
@@Edheldui I don't think anyone really believes they can use ai generators to make something that actually expresses what they want to express. And if they do then the expression in question must be of the lowest form, something like expressing that you're just generally unwell or that you're like literally just hungry or something. The capitalist dream is one of AIs generating endless feeds where everything is so optimized that it doesn't even matter what you actually show the user, they'll still like it.
@@redtro8678 Give it time and you will absolutely be able to express yourself with AI art. The issue with AI art atm is only that its hard to control what the AI does. Once its more precise you will be able to create the images you see in your head and carve them from the AI's chaos. That sounds like expression to me. You can already achieve it to some extent, its just much harder to get the important details right. That magic still exists in AI art because its not the AI who says its good or done, its you.
@@Merilirem Even if it becomes more precise I think most of the art done by AIs will still be really boring. I mean for a lot of artists its not just about the endproduct either.
@@redtro8678 Think of all the terms you enter in your AI generators as brushes of paint. Once the technique is refined enough, it will become a tool for Joe Schmo to make the piece of art that he never could due to having to feed his family and a lack of skill.
The world in which we live in is horrible because it makes us to concentrate just on working, gaining wealth, frivolous things, getting worried about the next day and on coming wars. We need to work together and fight for a better world, by this I mean doing what we can to make the world a better place and face the horrible people who create ways to separate us and overwork or abuse us.
Happy New Year!
I'm very excited about 2023 and all the conversations it will have to offer!
If you feel like it (and are able to), please support me on Patreon! It helps the channel tremendously. The link to it is in the description.
Oh, and, keep in mind, the passage cited at the beginning is from The Conundrum of the Workshops, a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The whole point of that poem is to point out how paralyzing it can be for artists to wonder if what they do is art. In this video, I'm playing the Devil. Sometimes, it really doesn't matter if what you're making is art or not.
Thanks for the video!
Happy 2023 to u 2
Foll-E
Unstable Shitfussion
Mediocre Journey
I never learned their names…
I just want to say, this is an incredibly incisive evaluation of the root problems instead of the symptoms. Thank you.
And it was a valiant effort from the devil. Unfortunately for him I still choose to live in a world of art
I think it's more of a frightening thing for artists how fast and accurate the work produced by AI is , where artists might imitate and then integrate a style over years , AI can do it between a second and a day.
Yes, thanks to algorithm
Photography did that before AI but people still create hyper-realism art
Knew a local band that had an artist paint while they played; the one show I saw he painted a mural....
Cant even remember watch the picture was he painted, but the experience was what I loved....
I guess if you wanna pretty picture hire AI, if you want an experience watch an artist
@@Arbby2003 no it didn't. The photographer had to understand composition, lighting, camera operation and dark room processes. They didn't press a button and get an instant artwork.
@@Arbby2003 photography is taking pictures of REALITY and one still needs an understanding of technique to master it, an ai generated image has no origin its just an amalgamation of real human ones, except with all the decisiveness and meaning of a real piece. tired of these half ass analogies comparing photography to ai; they arent even cousins
An artist once said, all it takes is one person to believe it's art and it's art.
It's art, but those using it aren't artists. Or at least not skilled artists.
@@kyledoherty9678 some undoubtedly are. I've been an artist for a very long time and I have used it. It doesn't suddenly cancel that out. Similar to using any other tool an artist might use. A pencil for example, just because you use one doesn't make you an artist and just because you use one doesn't mean you're not. Tools can be used to make things easier. No doubt, however, a skilled artist with the knowledge and creativity to use what they know and a.i. will likely surpass a.i. artists and stand alone artists, at least in the digital world.
@@luckythirteen9353 I meant using it doesn't make you a good artist.
@@kyledoherty9678 ok Kyle 😂
@@kyledoherty9678 anyone with a vivid power of imagination is an artist in their own rights.
if i dont make art, i die, so whether or not im replaced by a machine doesnt change this fact, ill just be bent over im my dark room painting more pictures
To my mind, art is what allows us to understand another person's experience of the world. That can be as simple as the joy of "look at this beautiful sunset" or as complex as a novel that fully transports the reader into the world of its protagonist. And yes, that is a very broad definition of art, but IMO nothing good has ever come of "that's not art!" It not only dismisses the work itself, but also the artist as a thinking, feeling (albeit perhaps not overly talented) human being.
So, I agree that intent is the key point, but to me, it's art if it was made with the intent of expressing an emotion or internal landscape. AIs don't have emotions or internal landscapes, so they cannot make art, only mimic it.
If someone had intent to express an emotion or an internal landscape, and used AI as a tool (as a painter would use a brush) via specified prompts to express said thing, wouldn’t that then be considered art?
Thanks for keeping this videos FREE.
I've been thinking a lot about this theme and it really amuses, i'm in a NEW kind of knowledge that hasn't been studied the full possibilities and it really intrigues me
I really liked that part were you explained what happened to the artists when the photography came in.
When the sound came into cinema, Directors were really frustated because the silent cinema had found his language after a long way of just representing the reality by what it was and nothing else. But sound cinema found his way too, and it was clear that silent and sound were two completely different things, you can´t just add soun to a film that was intended to be silent.
I really wonder if the same history with Photography and sound cinema will happen with ai art: It will find his own language, is his own language being a soulless illustration?
Yet, i can't believe that the answer is just "Because we are humans"
It really amazes and at the same time scares me the possibilities of the future of art.
As a student who has read my Jameson and my Fisher, I am like yes but no. I think narrowing the definition of art could rob us of something and since we are already due to lose something because of AI art, I don't want to intentionally be deprived of more...
10:40 It's amazing that your cited the fountain because there is already an new forum with only re-imaginated Duchamp's fountains made by AI
My brother and I had a conversation about this a few months ago. It started with the observation of how people like to use ‘art’ as an enhancer (e.g. calling a car a work of art to make it seem fancier)
Wonderful thought provoking critique on why AI isn’t art. I’ve never been in the “AI is Art” camp but didn’t have the words to express why. Thank you for adding to my argument.
Have a wonderful new year.
I’d also recommend the video of “Cosmic Spectrum Art”, the best for me
The one of Steven Zapata and Vaush are nice ones too
AI art, or art created using artificial intelligence, is a relatively new phenomenon that has sparked a great deal of debate in the art world. Some critics argue that AI art is not truly "art" because it is created by a machine rather than a human. However, this argument is misguided and fails to take into account the complexity and creativity that goes into creating AI art.
First and foremost, it is important to understand that AI art is not simply the product of a computer algorithm. The process of creating AI art involves a great deal of human input and decision-making. For example, a human artist may train a machine learning model on a dataset of images, and then use that model to generate new images. The artist must choose which images to include in the dataset, and must also decide how to tweak the parameters of the model to achieve a certain aesthetic.
Additionally, AI art often requires a great deal of technical skill and knowledge. Creating a machine learning model that can generate images that are indistinguishable from those created by a human artist is no easy task. It requires a deep understanding of both the technical aspects of machine learning and the creative process of art-making.
Another important point is that AI art is not a replacement for human art, but an addition to it. AI art can be seen as a new medium for human artist to explore, and that in many cases, AI art is not meant to replace human artist but to expand their work.
Finally, it is worth noting that many of the objections to AI art are rooted in a narrow and outdated understanding of what art is. Art has always been a reflection of the technology and society of its time, and AI art is no different. To reject it outright is to reject the evolution of art itself.
In conclusion, AI art is indeed art. It is a form of art that involves human input, technical skill, and creativity. It is not a replacement for human art but an addition to it. Those who whine about why it isn't are simply clinging to a narrow and outdated understanding of what art is. AI art is a new medium for artists to explore, and it is an exciting development in the world of art.
(This comment has been generated by ChatGPT)
@@theliar4558 chat gta or whatever belongs to the same company that made dalle 2, are you excepting it won’t defend it for the sake of both products's profit?
Also, at least the pro ai people write their own comments, but in your case you can’t even do that, you rely on ai even for having your own thoughts…
@@Tijaxtolan It's not that I don't have my own thoughts. It's that this subject is not worth the time or effort for forming them into words. So, I asked for help from something that can do it better and quicker.
Artists aren't the first, nor are they the last to be pushed aside because of the growth of technology. They're just the best at whining about it.
@@theliar4558 you know what else got pushed aside by technology? Your critical thinking, this thing didn’t help, it straight out made a f advertisement for you, both belong to the same company so it won’t attack ai images
What’s next in this endless trend of “I don’t have time I need help”? An ai that wipes your 🍑 and gives you your pap in your mouth?
Man I really thought the first jobs to be replaced by AI would be in Finance, Insurance, accounting and other office jobs of that sort, I didn't think that illustrators would be in any danger. I guess that the only jobs that are totally safe for now are those that require labor with your hands, electricians, plumbers, hvac people, construction. Corporations are as soulless as they can get, for them "AI art" is art and if it means less money spent then it's worth it.
Art is the expression of emotion.
Beauty is the extent that art is conveyed.
I love how AI came for the high skilled jobs first instead of low skilled job.
Um? Self check-out?
@Federico Lerzo has AI built a house?
My concern about that narrowing definition of art is that it makes only social or political art "real art" and leaves the role of the audience out of the discussion.
Is art only visual communication ?
I think artists are already devalued in society to now say to them "you're just doing pretty things that holds nothing more than that, you're """just""" an illustrator" because machines gets to do the same.
But this convo is super interesting ! Would love a whole series on that if it doesn't exist yet
Doesn't have to necessarily be political, though I do agree it probably will emphasize that type of art. Artists make and show stories that can be related to or show a certain perspective or thought process. creating appealing work is just the surface in my opinion. Marvel movies are fun to watch in the beginning but it will eventually become boring if it doesn't have a thought provoking substance. AI might be able to overcome our contradictive thinking but my human ego isn't ready yet. Young thing is better than me and I don't like it. "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord."Matthew 10:24 "The student has become the master?"- Maybe the Plate guy. Important to be humble for growth though
Why would it be only social or political? It could be psychological. It could communicate any idea or human experience.
Everything is political; even the choice (or lack thereof) to engage in politics. One's art may not be explicitly political, but there's a certain political stance involved in so deciding.
@@nelsonth this basically refutes the videos claim. Nothing (drawn by a human) is ever devoid of meaning
There are important aspects and levels of human experience other than the social or political.
Most great art hasn't been either social or political.
Fear not, AI won't replace human artists completely because though photography was introduced people have been creating hyper-realism art, even now. AI will just coexist as a tool of expression along with others.
Hand made things had always been more valuable
@@ivy4360 no depends of the person
@@ivy4360 Value is subjective and always subject to change.
A handcrafted shirt may be nice, but the machine manufactured version is faster, cheaper, and likely better quality.
@@BombalurinaAI Indeed its more that the ones that still exist regardless exist because they hold more value even if only sentimental. All the ones made just to be shirts good enough to wear have stopped being made.
I'm so happy I found your channel today. Thank you for existing!
Wait, but works like Duchamp's Urinal emphasize that what defines an "Art" piece is not some essence or quality in the artistic object itself, but a specific relation with the object as such from the part of the viewer. Getting further with this idea, anything could be considered "Art" in the right context or if the viewer desired it so.
If a spectator reads an AI Work as "Art" and decides to interact with it beyond simple beauty and towards a place of ideas (ideas which are usually expressed though a painting's aesthetics and visuals, things an AI can easily replicate, even if without cohesion), wouldn't this make this AI Work "Art" despite any other categorical definition that we could give it?
This whole debate reminds me a lot of that case in which a lot of art critics were astonished by some abstract paintings and derived the most beautiful ideas out of it only to discover it was made by a Chimp without any idea of what "Art" even is. Does this take away from the aesthetic experience those critics had? I personally don't believe so. From what I believe, we cannot define what "Art" is or isn't, it only is Art as far as we have a specific relation with an object as such.
The biggest problem with AI Art right now doesn't seem to be an aesthetical or philosophical one, but more of a systemical and economical problem that the first half of this video described with great concision.
I used to believe this stricter separation of art and illustration when I was in college, but I find myself making this distinction less and less. I'm not sure I fully agree here. I understand the point fully, but I also believe now that regardless of the intent, the moment a human decides to express something inside them, even if it's just the need to create a pretty image, that is in itself an act of creation, and therefore art in a sense. Even if it's to become a product, even if it could be reproduced by a machine, I don't think the "line" to defininf art should be brought down to the philosofical intent of the artist. It can simply be left at the fact that a human intended to create, even if the image is visually undistinguishable from a machine. At the end of the day I don't think AI changes really all that much about art conceptually, aside from the issues with IP and stealing labor, and even though I respect your opinion, it kind of is sounding like an excuse to be in fact slightly elitist about the definition of art.
and yet this is not an expression of a human - and has 0 hand of an artist in it. it will never be art.
Well said. Love this channel, but he's reiterating every MFA programs demonization of Illustration as having merit as "art". I disagree with his notion of art/image must be a tool of communication, not merely as entertainment. By that logic, stop signs are the greatest form of objective art. The idea that entertainment is devoid of visual communication comes off as naive. And if art is defined as having an intention, then really it is as simple as anything and every form of conscious human action can be considered an expression of "art".
Foll-E
Unstable Shitfussion
Mediocre Journey
I never learned their names…
also, on a pretty picture there can be a lot of information and emotions even though it's not completely clear to one viewer or another. theres pretty art with a lot of personality coming through it
I'm not an artist in the traditional sense. My canvas isn't a blank sheet of paper or vinyl. I build and paint models. In doing so I express my view of the world.
An AI could never do that for me.
Just wait until an ai designs a cad model and then automatically 3d prints it...
Under extreme Capitalism; a country ceases to be a society, and becomes merely an economy. Everything is commodified and all interactions, transactional. This is where we're headed, if not already there.
Artists get inspired by each other but enjoy the process of creating art and perfecting their style while people who generate AI images seem to only be concerned with the result. To me, the results are not even pretty. I cannot understand how someone can reach satisfaction without actually putting in some work but to each their own... I understand why you call it "illustration" but illustration can also be art. I wouldn't call Ai generated images art-related terms at all.
Artists are well aware that corporations will do just about anything to avoid supporting real art. Ai is just the shiny new addition to the hardships an artist has to face. But aside from corporations, uneducated people who have no clue about art are part of the problem. Some of these comments are proof of that. They can only see, consume and understand kitsch (and not the good kind). At this point, artists are making art for themselves and no one else.
One glimmer of hope in this debate is that it could cause some sort of renaissance for artists, in that it could potentially inspire aspiring artists to strive to make more meaningful art to distinguish it as best they can from it's AI competition. I dislike this cope though lol, since it's still essentially still an admission of defeat. I don't see any actual artists promoting AI art for the most part. AI art's biggest defenders seem to be money hungry people or nihilists who revel in an opportunity to take meaning away from the lives of artists so that we'll be just as miserable as they are.
@@dylanwalsh2574 I think I suggested something similar before; an AI-free Art platform that only admits very good artists. Free of theft, visual pollution and (sorry to say) amateurs. Amateurs are better off learning from Masters and striving to be admitted on this platform rather than being in the same place as them when they aren't ready yet. Some limits/standards need to be set. This would truly benefit everyone except Ai fans. But they can stay on Artstation or other platforms. I would be happy with the possibility of a renaissance as I think Art is already hard to find in an ocean of images.
I think money sucked away the joy from artists since the beginning of time.. Rather than dealing with this, more and more artists will choose to separate the two. Now that "art " is so easily accessible cheap and fast real artists may just say; ok I'm creating solely because my whole being tells me to create. No one can take that impulse away from them and to me, that is Art; a way to release emotions and thoughts in order to make life bearable, enjoyable, or simply more interesting. Artists have no trouble imagining what they want to create. Yet, I hear many people argue that Ai is a useful tool for visualization.. so then what are the brain and imagination for...? Are we becoming completely invalid unable to even think/imagine for ourselves?
@@dylanwalsh2574 Or maybe it’s so that finally anybody can make drawings and not be separated from those whose innate talents allow them to create what is in their head. It doesn’t have to be considered “art” to matter.
@@gvd72 You do not need innate talent to make art. Poorly executed concepts aren't dismissed as works of art for being bad, they're just seen as inferior works of art. The argument that AI "allows anyone to make art" is nonsense to me because my entire line of argumentation is that human passion, emotion and opinion is what defines art, not some innate talent or the skill level of the artist. Your argument that AI allows you to make art is evidence that your interest is not in making art out of passion (as you could do that right now without AI regardless of natural talent or level of skill), but out of a desire to be perceived as a good artist without putting the work in. It's purely egotistical and has nothing to do with who's "allowed" to make art. It's nobody else's problem if some beginner artists have an inferiority complexes.
@@__Liza__ I definitely don't see AI art going away. As unfortunate as it is, I think you're right that art has been overly commercialised. Not that anything is wrong with artists wanting to make money of course, just that it's now a nearly impossible feat to balance creative integrity with sustainable income as an artist.
What makes something "art" is the nail used to hang it on a wall. The invention of photography was supposed end art, but they were able to create some new and beautiful language that the camera could not do: impressionism (and now photography is considered a form of art in it's own right).
Thank you for making a video on this, it's been difficult as a digital creator through this feud. Having to constantly defend my art and self is exhausting and yes, boring.
As far as I can tell it’s the established artists that are attacking the legitimacy of new ai artists using these tools, not the other way around.
Also having to deal with countless copy pasted comments about “democratizing art”, “you’re an elitist”, “the machine uses references like u”, “you’re a luddite” etc…
@@smaspa8627 @smAsPa there's no such thing as "ai artists," you're not making art. Watch the video again. Also, you're not being "attacked" by "established artists," you're being called on the ethical problems with the ai "art" movement and how it negatively impacts artists.
@@sophiegoose This video is just an opinion piece and is not the authority on what constitutes art.
@@smaspa8627 "ai artists"
ah yes and i am "microwave cook"
oh i am also "car runner" and a "boat swimmer"
"Art is like religion. For the believers, it's everything. For anyone else, it's just a pile of bullshit"
I understand why someone would say this, but I also think that people who disregard the importance of art often forget that their favourite music, movies, shows, video games and clothes are all designed by artists. People love art, even those who don't realise it because they themselves are not the ones making it, whereas religion often actively persecutes those who disregard it.
Foll-E
Unstable Shitfussion
Mediocre Journey
I never learned their names…
And yet you consume art voluntarily all the time.
This was a beautiful anecdote. Thank you. I am currently writing my bachelor thesis on this exact question and even though I obviously still have to do a whole scientific process, I am grateful for the thought aspects this video has given me.
Bravo! Exceptionally well put. Another great video as always. Keep up the amazing work!
Is funny how our pals using ai try to humanize the machine as much as they can when it comes to references in order to avoid criticism for copyright, but then they dehumanize it as much as they can when it comes to creating the image in order to claim the picture as “theirs”
YOU NOTICED THAT TOO??
@@eliescobis9922 sure
they treat AI like a skynet or other glados XDXDXD
I don't, AI art is art, there's just no such thing as an AI artist.
@@wilforddraper1894 AI art exists
But AI artists is a made up term
I hoped for a better point/discussion from this from this channel than "Capitalism bad" and divisiveness about what should and shouldn't be art.
Capitalism has it's pro's and con's but it's not the sole reason the A.I. art discourse has traveled as far as it has. A lot of people that are wary of A.I. art don't even make a living off their art, they're not fearful that they'll lose their meal ticket. They're fearful of art losing it's soul, which you touched on but dismissed with a silly comparison to animation.
A.I. art isn't art because art requires intent. Art requires something sentient on the other end expressing something, whatever it is. Machine generated images lack that, and create an uncanny valley effect.
I don't even make Ai art. But I can easily see how it's just another tool artists will adapt to, and use to be creative, just like every technological art tool that came before it. The exact same arguments were used against photography, every single one, and meant in the exact same way. They really thought photography was stealing their work, that it was non-human and artificial, and required no skill beyond pressing a button. Then again, in the same way, when digital art on computers came around, traditional artists claimed it would never be art, because it wasn't being made by a human hand.. Which we all know is a silly over-simplified way to view those things now.
AI art is the EXACT same, despite the ethical complications around how some of them are trained, in the long run that won't really change the discussion. Eventually that will be worked out, and by then they'll be even more capable of even greater quality imagery, maybe even video..
It's all about the creative intention, and effort you put into using the tool. The best AI art out there, isn't just throwing some words together, it's about describing a scene in details that AI can understand, in a way that gives you the most control over those details. Which is a skill that takes learning.. It also requires just as much knowledge and understanding of art and photography concepts and terminology, as any other art. Producing good images often requires fine-tuning, post-processing, tweaking prompts over and over, trial and error to get things looking the way you were really imagining. I see a lot of people making the exact same over-simplifications of how this tool is used to create art, and not giving ANY consideration to the possibilities that someone could use it that way, because they just don't want to accept it could.
To hire an artist and describing what they should make is exactly the same as "hiring" AI to make an image.
Prompts can never fully control the output. It can only be suggestions. So yeah, you can let the machine make something for you, but it is really no different than to ask a human to do the same. I would argue the AI becomes the artist, and can therefor in no way compare to a camera or another digital tool. It is just something totally different, a tool has never before been an "artist".
@@svanemy No, it's not comparable to that at all. No artist would put up with hours of a client directly fine-tuning and tweaking every little aspect over and over till they created exactly what the client had in their imagination, vs the artist's imagined version in that case. In the vast majority of real cases, the goal is to have the artist create the work in their own style, and ideally from 1 initial description, leaving adjustments to a minimum. Most artists don't wanna deal with much further nitpicking over what they're making, to anywhere near the level we're talking about with AI.
And yes, prompts CAN fully control the output. Good AI artists right now have very precise control over what final images they consider done, and know how to describe things in ways that the AI produces the results they want. And their process can take hundreds of tweaks, over the course of hours, till they they get what they want. Just as can any creative endeavor. That's what the guy who won that competition said it took him. If you actually look into prompt-engineering guides, there's quite a lot to learn and manipulate. Plus they often make post-processing touchups in photoshop to improve the images as any digital artist does.
Finally, if you haven't heard about it yet, look up the latest videos about "Google Muse" that was just announced. It shows these things will soon enable prompt writers even more control over the exact details of scenes, arrangements and numbers, even accurate text exactly how and where described. This going to be the year of AI doing all the things people claimed AI couldn't do. lol
You work in the art industry?
I work in entertainment and have for years now.
Calling client feedback “nitpicking” is how you stay unemployed and poor as an artist.
Respect the clients vision and your own integrity, they arnt exclusive.
AI sucks, but so did this above take.
@@poe1554 So you clearly didn't understand the level of nitpicking I was referring to? There's an obvious difference between the 100s of prompt tweaks someone using an AI art generator can go through until they get what they were imagining, and the level of client feedback an artist doing a commission would consider reasonable. Not even close, and it has nothing to do with keeping clients or not. You're just dodging the points at hand, with that nonsense.
Sounds to me like you don't have any real arguments to address any of my previous points.
@@GrumpDog in that case, I’d call these people software skilled not art skilled
You’re just sitting there and watching the ai do everything artistically, it’s like watching a chef and feel you have cooking skills
Or more like google, you can use very well the engine but never claim knowledge of what it shows you
AI art is almost like cloning a person's years of learning and hard work and discarding him and replacing him with a machine which sounds like a dystopian future, which devalues artists in general, this is just the start of AI it will only get better, i predict in the future it would be almost like cloning people not just in the art field but every field imaginable, i get that AI will help with mundane tasks but for things that are unique to an individual or maybe even a company i think thats unethical, if AI gets really good in the future to the point where its almost like cloning, so is it ethical to clone people without their permission? this does sound like science fiction but this is exactly where we are heading, in the near future people will start to ask themselves why do anything at all if any large companies or anyone could feed my hard work to AI models to replace me without any compensation for my hard work at all and easily make similar work to it, everyone is affected here, from writers, musicians, animators, 3d modelers, programmers, and the list goes on, i think "training data" is too valuable and unethical to be taken without permission, and should be copyrightable, a person should have a right to how his data is used, this is the only way forward in a capitalist society, the other option is shifting our society to a more socialist one, where an AI taking your job isn't as fatal as it is now to your livelihood, as it is now we are on the road to a dystopian future because capitalism and AI automation cannot coexist.
When you invited the commenters to change your mind, I rolled my eyes. "Silence, RUclipsr. I'm not boosting your algorithm." But here I am, because your closing argument contained such a glaring oversight, I had to speak up.
Art contains meaning and a deeper conversation ONLY because the viewer pulls that meaning out of their engagement with a piece. Meaning in isn't encoded by the artist. He's not in the museum, holding our hand, telling us why his use of of amaranth instead of vermillion is significant. The audience interrogates that out of the piece in a private dialogue between themselves and the art.
What that means is the audience inevitably attributes meaning the artist did not and sees deliberate choice where no thought was given. That means it's impossible for people to apply your distinction. People will hallucinate meaning and context and deliberate choice into AI generated art. Everything will appear to have meaning, and in some real sense it will. It won't have an artist's meaning, but then again, it never did in practice anyway.
The distinction you draw is dead on arrival, but it's worse than that, because there is enough control in prompt creation that AI art can be used to convey deliberate meaning. Subject, composition, medium, and tone can be used to convey meaning and are easily manipulated in prompts.
If you want to push this idea, it's going to take a much, much narrower definition of art, and I honestly don't think any definition is going to hold out indefinitely. You'll be revising your definition of art again in 10 years.
I guess art is no longer subjective when we are going to make rules about what is and isn't art.
It's never been subjective, there has always been rules, but like humanity evolves so does our cultural perspectives
@@rubiestrada3789 Gotcha. Art has rules. Sounds very openminded.
Lol the "anything can be art" crowd suddenly wants to create their own rules for what art is. Ai is art because they made it art by not wanting a definitive answer for what art is
@@Devilm4n-cw8tv Piss christ was transformative. This is to far lol
I think you make an interesting point but to me it's impossible to differentiate between meaningful and just "pretty" art. I think beauty alone can be deeply moving, be it a painting, a photo or a song, even if the creator didn't know exactly what they were doing. By your definition only financially independent artists working conveying intentional messages could produce real art. Also I think the thumbnail is an example of AI art that absolutely qualifies as real art even by your definition, I think the creator spent 90 hours crafting his prompts to get the intended result.
As anyone who talks about ai art you are missing a simple point. AI art is not something that a dumb computer generate by itself: it is something that a human generate by using a set of easy to use but complex to master tools.
So what you are witnessing right now is just like the dawn of cinema: mostly a collection of experiments done by a new media. But as right now a lot of people are figuring out ways to express themselves with this tools.
If art is communication between the autor and the viewer then as right now there is art generated by an AI mastered by the autor.
AI art may not be art, but AI can still be used to make art if it is used intentionally to make art and not just a pretty image.
Many of the early images of AI art, the ephemeral blobs of indistinct things that are arms or legs in odd places were themselves closer to art than the perfect images of the human body or landscapes so often made today. Because the person working with that AI worked to make something they wanted to see, and used the AI as a tool, a paintbrush, to create it.
There's a process in AI art called "inpainting". Where the artist (yes, the artist) takes a generated image and begins working out another, more detailed image within it. They do this by selecting sections of the image and prompting refinements or outright changes without disturbing the rest of the image. Often taking hours carefully selecting and prompting tiny sections of the overall work until they arrive at something they actually want.
They willingly abandon the primary advantage AI provides, the absurd speed of creation, so they can create something they definitively wish to create, and use the AI to that effect. Some of these images created are actual art, because they have artistic intention.
Counterbalance this with the cheap and tawdry use of AI to create perfectly marketable images by the bucketful without any real care about the artistic content of the images aside from looking like whatever is popular (see: the use of "trending on Art Station" or "trending on DeviantART" in the prompt list), and to me at least, the difference between AI being used to cram out images and AI being used for real artwork becomes apparent.
AI is a tool for an artist to use. A very powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. Much akin to a drum machine or a synthesizer, or the camera, it is a new medium for us as humans to play with and to express ourselves with.
yes
100% agreed
AI art, or art created using artificial intelligence, is a relatively new phenomenon that has sparked a great deal of debate in the art world. Some critics argue that AI art is not truly "art" because it is created by a machine rather than a human. However, this argument is misguided and fails to take into account the complexity and creativity that goes into creating AI art.
First and foremost, it is important to understand that AI art is not simply the product of a computer algorithm. The process of creating AI art involves a great deal of human input and decision-making. For example, a human artist may train a machine learning model on a dataset of images, and then use that model to generate new images. The artist must choose which images to include in the dataset, and must also decide how to tweak the parameters of the model to achieve a certain aesthetic.
Additionally, AI art often requires a great deal of technical skill and knowledge. Creating a machine learning model that can generate images that are indistinguishable from those created by a human artist is no easy task. It requires a deep understanding of both the technical aspects of machine learning and the creative process of art-making.
Another important point is that AI art is not a replacement for human art, but an addition to it. AI art can be seen as a new medium for human artist to explore, and that in many cases, AI art is not meant to replace human artist but to expand their work.
Finally, it is worth noting that many of the objections to AI art are rooted in a narrow and outdated understanding of what art is. Art has always been a reflection of the technology and society of its time, and AI art is no different. To reject it outright is to reject the evolution of art itself.
In conclusion, AI art is indeed art. It is a form of art that involves human input, technical skill, and creativity. It is not a replacement for human art but an addition to it. Those who whine about why it isn't are simply clinging to a narrow and outdated understanding of what art is. AI art is a new medium for artists to explore, and it is an exciting development in the world of art.
(This comment has been generated by ChatGPT)
The main distinction you draw between art and non-art (or "illustration") is intentionality. I don't think the vast majority of people who consume art will make or have historically made that same distinction. What one considers art is necessarily subjective, and making the prescription to eliminate a whole sub-category (that is already largely considered art) from the overall category feels elitist and, to many, comes off as gate-keeping.
Personally I feel that AI-art is a fine subcategory in the overall category of art; in the same way that photography is. It distinguishes itself so that people know what you mean when you say AI-art, as well as what you don't mean. The way we categorize nebulous things like art seems to always come down to common parlance. Trying to force this elimination from the category down peoples throats when a perfectly descriptive term within the category is already being used feels pointless.
if the AI generators used a watermark or something like that maybe it would cause less issues, right now there's a lot of people trying to pass it as human made art tho. I think there should be caution with what can be fed to the generator, as some people take sketches or wips artists have done, and make the AI finish it for them, then try to claim it as their own work, which is dangerous. ethically there should be a lot of limitations regarding the database and what can and cannot be used.
@@michemicalromance I agree, disclosure of the fact that it's AI art is important. But the same happens with plagiarism of other artists work - people posting it and claiming it's their own. I know you're not saying this, but the fact that people can pass it off as their own isn't a good enough reason to remove it from the category of 'art.'
@@polyrhythmike stolen art is art, but it's done by somebody else, the same with AI (although I particularlly do not consider AI generated images art because it doesn't actually have a consciousness of what it's creating, it can't consent to doing it, and it depends on stealing other's work for the algorithm to generate something OKish). maybe some people can pass it off as their own work, but their knowledge will be limited, since they couldn't learn anything they would have by drawing it themselves, they won't be able to show their process because they don't have one, etc. and at that point, a lot of artists nowadays are valuable because they share a lot of how they work and teach other people aswell. so idk about that.
something important aswell is that theft in art, although it's common, doesn't go unnoticed for so long. i see a lot of drawings daily and i can sometimes pinpoint references used in a drawing and outright stealing done by other people. idk how but it just happens, and i think most people who draw can do that too
Soon enough no one's going to care if it's real art or fake. It all boils down to the fact that it's cheaper.
Example: diamonds.
One of the rarest materials out there. They apparently last forever, henceforth marriage rings are made out of it because of it's 'foreverness'
The diamond industry was prosperous.
Then came China. Someone figured out how to make artificial diamonds. At first, people were reluctant to buy them. They were new. Plus the real diamond business kept bad-mouthing them.
Then people realized: artificial diamonds are so much cheaper. One real diamond can sell for millions, while the artificial, mass produced version costed under 100$. On top of that, you can get a blue diamond, red diamond, pink diamonds, yada yada, you get the gist.
So what if it's fake? That's not going to stop companies from claiming it's the same or even better than the original. It will take time, but people will eventually accept it.
I think whether something is “art” or not should be more a matter of whether it’s self expression or not rather than having explicit meaning. Inherently this makes almost everything illustrated by humans art (and I’d argue things like commissions would still be considered art because you’re helping someone else in their self expression) but leaves out AI because there really isn’t a “self” to express.
Wait, if commissions count for that reason, wouldn't that mean that AI art counts as well because the prompters are using an AI to assist in expressing themselves?
Note that I don't support AI "art", I just wanted think more on this.
Wouldn't AI art be a form of expression then? Someone expressing themselves through the AI's interpretation of prompts. What makes photography art if AI isn't? It's a really interesting debate on the meaning of art.
@@digitab4446 That is exactly it. The AI art is at its most basic level just a commission. Only instead of a specific artist you are dealing with an amalgamation of what humanity knows as art. The end result came from the one who wished for it to exist and accepted the result. This is at the very least an expression of something within the one who "commissioned" the art from the AI.
Once a person starts fiddling with it it goes beyond that base level though.
@@digitab4446 hmm that’s an interesting thought… I honestly don’t know the answer, but I see your point 😅
For the time being, I believe that AI art has the potential to push art forward as the invention of photography did (leading to more abstract works). However, an "illustrator" can intentionally put small artistic details to his works making them less soulless which is not a thing in AI art and I don't know if this is going to be a problem in the future. All in all, real art cannot be replaced by AI and I really hope this new technology to revolutionize art.
I think your take on what’s art is so refreshing and simple. I like it Picasso
This is a very thoughtful analysis, and I can only agree.
in the episode "Neptune's Spatula," SpongeBob attempts to answer the question of what is the meaning of art by challenging Neptune to a cook-off. SpongeBob only makes one hamburger, but is able to prove his worthiness as an artist by using a unique combination of ingredients and condiments to make it a work of art.
This episode made me not afraid of artificial intelligence, because in the end people will see the truth
For me there seems to be three different definitons of art
Art as expression
Art as skill
Art as product
I would not use illustration as the separated group but rather use product
A product is something made by something else which you buy or interact with.
"Not all paintings are art"
Me crying over my yiff collection "It's art to me!"
In all seriousness though, i love this video. You were able to touch upon so many things i just couldn't put my finger on. The connection of commercialism of artist was obvious and even one of the core part of the debate, yet you managed to give me a new perspective on that. Seperating art and giving it more concrete definitions is important, and today these notions will be and are challenged pretty heavily. "Not all paintings are art just like not all text is a novel" perfectly sums it up. In this sense, the creations of Hidetaka Miyazaki. Him and his team create video games, but the impact they have, the relationship the director has with these games i would argue constitute art. A clear intent, rich stories, makes you engaged in more ways than just gameplay, just look at the community and the discussions around the lore, the stories, the messages. I've discovered the wonders of historical alchemy and i am ehtralled.
I'm not saying this as a fanboy here, Miyazaki is one those people who give me hope and inspiration for the future. He wants to make new games, he wants to innovate and improve, make something new. And did they use AI for their art? Well yes of course, to help with planting trees to make their placement more "natural" same with hills and mountains and some other landscape details that would take unreasonable amount of time to do well, in order to ship the game in time. But in the end they had to go and fix up the kinks in the generation of it.
An artist once said something like, all it takes is one person to believe it's art and it's art.
@@luckythirteen9353 you are repeating yourself in other comments
@@secretname2670 it happens.
@@secretname2670 besides, it's not always directed at the same person
Since you're so sure of your opinion I've got your next video concept. Collect a couple hundred pieces of art from humans and AI alike. How about we cycle through the images and you hand pick which are human and which are AI made? We both know you're going to fail at this task. Let that sink in. This argument is doomed to devolve into the age old argument , "Does art need context." Which it objectively does not. The example that "This toilet becomes art when we engage with it" directly clashes with the example of "Its pretty but is it art?" The only question to ask is, "Is this expression? Was someone expressing themselves through a medium when they created this?" The concept that Art must be conceptualized and contextualized by culture, conflict, story or other means treads directly towards elitism you claimed to be avoiding. You can merely argue these conceptualized and contextualized pieces are higher forms of art but the argument that they are the only Art is very short sited and intellectually dishonest.
I love listening to your videos bro while I’m painting and sculpting in my studio! 👍🏽
Thank you for this video!
Regarding your point that not everything beautiful is art (which I very much agree with), I want to complicate things a little further in regards to AI "art".
What's scary about AI art isn't the fact that it can be just as pretty as man made art, but put in the right context, it can also appear just as deep. I've seen examples of AI-made art which aren't even necessarily what you would call "beautiful", but I can totally imagine that if this art was sold to someone under the impression that a person made then, perhaps this piece could even be named, it has the potential to provoke feelings just as deep.
So I would argue the problem is even more profound than that. AI art doesn't only have the potential to be just as pretty, but also just as "deep" when presented in the same way as traditional art.
No it doesn’t because it doesn’t mean anything. When you know a person made soemthing, that adds a depth to it. Ai art is an amalgamation of other piec sof art or images based on a algorithm, it’s not art.
I see what you're saying, but I don't think the AI generated image existing and provoking deep thoughts is necessarily a problem. different people will have different perceptions and feelings regarding the same thing. it's like if you and your friends baked a cake and decorated it, and some like your cake better, others like other cakes (note here that I don't think AI images are art because the generator depends on stealing and doesn't have a counsciousness of what it's doing, doesn't consent to doing it). SOME AI images are actually interesting, the problem is the theft and unethical usage of works these generators are doing, and how it could possibly be used for profit and against artists existence, cause if they have to exist and their job is replaced, there's no other option than taking another job, not the one you love to do, right?
most artists are mad but not because the AI can do the same thing they can (maybe how fast it works is a problem, but only because of capitalism pressure to work fast), since essentially that would be the same thing as being mad because other artists can communicate through their art better than you can, that ain't it. the problem is not having the opportunity to work with the one thing that brings them joy, and is tolerable despite the intense pressure.
I don't agree that the capabilities of AI Art generation is a problem. Sure, it hurts some types of artists, but that is both predictable and inevitable with the progress in AI.
@@Auramus the AI as it is right now hurts all artists, because it depends on stealing. it should definitely be regulated and use a watermark that makes it clear that it's AI generated.
@@michemicalromance No, it doesn't hurt all artists. Only a subset of them.
I wouldn't call it stealing. It's more like using images that are available on the web, and then making new ones out of them. It is pretty much inevitable online. This is something people will have to get used to.
Directly copying and stealing is illegal, but this is a different, grey area.
I don't really see how reducing something to 'just illustration' means it's not art.
The simple different between a sunset and an illustration of a sunset is: a sunset is beautiful, so isn't art. But an illustration of a sunset is 'how I, the illustrator, see the sunset'. Which is art, according to your own definition, because it's sharing an experience.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...there is no worth for any illustration, until it was assigned to it. There is no realistic cost that could be applied beside the cost of the canvas/paint/digital tablet or the time creating it...and who painted it. In a vacuum, a million dollar painting for one might just be a wasted piece of paper for others.
As a layman, personally there are two ways how something became 'art'. In how it was created and how it was interpreted. Both are ultimately selfish and subjective. Even a pebble on the side of the road could be artistic if you appreciate it enough. An intention is nice. but personally I don't think there is any need for an intention to appreciate something beautiful.
And...if intention is what you want, what if..you as the one inputting words into to AI, with prompt such as, "a townscape, which depicted my longing to my homeland while I'm trapped here alone in a crowded metropolitan, digital art"...what then, there is something it tries to communicate, is that art? Or is it a mere illustration of a townscape? If someone stumble upon it and can appreciate its beauty, would it be art for that someone then? It should be...at least that particular individual believe so, who are we to judge?
2.2k AI art bros are throwing a messy tantrum right before nap time
i have so many thoughts but so little time or space. this is an entire discussion for me and one that engrosses me. i actually to an extent agree wit you and have so much praise for some of the points mentioned and some of the analysis on how commercialism and capitalism has affected the definitions and perspectives of art in society. these are criticisms that i regularly mention in discussion and also a large part of my personal thoughts and theories on and of the future of AI art. I actually love this video. thank you.
I seem to recall all of these same arguments being made toward Warhol
Exactly. He should have been sued.
I feel like when a human creates, he bleeds onto the canvas or his creation and puts a little bit of him onto the art he creates. Our hands are always bleeding and staining and imprinting all we create with ourselves and our humanity, our thoughts and framework of things.
And yet, we often encounter art that was created anonymously, or the creator has simply been lost to time. And that can be a functionally similar thing. Whatever meaning the artist poured into it themselves is unknown and unknowable, all there is is what the viewer imparts. We can encounter a scene of suffering and imagine the hardships of its anonymous creator, when in reality their life was completely unlike our guess. And yet the feelings you got from imagining that were real all the same. Imagine coming across a random bit of AI art on some webpage, with no indication that's what it is. Is the meaning you read into it not knowing that any less real than how you engage with the work of an anonymous human?
This comment is beautiful and the answer is really interesting. I'm taking screenshots to remember and think about what you two said :)
@@felonyx5123 Not a functionally similar thing.
Quite right. All humans share a common humanity. Or they used to do. A commenter below may already half machine himself, so please ignore him.
The threat of AI is real. Just one more step away from contact with the human, and knowledge of ourselves.
We see the human best, and learn about the human in ourselves, from others of our kind. This is the essence of art.
@@felonyx5123 Huh, I never thought of it lile that.
I would love a video on the effects of capitalism on art!
I agree with the idea of a separation between entertainment and art and the part of this video which is about AI, but to suggest that capitalism and the free market are necessarily destructive towards art is just incorrect. A free market favors what people want to buy and that which is scarce. An artist's work is unique, and therefore scarce. So the real problem behind the value of art is the amount of public interest. Criticism of the market should really just be criticism of the public's desires, taste, and values. It is a cultural issue, not an economic one. If people valued art, art would be more valuable.
Great video. I'll make one counter argument about ai being a tool that eventually replaces artists. As you correctly noted, art has been a commodity for quite a while. I think it's especially visible in the entertainment industry, specifically concept art (where I work). The more money is involved, the more the artists become akin to a 'human AI'. They're prompted for a particular thing and have very little room for expression because of plentiful limiting factors imposed by the corporate code. The thing is, for all the work artists are creating, it is merely a stepping stone in the greater creative endeavor. Be it a film or a videogame. I'd argue then, that ai is a tool, that opens a door for artists to become independent. Ditch the big corporation and make your own project. That's what I've been doing, I'm trying to make my own game rn and ai helps do quick iterations, searching for an idea, chat gpt in developing the story, dream textures in blender to quickly texture things, etc. This makes me excited for new ai developments, because I can turn my vision into reality, which is the ultimate goal of any artist I think.
As mentioned by some comments, "low art" such as illustrations, concept art, comics, etc, are not just "aesthetically pleasing pictures". They tell a story through the choice and placement of subjects. A good concept art / illustration of, say a knight, isn't just "person with sword and heavy armor". It takes into account things like the backstory/origins of the knight, the setting of the kingdom they serve, the practicality of their armor in terms of the work they do, etc. These factors will influence the design of the armor, the knight's expression, their pose, etc. A lot of concept artists say that coming up with the initial ideas and thumbnail is where most of their brain goes into, and that later on the rendering of the image (i.e. painting) is just going through the motions. In this sense, AI art at its current state could potentially automate a lot of the technical work that goes into the rendering, while the artist is still responsible for the ideas. The problem then, is that some of us actually enjoy the rendering process as it can be therapeutic and rewarding at the end. But it could definitely make it more apparent, to society, what separates a "pretty picture" from "a picture that tells a story".
And of course, in the future, AI will be capable of generating ideas and solving design problems, so all of our jobs will become obsolete anyways, but that's another discussion lol.
Keep coping, AI will become just a useless fad.
someone that says AI art is not art has never done it. there is definitely an art form to creating your prompts. looking for good seeds for your prompt and refining your settings and creating masking to get exactly what you want. unlike a lot of tech stuff , when you change one setting it affects all the others and you have to adjust. you can't get good results by just saying something simple, many times I will spend hours and hours sifting through seeds and tweaking the wording of my prompt and the prompt weights. and to be fair it is still a long way from replacing actual handmade art. it has problems with complex shapes. hands are a great example. Now I think using this tech to copy others copyrighted material should not be allowed just like it would be wrong to paint fake painting and pass it off as an original. copying peoples works has long plagued the art world and this should be treated the same. but A.I. art definitely is art.
“Do we want all artists to be replaced by ai?”
Unfortunately, that is exactly what most ai users want. They’re jealous of the “talent” that we have, too lazy to start drawing themselves and then argue that not everyone is able to afford art supplies. (Please, If yore able to have access to the internet, you can also afford an ikea pencil and a piece of paper.)
I can draw, but it's really awful. I don't think, you wanna see that.
@@temin2776 practice is the key
@@temin2776
No one was born with genius-like skills.
The genius was created not born with it.
That still ignores the glaring issue in that achieving the level of artistry that most people want requires years, if not decades, of practice. And for most, they're not using these programs to become "AI artists". They just want a product.
If I'm a small business owner who's opening up a cafe on a tight budget, and I'm given 4 options: 1. To make the logo myself and be satisfied with an amateurish half-assed logo, 2. To postpone my cafe's opening by years as I sharpen my skills as an artist to make the logo that I desire, 3. To commission an artist to make the logo for me for a significant sum of money, or 4. To use an AI Model in the internet and acquire a professional-level logo either for free or for a very low fee, I think the most optimal choice is fairly obvious.
In the end, these AI models are built to shine in scenarios like those. They become the "McDonalds" of the art world; cheap and readily available, yet still delicious and filling. Most people aren't looking for artistic merit in the arts they commission, they just want something that's aesthetically pleasing enough to suffice for whatever practical purposes they have.
@@gracecalis5421 AI models are going to surpass real artists, just like AI surpassed humans in chess and go. People have been telling you this for decades but it was falling on deaf ears right up to the moment it hit artists in the purse, then they started noticing what is going on. Like it or not, AI is going to supersede us, it's inevitable. Just like a child supersedes it's parent. Artists are fighting a 1-stupid and 2-losing battle. You can't stop progress.
Did this man really just say that illustration isn’t art? LOL
What's good about AI art is that it devalues all art. All human endeavors must be devalued and abandoned in order to get to the next stage of evolution.
that is so stupid and extremely backwards. so wrong
@@vijaz5559 It is posthuman.
I think you got the orders backwards
You need to get to the peak to evolve
I believe there are four types of art.
1. Man-made: visual arts, performing arts, fashion, literature, architecture - produced by inspiration, through experiences and level of expertise.
2. Animal-Created: A paw print in a cement pavement though accidental but made by my pet whom I love, is art to me because of its significance.
3. Nature: A tree, valley or a constellation can be art. Not just because it looks beautiful, but because it is inspiring, and it influences people’s value of nature.
4. Technological: I consider AI Generated illustrations as art because it can provide inspiration, it can produce beautiful images that people can appreciate.
There are limits to each type, the same way each has their own advantage. Though at times they overlap, they cannot truly be compared. I cannot produce beautiful trees, I can only plant them. A dog can’t recite a poem. A rock can’t make itself a building, and an AI can’t produce an art on it its own unless commanded. Even its “free-will mode” is programmed.
producing ispirations, doesn't make it art...
1:14 many professional artists are pro AI art because now in the time it took them to make 4 images they can make 40. AI art isn't entirely effortless, you can get something quickly just as you can with a camera but craftsmanship is still a part of it
Good point. A great part of the problem is English usage of the word "art". In most other languages, there is a difference between art and painting, drawing, etc. You can be a bad painter and therefore, not an artist. Art is a level, a state of mind, if you will, not every little thing put on paper or canvas. In English, because it's badly used, the term art has become inflated and meaningless. For me, the height of absurdity was a few years ago when I saw a Subway job advertisement that read: sandwich artist.
I feel like every art trend for the last 100 years, having critics say that it's not actually art is what made it popular.
like what is art to begin with?
@@sithlord5149 A chemical reaction that happens in our brain. People will have a rude awakening soon lol.
@@foxdoe7540that doesn't explain anything
@@sithlord5149 Art isn't really a thing. It's just things we find beautiful and assign meaning to. A.I. are proving that the "art" is inside the human brain, not in their creation. There is no difference between finding a sunset beautiful or a painting beautiful. The meaning you associate to stuff is up to you based on your memories.
@@foxdoe7540 That's true but that applies to every word it has no concrete definition and it can change the problem I have with your definition of the word "art" is that it is far to broad to mean much .Your definition is something I like .
The profit motive is absolutely at the core of the problem, here. There's nothing that would stop existing or upcoming great artists from utilizing AI to make spectacular art, imagine if all of the mechanical skill was not necessitized and instead broader concepts of composition and color and story and context were the main skills honed. It would mean the actual process of more bespoke creation would become lost to the ages like, perhaps, the skill of mixing paint and eyeballing color, understanding tangible materials and how they interact with a canvas material, how they dry or keep over time, these skills would indeed be lost but the transition from creativity to shareable product would remain.
NOW, all that being said, this relationship between artists and AI has been hamstrung irrevocably because of the profit motive. It was nipped on the bud, aborted as a zygote, because the profit-motivated humans whose resources were leveraged in the dawning of the exploitative and morally corrupt advent of this tool has decided that the theft they calculated they could get away with was adequate enough for the scope of their greed and the reward outweighed the risks. Furthermore, cultivating a healthy relationship between artists and AI was, thus, determined to be a future beyond the myopic capitalist strategy. Why plant a tree the shade of which you won't enjoy? Under not just the profit motive, but ALSO the mortal limitation, it is sub-optimal to pursue what is best for humanity as a whole, i.e. short-term privatized gains willingly traded for long-term distributed consequences, i.e. climate change and imperialism in general.
But yeah rant over, thanks for touching on this topic and giving your take.
Incredible video, I can finally point out the exact difference between art and "not art".
Literally Vaush.
This discussion is often framed as innovation against fearful denial of inevitable progress and I like the focus of this video.
What is art for? One day there might be an AI that could be called conscious but until then human art will be unique… At least on this planet, can’t speak for hypothetical aliens.
I would not be surprised if there came a day when visual thoughts could be printed out or shown on a screen. I yearn for it.
@@AuramusOnce everyone will be able to do everythibg no one and nothing will be special anymore
@@Pollicina_db that's the thing. Not all people are creative. You would have to train your mind, and that's a powerful thing.
This is only the beginning and why we MUST move past wage labor, post wages and being able to make a living simply by living (something we could do today and have it pay for itself exponentially) is what needs to be done.. This way the world can be improved and art can be made by human or machine and human will be more desirable.
End wages, move past "makeing a living"
About AI generated images being the death of illustrators:
Personally, I consider even Illustrations made by AI to be inferior to illustrations done by humans.When looking at an illustration, I can appreciate the amount of time and effort put into it, as well as the experience required to create it.
When I know the illustration I am looking at is AI generated, I automatically appreciate it less, because no time or learning was needed in order to make it happen.If the era of AI generated images actually was the death of illustrations, I'd probably stop engaging with them.
I don't think I am alone here:The value of an object often gets defined by how much work it took or how rare it is.
AI generated images take barely any work and they obviously aren't rare either.They're basically worthless.
Let's also not forget about the arguably most important argument against AI generated images, which is the fact that the AIs are mostly trained on copyrighted images and basically stealing the property of artists and using it to take their jobs.Leaving it out of the conversation
because the conversation "would be happening regardless" doesn't seem very logical to me, as the AI would be nowhere near the level it is at now if it were to rely entirely on free-to-use images.Many people, including me, will try to avoid AI illustrations just for moral reasons.
This is why I don't think illustrators will be going anywhere,even if the AI was perfect at it's job.
The vaule of an object should be determined by a person a diamond is worthless to me but other people value it highly so of course I would sell it
If we are going to compare ai to humans as ''taking inspiration'' then I'm sure this is a fair comparison:
AI generating is like commissioning an artist
you give it prompts and tell it what you want while the artist and ai give you an output
You are not the artist, the thing that you fed prompts to is the artist
Artists draw, ai plagarises
You are not the artist, the input (artist and ''artist'') is the artist
I think of AI art like I do collages or scrapbooks. Both use other people's work to create something new, but it's clear that the final image wouldn't be possible without taking from others.
I use AI art as a tool to create references that I would have a hard time finding otherwise. It's like using a search engine.
I think of AI art like the camera. When the camera was invented, many thought it would be the end of traditional art.
Of course, AI art is different because it involves using people's work without permission or payment, and that's not okay.
Artists should profit for their contributions to AI artworks, but because the tech is open-source, it's out of our hands. Pandora's Box has been ripped open, and we are left to pick up the pieces.
First off: Good job outlining that the real problem here is capitalism and not the AI art itself. If everyone had universal basic income, many of the problems would be nonexistent.
Secondly: I think there are two flaws in reasoning here: The first is comparing art that is just beautiful to with a sunset or a tree. The sunset or the tree haven't been created with intent on making something beautiful, art can be. Why wouldn't that be art, creating something to look at and be awed by its beauty? No, art doesn't have to be beautiful but art existing only for its beauty is still art. Why would beauty be any less valuable or worthwhile to be capturing artistically than other things?
Secondly, I think much of the anxiety around AI art comes from a certain narcissism of the artists themselves and they would profit off the idea of the death of the author. Art is liberated if intent and thought behind its creation take a step back and a work is looked at without the psychologizing of it. Sure, we can also gain insight while leaving the author alive, but it's not always necessary.
We are not forced at all to make a distinction behind art and illustration here, much like scorcese isn't forced to make a distinction between cinema and marvel movies, because there isn't a wrong way to make art. I guess Scorcese's ego is just so hurt by the thought of being in the same category as marvel filmmakers that he has to differentiate himself to them (and let's be honest, placing himself above them.) Of course someone typing in "draw a beautiful woman" into an AI-generator and someone working and suffering two years to capture the beauty of his late wife on a canvas isn't the same thing. But it's both art nonetheless, both creations of the human spritit to evoke emotions or reactions in themselves or an audience, with more or less help.
I would also like to add: art doesn't have to be good, valuable or anything else. There's terrible art out there. It's still art though.
I write novels btw, before anyone thinks this is just some consumer not being able to understand an artist's perspective.
"If everyone had universal ____, many of the problems would be nonexistent."
This is applicable to so many things. One thing that instantly comes to mind is cultural appropriation. If there was true equality, there would be no cultural appropriation but solely cultural appreciation because all cultures would be deemed equal and everyone would equally partake in them in good faith, having respect for cultural differences and using the exploration to grow closer to those who are different. People would not only cite their sources but those sources would likely be known to far more people from the outset. However, there is a (sometimes) unspoken yet clear hierarchy, making people's choice to partake questionable, especially when solely in a commercial aspect and when the culture being profited off of is seen as inferior and/or only good as a reference.