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I do not get the fascination with AI "art", unless one is programming and tuning the AI themselves to accomplish some expression. Art is about human expression,

by bmitc 4y ago

I do not get the fascination with AI "art", unless one is programming and tuning the AI themselves to accomplish some expression. Art is about human expression, and I'm not for sure typing words into a text box to get a picture generated from data is much expression. So from my perspective, I think it's a fad that'll die out or ultimately be abused, just like everything other machine learning toolset out there. But who knows? Humans and fads can remain irrational longer than I can stay solvent.

mod 4y ago
> Art is about human expression It was previously, because we were the only ones capable of it. As a counter-point, it's not hard to imagine aliens creating art. The definition that specifies human origin is now outdated.
- bmitc 4y ago
  Not sure I'd say these machine learnings tools are capable of art. And rather than calling the definition of art outdated, it makes more sense to call this machine learning generation stuff "artificial art" or "superficial art" or some other separate term. It doesn't make sense to mix two rather incompatible concepts.
  - mod 4y ago
    They're obviously capable. Some of the content is indistinguishable from human-created content. Actually I would say most of it is, since humans can produce bad art as well. You're worried about the process, and I get that. But the result is art.
- butUhmErm 4y ago
  And we still are; computers are designed, software is designed. “AI” as we know it does not exist without humans pushing it forward; romantic notions our inventions are independently sentient depends on ignoring a whole lot. For the same reason I can choose to not import a religion I can not import the idea these stupid things are “thinking” independently of humans, without justifying it as I don’t have to with religion as well. All the constraints are defined by us. It’s not magic.
  - mod 4y ago
    I agree it's not magic. I don't think art requires magic. As a pretty handy example, photographers are considered artists. I took photography pretty seriously at one time, and it's very dear to me, but I will say that I don't think there's very much magic in it. I don't think the algo is thinking or sentient or anything like that. It's hard to argue that it's not producing art, though. Tangent: I would also argue humans are designed. I don't mean any mysticism: I think all life is being designed by unthinking processes. As evidence, just look at all the specialist life-forms that are filling a niche that they were...well, designed for.
    - butUhmErm 4y ago
      I am not saying it’s not producing art, I’m saying a human instigated the machine to produce it; it’s a robot with a bunch of brushes in its hand. The difference between that and life evolving to fill a gap in a vacuum is the computer did not do that on its own. Semantics, maybe, but a computer did not evolve until humans did. Fish and moss evolved independently of humans; that’s the difference that distinguishes whether AI is intelligent to me. I would define it as a memory store for contemporary human sensibilities, not a independently bodied entity. That said, if people want to wax poetic privately in their own jargon, whatever, of course. That’s democracy. But the refined over thousands of years corpus of knowledge “contained” within STEM fields has been shown over and over to be our most reliable guide humans have come up with for building a society. Nothing in there attempts to define what is and isn’t intelligence; it’s a model of what matter exists and how it coalesces at various “speeds” relative to light. Needing to define if AI is this or that is a romantic human thing; very subjective. Where a physical thing “is” is hard to argue. Where a thing fits into ones subjective mental taxonomy is easy to argue.
2ICofafireteam 4y ago
Don't forget the human reaction to "art". It can be a derivative, soulless, and thoughtless but still make people feel and think.
chenxi9649 4y ago
I think "programming and tuning" will enable a deeper degree of expression, but just because people are not tuning the AI itself doesnt necessarily mean the creation with AI isn't a form of expression. Ultimately, is "thinking" not simply prompting your own brain with information(often times natural language) and see what the output is and then we fine tune? Maybe a question to ask is, can you express yourself if you are not creating the canvas/paint brush? Or, is the Lego creation a form of expression if you are not making the Lego pieces!?
evilbob93 4y ago
Brian Eno started his [ambient] career doing essentially that, creating and tweaking programming systems to do various musical things, and then letting them to go do their thing. Does this make his ambient pieces, many of which started as a programmatic system, not art? If not, where does the line fall?

by bmitc 4y ago

mod 4y ago

> Art is about human expression It was previously, because we were the only ones capable of it. As a counter-point, it's not hard to imagine aliens creating art. The definition that specifies human origin is now outdated.

bmitc 4y ago
Not sure I'd say these machine learnings tools are capable of art. And rather than calling the definition of art outdated, it makes more sense to call this machine learning generation stuff "artificial art" or "superficial art" or some other separate term. It doesn't make sense to mix two rather incompatible concepts.
- mod 4y ago
  They're obviously capable. Some of the content is indistinguishable from human-created content. Actually I would say most of it is, since humans can produce bad art as well. You're worried about the process, and I get that. But the result is art.
butUhmErm 4y ago
And we still are; computers are designed, software is designed. “AI” as we know it does not exist without humans pushing it forward; romantic notions our inventions are independently sentient depends on ignoring a whole lot. For the same reason I can choose to not import a religion I can not import the idea these stupid things are “thinking” independently of humans, without justifying it as I don’t have to with religion as well. All the constraints are defined by us. It’s not magic.
- mod 4y ago
  I agree it's not magic. I don't think art requires magic. As a pretty handy example, photographers are considered artists. I took photography pretty seriously at one time, and it's very dear to me, but I will say that I don't think there's very much magic in it. I don't think the algo is thinking or sentient or anything like that. It's hard to argue that it's not producing art, though. Tangent: I would also argue humans are designed. I don't mean any mysticism: I think all life is being designed by unthinking processes. As evidence, just look at all the specialist life-forms that are filling a niche that they were...well, designed for.
  - butUhmErm 4y ago
    I am not saying it’s not producing art, I’m saying a human instigated the machine to produce it; it’s a robot with a bunch of brushes in its hand. The difference between that and life evolving to fill a gap in a vacuum is the computer did not do that on its own. Semantics, maybe, but a computer did not evolve until humans did. Fish and moss evolved independently of humans; that’s the difference that distinguishes whether AI is intelligent to me. I would define it as a memory store for contemporary human sensibilities, not a independently bodied entity. That said, if people want to wax poetic privately in their own jargon, whatever, of course. That’s democracy. But the refined over thousands of years corpus of knowledge “contained” within STEM fields has been shown over and over to be our most reliable guide humans have come up with for building a society. Nothing in there attempts to define what is and isn’t intelligence; it’s a model of what matter exists and how it coalesces at various “speeds” relative to light. Needing to define if AI is this or that is a romantic human thing; very subjective. Where a physical thing “is” is hard to argue. Where a thing fits into ones subjective mental taxonomy is easy to argue.

2ICofafireteam 4y ago

Don't forget the human reaction to "art". It can be a derivative, soulless, and thoughtless but still make people feel and think.

chenxi9649 4y ago

I think "programming and tuning" will enable a deeper degree of expression, but just because people are not tuning the AI itself doesnt necessarily mean the creation with AI isn't a form of expression. Ultimately, is "thinking" not simply prompting your own brain with information(often times natural language) and see what the output is and then we fine tune? Maybe a question to ask is, can you express yourself if you are not creating the canvas/paint brush? Or, is the Lego creation a form of expression if you are not making the Lego pieces!?

evilbob93 4y ago

Brian Eno started his [ambient] career doing essentially that, creating and tweaking programming systems to do various musical things, and then letting them to go do their thing. Does this make his ambient pieces, many of which started as a programmatic system, not art? If not, where does the line fall?