So... this is clearly Art (with a capital A). If I'd been told this was the work of a new artist, I'd believe it, and I'd think they were talented.
What does that mean for the philosophy of Art? Art is meant to communicate emotion [0] but how can something that has no emotion communicate it? And if we exclude this from being Art because of that, then how do we tell "real" Art from this, when there's nothing to distinguish between them?
What happens to Art when you can get an off-the-shelf ML algorithm to produce original, creative, works like this on demand? And what happens to commercial artists and illustrators once we train the algorithm to do their job?
Though that's not all bad - Art could become a hobby done for the joy of creating, rather than a profession done to make money.
> And what happens to commercial artists and illustrators once we train the algorithm to do their job?
Perhaps the same as what happened to artisans such as some makers of furniture, shoes, and bespoke cloting. They charge a premium for the "authenticity" of their products. Artisanal, single-source, small batch art.
There's human input all over thus, from the algorithm creation to the curating, so I'm not sure this spells the end of art any more than Jackson Pollock using gravity and serendipity to determine where the paint ended up or Renaissance fresco artists having entire studios to generate "their" art. Or the invention of the camera.
Whilst it's aesthetically pleasing in a semi abstract kind of way and you can definitely imagine people paying to put it on their wall, nobody's going to confuse it for the actual human created film posters, so I think the people that make film posters for a living will be just fine (unless all future film directors and promoters want their film posters to be a collage of objects from the film on a psychedelic abstract background, I guess)
I think it's rather interesting how this tech will change the work of human artists. By itself, AI art remains somehow limited in its development.
Decorative art creators might be threatened. But they'e been threatened by reprints for a long time. Political/philosophical art not so much as they are more cognitive and require the artist's societal involvement in some way (even as outcasts).
These AIs generate a specific style of art and you can put it up on your wall as you can put up a reprint of human art. But when they're used with purpose, they can become tools of human artists.
Is there any actual limit in AI-generated Art though?
I'm no expert, but I couldn't tell this generated art from an actual artist (e.g.) "experimenting with abstract representations of movie themes". Could an expert tell them apart? Are there any obvious "tells" for AI-generated art, and can that be overcome with better training?
I feel like we're watching the equivalent of the first computer chess games, with people saying "computers will never beat a grand master because they don't understand the strategic complexity".
People still play chess, despite the fact that their phone can beat them every time. Maybe it doesn't matter that a computer is a better artist, either.
I have been experimenting with this system for months and have concluded that it is a very powerful paint brush. Powerful like steering an elephant. Not like being Superman.
The system is garbage in garbage out. So, feeding it random noise inputs will give noise results. The human factor is “prompt engineering” the inputs to try to coax the elephant in the desired direction. And, in evaluating the outputs.
Sometimes it feels like asking a child to draw something for you. I spent some time trying to get “storm clouds made of lava” but the child insisted “No, dad! Lava stays on the ground. Like THIS!” https://www.reddit.com/r/bigsleep/comments/o033x1/playing_wi...
That's awesome :) Thanks for the info. I love the images. And the metaphor of it being a powerful tool for creative expression rather than an actual creative expression itself.
Do you think this will change and get better? Would it help if the AI was capable of interactively refining the inputs (I guess by asking questions instead of making assumptions)?
I think that the tool will get higher quality results with easier to control inputs. Some of that is already happening rapidly.
In theory, given enough machine power, I could see a branching, interactive interface. Like if there are multiple major hills in the latent space ("Tempest-> a storm cloud" vs. "Tempest -> a cartoon pony") the system could identify them all and generate a set of images with different biases towards each hill. Then the user can pick which direction to climb.
The current system on high-end hardware takes about a minute before results for one image even begin to be recognizable. And, about 3 minutes before you can be somewhat confident how it's generally going to turn out.
You won't be able to tell the difference when you go picture frame shopping at IKEA, sure (you could probably even have an on-demand printer which generates art suited to your needs). But you won't be able to invite the AI for an interview about the meaning of its art either. I think someone feeding an AI with movie titles and arranging it in an interesting or meaningful way becomes an artist with the AI as their work material.
Just like chess AIs are the result of human work by the way. I don't know if there is a league of AI chess, but if there were, you'd always have the developer teams behind them who make strategic decisions on how to develop the AI. They become chess players of another kind but chess players nonetheless.
What does that mean for the philosophy of Art? Art is meant to communicate emotion [0] but how can something that has no emotion communicate it? And if we exclude this from being Art because of that, then how do we tell "real" Art from this, when there's nothing to distinguish between them?
What happens to Art when you can get an off-the-shelf ML algorithm to produce original, creative, works like this on demand? And what happens to commercial artists and illustrators once we train the algorithm to do their job?
Though that's not all bad - Art could become a hobby done for the joy of creating, rather than a profession done to make money.
Interesting times.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_and_emotion