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Photography/manipulation/oils are/were done by humans with intent. Putting some prompts into an image generator and choosing which one you like is hardly the s

Photography/manipulation/oils are/were done by humans with intent. Putting some prompts into an image generator and choosing which one you like is hardly the same thing. However, the idea of AI generated images could be considered art (a bit like Duchamp's toilet), but it is pretty much done now. Of course, 'paintings for hotel rooms' is something different, and indeed may be affected by AI

wholinator2 3y ago
Well, i think it's strange to assume a serious artist would just take the first crop given to them and not alter at all! After all, there are numerous ai tools for altering ai images to fit your choices better. You simply pick the best template and then direct the AI, with intent, at exactly which parts of the image you'd like changed and into what. It's a delicate balance of prompt engineering (knowing exactly what to say, sometimes terms not know by the lay public become necessary for the best creation of your idea), and actually having an artistic idea in mind. It takes inspiration, tact, composition, knowledge, etc. Sure, putting in "throwing up technicolor on the burger king riding a giant snail" is incredibly easy. Being able to fix everything the AI cannot interpret about your ideal, let alone having an ideal strong enough to differ from what your presented is artistic. I'm well aware there are people vehemently opposed to this idea, but there should be an advocate for the opposition
- danielbln 3y ago
  I concur, and I don't understand why a lot of artists still talk about AI art as if prompt -> end result is the only way of interacting with these systems. That may have been true in Spring of last year, but entire pipelines, flows, tool integrations, models etc. have been created since then. To really excert control over the generative process, you need more than Dall-E through ChatGPT, you need ControlNet, you need various models, and so on. It's technical artistry as 3D modeling is technical artistry.
Philpax 3y ago
> Putting some prompts into an image generator and choosing which one you like is hardly the same thing. At a base level, "putting some prompts [..] and choosing" sounds like intent to me. A user is choosing what they want to capture and making a choice, much like I, as a photographer, look for a particular scene (or happen across one!) and choose how I want to capture it. Of course, you can do much more in terms of control of image synthesis these days. ControlNet and friends make it feasible to control every aspect of the resulting image.
- haswell 3y ago
  > A user is choosing what they want to capture and making a choice, much like I, as a photographer, look for a particular scene (or happen across one!) and choose how I want to capture it. The only similarities between these is the fact that they’re making a choice. The act of making a choice does very little to indicate that the underlying process are similar enough to be compared to each other. The choice made by the photographer is made based on a myriad of factors and intuitions. The result is a snapshot of a real moment in time, modulated by the photographer’s artistic ability, technical prowess and unique perspective of the world based on a lifetime of experience. Choosing what I make for breakfast is also a form of choosing.
  - Philpax 3y ago
    Why do those things not apply to someone using AI? I hate making this kind of argument, but: The choice made by the AI artist is made based on a myriad of factors and intuitions. The result is a snapshot of the latent space, modulated by the artist's artistic girl [grit?], technical prowess and unique perspective of the world based on a lifetime of experience. You still need those things in order to make a compelling image with AI, especially if you're getting into the more advanced uses.
    - haswell 3y ago
      > Why do those things not apply to someone using AI? I hate making this kind of argument, but: I'm glad you made this argument, because I think it helps illustrate the point. When we talk about photography vs. AI vs. other forms of artwork in highly abstract terms, they all sound superficially similar. The moment you start to dive into the details behind each process, it's clear that they are entirely unlike each other. So yes, the AI "artist" is drawing on a myriad of factors and intuitions, but the nature of those factors and intuitions and the effect they have on the output are drastically different to the point that they don't resemble photography even a little bit. For example, the photographer who wants to take a stunning photograph of a snowy mountain vista at sunrise often has to: - Use their knowledge of basic astronomy and sun movement to plan the timing and location of the photo - Use their body to physically hike to the location that will give them this stunning view - Use their knowledge of survival to stay safe while they hike - Once on location, use their knowledge of perspective, depth, camera angle, and composition to find a pleasing place to take the photo from (composition is one of the single most impactful choices and only comes from practice/skill) - While under time pressure from the rising sun, dial in the correct depth of field and exposure - When things go wrong (which they often do), quickly re-assess all of the above and try shots from new location - When done, understand the properties of light and color to a degree that enables them to develop the photo so that it matches the original scene - The wildlife photographer draws on yet another deep and potentially vast skillset The AI "artist" types "a stunning photograph of a snowy mountain vista at sunrise" into a box and clicks the Generate button. It may be that knowing how to formulate a sentence that describes the desired scene relies on a myriad of factors and intuitions, but to compare those factors and intuitions to those the photographer is using seems deeply problematic. Which leads us to reason people find stunning photographs enjoyable to look at in the first place. Encoded in that photograph is the story of the person who took it. In every piece of traditional art (using the word traditional here to mean not AI), the artist's life experiences, thoughts, emotions, and personal investment are baked into the result. This is why many/most people find art compelling. Not just for its beauty, but for the humanity encoded into it. AI imagery is its own form of deeply fascinating when you think of it as a distillation of the skills of millions of people baked into a single model. But when you see a piece of AI imagery, it cannot evoke the same kind of emotional connection to the source, because it's far removed from the original artistic process. It's something, but it's not compelling. > You still need those things in order to make a compelling image with AI, especially if you're getting into the more advanced uses. You need very little, relatively speaking, to make a compelling image with AI when compared to the life experiences of the people who made the imagery that powers current AI models. That's not to say you need nothing, but I don't think they can be compared. Once you move beyond these abstract comparisons, the underlying processes show themselves to be entirely unlike each other. I should also mention that I'm not saying AI imagery has no place. I think it's tremendously useful for the creation of educational content, to help people communicate ideas they previously didn't have the skills to communicate, etc. But I think it sits in a very different category.
baobabKoodaa 3y ago
There's a lot more to AI art generation than "putting some prompts into an image generator". Sure, putting some prompts into a generator _also_ counts as "art" in the same manner as "child scribbles doodles on paper" counts as art. But you're dismissing an entire field of aspiring artists without having even a basic understanding of what AI artists do to achieve the images they publish. Go watch some videos of decent AI art workflows and then come back.
sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
If you believe you can’t use Stable Diffusion for example with intent, I don’t believe you ever seriously used it. There is a ton of work going into it, from training your own loras, building workflows that achieve what you are looking for, using img2img and literally dozens of other related tools and methods. With the same argument you can say photography doesn’t have intent - you just point the camera somewhere and press the button. Edit: for what it’s worth, Duchamp just stole the toilet from another artist and passed it off as his own work - I would argue that is much worse than using something like SD.
kazinator 3y ago
There is a whole lot of art that is not "high art". Just commerical art. Graphic design. Not all of it is "paintings in hotel rooms"; it's all over the place. People have jobs in this area.

wholinator2 3y ago

Well, i think it's strange to assume a serious artist would just take the first crop given to them and not alter at all! After all, there are numerous ai tools for altering ai images to fit your choices better. You simply pick the best template and then direct the AI, with intent, at exactly which parts of the image you'd like changed and into what. It's a delicate balance of prompt engineering (knowing exactly what to say, sometimes terms not know by the lay public become necessary for the best creation of your idea), and actually having an artistic idea in mind. It takes inspiration, tact, composition, knowledge, etc. Sure, putting in "throwing up technicolor on the burger king riding a giant snail" is incredibly easy. Being able to fix everything the AI cannot interpret about your ideal, let alone having an ideal strong enough to differ from what your presented is artistic. I'm well aware there are people vehemently opposed to this idea, but there should be an advocate for the opposition

danielbln 3y ago
I concur, and I don't understand why a lot of artists still talk about AI art as if prompt -> end result is the only way of interacting with these systems. That may have been true in Spring of last year, but entire pipelines, flows, tool integrations, models etc. have been created since then. To really excert control over the generative process, you need more than Dall-E through ChatGPT, you need ControlNet, you need various models, and so on. It's technical artistry as 3D modeling is technical artistry.

Philpax 3y ago

> Putting some prompts into an image generator and choosing which one you like is hardly the same thing. At a base level, "putting some prompts [..] and choosing" sounds like intent to me. A user is choosing what they want to capture and making a choice, much like I, as a photographer, look for a particular scene (or happen across one!) and choose how I want to capture it. Of course, you can do much more in terms of control of image synthesis these days. ControlNet and friends make it feasible to control every aspect of the resulting image.

haswell 3y ago
> A user is choosing what they want to capture and making a choice, much like I, as a photographer, look for a particular scene (or happen across one!) and choose how I want to capture it. The only similarities between these is the fact that they’re making a choice. The act of making a choice does very little to indicate that the underlying process are similar enough to be compared to each other. The choice made by the photographer is made based on a myriad of factors and intuitions. The result is a snapshot of a real moment in time, modulated by the photographer’s artistic ability, technical prowess and unique perspective of the world based on a lifetime of experience. Choosing what I make for breakfast is also a form of choosing.
- Philpax 3y ago
  Why do those things not apply to someone using AI? I hate making this kind of argument, but: The choice made by the AI artist is made based on a myriad of factors and intuitions. The result is a snapshot of the latent space, modulated by the artist's artistic girl [grit?], technical prowess and unique perspective of the world based on a lifetime of experience. You still need those things in order to make a compelling image with AI, especially if you're getting into the more advanced uses.
  - haswell 3y ago
    > Why do those things not apply to someone using AI? I hate making this kind of argument, but: I'm glad you made this argument, because I think it helps illustrate the point. When we talk about photography vs. AI vs. other forms of artwork in highly abstract terms, they all sound superficially similar. The moment you start to dive into the details behind each process, it's clear that they are entirely unlike each other. So yes, the AI "artist" is drawing on a myriad of factors and intuitions, but the nature of those factors and intuitions and the effect they have on the output are drastically different to the point that they don't resemble photography even a little bit. For example, the photographer who wants to take a stunning photograph of a snowy mountain vista at sunrise often has to: - Use their knowledge of basic astronomy and sun movement to plan the timing and location of the photo - Use their body to physically hike to the location that will give them this stunning view - Use their knowledge of survival to stay safe while they hike - Once on location, use their knowledge of perspective, depth, camera angle, and composition to find a pleasing place to take the photo from (composition is one of the single most impactful choices and only comes from practice/skill) - While under time pressure from the rising sun, dial in the correct depth of field and exposure - When things go wrong (which they often do), quickly re-assess all of the above and try shots from new location - When done, understand the properties of light and color to a degree that enables them to develop the photo so that it matches the original scene - The wildlife photographer draws on yet another deep and potentially vast skillset The AI "artist" types "a stunning photograph of a snowy mountain vista at sunrise" into a box and clicks the Generate button. It may be that knowing how to formulate a sentence that describes the desired scene relies on a myriad of factors and intuitions, but to compare those factors and intuitions to those the photographer is using seems deeply problematic. Which leads us to reason people find stunning photographs enjoyable to look at in the first place. Encoded in that photograph is the story of the person who took it. In every piece of traditional art (using the word traditional here to mean not AI), the artist's life experiences, thoughts, emotions, and personal investment are baked into the result. This is why many/most people find art compelling. Not just for its beauty, but for the humanity encoded into it. AI imagery is its own form of deeply fascinating when you think of it as a distillation of the skills of millions of people baked into a single model. But when you see a piece of AI imagery, it cannot evoke the same kind of emotional connection to the source, because it's far removed from the original artistic process. It's something, but it's not compelling. > You still need those things in order to make a compelling image with AI, especially if you're getting into the more advanced uses. You need very little, relatively speaking, to make a compelling image with AI when compared to the life experiences of the people who made the imagery that powers current AI models. That's not to say you need nothing, but I don't think they can be compared. Once you move beyond these abstract comparisons, the underlying processes show themselves to be entirely unlike each other. I should also mention that I'm not saying AI imagery has no place. I think it's tremendously useful for the creation of educational content, to help people communicate ideas they previously didn't have the skills to communicate, etc. But I think it sits in a very different category.

baobabKoodaa 3y ago

There's a lot more to AI art generation than "putting some prompts into an image generator". Sure, putting some prompts into a generator _also_ counts as "art" in the same manner as "child scribbles doodles on paper" counts as art. But you're dismissing an entire field of aspiring artists without having even a basic understanding of what AI artists do to achieve the images they publish. Go watch some videos of decent AI art workflows and then come back.

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago

If you believe you can’t use Stable Diffusion for example with intent, I don’t believe you ever seriously used it. There is a ton of work going into it, from training your own loras, building workflows that achieve what you are looking for, using img2img and literally dozens of other related tools and methods. With the same argument you can say photography doesn’t have intent - you just point the camera somewhere and press the button. Edit: for what it’s worth, Duchamp just stole the toilet from another artist and passed it off as his own work - I would argue that is much worse than using something like SD.

kazinator 3y ago

There is a whole lot of art that is not "high art". Just commerical art. Graphic design. Not all of it is "paintings in hotel rooms"; it's all over the place. People have jobs in this area.