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A useful reminder to the AI crowd: it is an inherently human experience. You can gin up all the picassos you want on your LLM, but it'll never achieve the impac

by 23B1 3y ago

A useful reminder to the AI crowd: it is an inherently human experience. You can gin up all the picassos you want on your LLM, but it'll never achieve the impact or emotion of Guernica.

pwython 3y ago
Your example of Guernica: If someone with no knowledge of the meaning behind it, and saw it for the first time... would they really be emotionally blown away? Should a painting have to be explained? I dunno, I prefer art that is breathtaking at first sight and self explanatory (eg. Starry Night), versus a piece that requires an explanation, like Andy Warhol's soup cans or some abstract modern art that consists of random splashes of paint that somehow makes sense of it all.
- everybodyknows 3y ago
  To anyone familiar with the history of the Spanish Civil War, Guernica requires no explanation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- eszed 3y ago
  My taste is in agreement with yours, but I'm not sure Guernica fits the other examples you gave. In person it's overwhelming, because it's huge - much too big to hold in your head at once - and every corner of it has something happening in it. Something horrible, or a horrified / horrorific reaction to something horrible. The abstractions and symbolism also create this kind of dreamlike, inarticulable sense of "we'll never get to the bottom of this" - with this being the painting itself, and by extension the experience it depicts. My guess is that an inhabitant of a future utopian civilization, which had eliminated violence for generations, would have no frame of reference, and no (or an inadequate) emotional response. I don't, however, think it would take any specific knowledge ("in 1937 the Germans..." blah blah blah) to recognize and respond to the painting as depicting experiences and responses common to violence and destruction and war anywhere and any time those happen.
- 23B1 3y ago
  Why would a painting need to be self-explanatory? Your own personal tastes don't apply universally to anything, especially art... so I guess don't understand the point you're trying to make here.
  - pwython 3y ago
    It's just my opinion, but I like visual art that you'd say "wow!" or "beautiful!" when you first look at it. Not "Hmm... now what's this all about? A soup can?" And then someone has to explain "Oh, this is Andy's fascination with consumer culture and processes of mass production." Same goes for photography. For instance, that famous National Geographic cover photo of the Afgan girl. I was a kid when I first saw it in the '80s. I didn't learn the history behind it until many years later, but I didn't need that extra layer of description for it to be forever etched in my mind.
    - 23B1 3y ago
      > It's just my opinion Sure, and I'd love to change it! If your opinion is "art must wow me immediately" you're missing out on a huge chunk of the human experience! Not saying you have to go become an art historian, but an art history class can really open your eyes as to why our world is the way it is today.
      - pwython 3y ago
        I'm a bit of an art history nerd myself :) https://i.imgur.com/dLhaRcM.png https://i.imgur.com/dLhaRcM.png
        23B1 3y ago
        I took an art history class at my local community college just on a whim. I ended up traveling with the professor and a few students to Europe on an 'art history tour' and it was absolutely mind-blowing. If you are truly interested in art, I highly recommend getting a class on both how to look at but also understand and even critique what you see, as it can really change your worldview for the better.
progmetaldev 3y ago
I'm curious if you think that AI art is only attractive to people generating the content? Surely there is an audience, since it continues to grow in popularity.
- 23B1 3y ago
  Popularity isn't highly correlated with artistic value. AI art is attractive to people who a) want to experiment/discover (novelty) b) have mediocre/no taste (commodification) Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of the amazing stuff that's coming out – but art is an inherently human-to-human transaction, and taste is one of those things that is both hard to describe but easy to detect.
lmm 3y ago
> You can gin up all the picassos you want on your LLM, but it'll never achieve the impact or emotion of Guernica. Bet. Of course if what you care about is something that has nothing to do with the actual content of the painting, then you'll need to generate that part too to make a comparison.
- 23B1 3y ago
  Please describe to me what you think "the actual content of the painting" is.
  - lmm 3y ago
    The actual content of the painting is the arrangement of pigments on the canvas. Anything above that is interpretation. (E.g. I'd argue that discussion of the hare in "Rain, Steam and Speed" is often not really about the content of the painting)
    - 23B1 3y ago
      "Anything above that is interpretation." bzzzzzt wrong! ;) History. Context. Culture. Aesthetics. All of these things can be associated with objective facts, not just relative interpretation. As a for-instance, Guernica is a depiction of an important event in history, by an important Spanish painter, who was exploring new ways to visualize and record the world through his own lens. Conversely, using generative AI, I can synthesize any history, context, culture, or aesthetic input. Very cool and novel I'm sure, but completely disconnected from, say, the screaming women, dead babies, and dismembered soldiers of the Spanish Civil War that Guernica depicts.
      - lmm 3y ago
        > All of these things can be associated with objective facts, not just relative interpretation. As a for-instance, Guernica is a depiction of an important event in history, by an important Spanish painter, who was exploring new ways to visualize and record the world through his own lens. Those may be objective facts (I'd argue some of them are subjective judgements, but let's put that aside), but they are not the content of the painting. As Magritte would remind us, Guernica (the painting, rather than the town) does not contain any "screaming women, dead babies, and dismembered soldiers"; rather it contains arrangements of pigments that we interpret as representing those things.

by 23B1 3y ago

A useful reminder to the AI crowd: it is an inherently human experience. You can gin up all the picassos you want on your LLM, but it'll never achieve the impact or emotion of Guernica.

pwython 3y ago

Your example of Guernica: If someone with no knowledge of the meaning behind it, and saw it for the first time... would they really be emotionally blown away? Should a painting have to be explained? I dunno, I prefer art that is breathtaking at first sight and self explanatory (eg. Starry Night), versus a piece that requires an explanation, like Andy Warhol's soup cans or some abstract modern art that consists of random splashes of paint that somehow makes sense of it all.

everybodyknows 3y ago
To anyone familiar with the history of the Spanish Civil War, Guernica requires no explanation.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
eszed 3y ago
My taste is in agreement with yours, but I'm not sure Guernica fits the other examples you gave. In person it's overwhelming, because it's huge - much too big to hold in your head at once - and every corner of it has something happening in it. Something horrible, or a horrified / horrorific reaction to something horrible. The abstractions and symbolism also create this kind of dreamlike, inarticulable sense of "we'll never get to the bottom of this" - with this being the painting itself, and by extension the experience it depicts. My guess is that an inhabitant of a future utopian civilization, which had eliminated violence for generations, would have no frame of reference, and no (or an inadequate) emotional response. I don't, however, think it would take any specific knowledge ("in 1937 the Germans..." blah blah blah) to recognize and respond to the painting as depicting experiences and responses common to violence and destruction and war anywhere and any time those happen.
23B1 3y ago
Why would a painting need to be self-explanatory? Your own personal tastes don't apply universally to anything, especially art... so I guess don't understand the point you're trying to make here.
- pwython 3y ago
  It's just my opinion, but I like visual art that you'd say "wow!" or "beautiful!" when you first look at it. Not "Hmm... now what's this all about? A soup can?" And then someone has to explain "Oh, this is Andy's fascination with consumer culture and processes of mass production." Same goes for photography. For instance, that famous National Geographic cover photo of the Afgan girl. I was a kid when I first saw it in the '80s. I didn't learn the history behind it until many years later, but I didn't need that extra layer of description for it to be forever etched in my mind.
  - 23B1 3y ago
    > It's just my opinion Sure, and I'd love to change it! If your opinion is "art must wow me immediately" you're missing out on a huge chunk of the human experience! Not saying you have to go become an art historian, but an art history class can really open your eyes as to why our world is the way it is today.
    - pwython 3y ago
      I'm a bit of an art history nerd myself :) https://i.imgur.com/dLhaRcM.png https://i.imgur.com/dLhaRcM.png
      - 23B1 3y ago
        I took an art history class at my local community college just on a whim. I ended up traveling with the professor and a few students to Europe on an 'art history tour' and it was absolutely mind-blowing. If you are truly interested in art, I highly recommend getting a class on both how to look at but also understand and even critique what you see, as it can really change your worldview for the better.

progmetaldev 3y ago

I'm curious if you think that AI art is only attractive to people generating the content? Surely there is an audience, since it continues to grow in popularity.

23B1 3y ago
Popularity isn't highly correlated with artistic value. AI art is attractive to people who a) want to experiment/discover (novelty) b) have mediocre/no taste (commodification) Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of the amazing stuff that's coming out – but art is an inherently human-to-human transaction, and taste is one of those things that is both hard to describe but easy to detect.

lmm 3y ago

> You can gin up all the picassos you want on your LLM, but it'll never achieve the impact or emotion of Guernica. Bet. Of course if what you care about is something that has nothing to do with the actual content of the painting, then you'll need to generate that part too to make a comparison.

23B1 3y ago
Please describe to me what you think "the actual content of the painting" is.
- lmm 3y ago
  The actual content of the painting is the arrangement of pigments on the canvas. Anything above that is interpretation. (E.g. I'd argue that discussion of the hare in "Rain, Steam and Speed" is often not really about the content of the painting)
  - 23B1 3y ago
    "Anything above that is interpretation." bzzzzzt wrong! ;) History. Context. Culture. Aesthetics. All of these things can be associated with objective facts, not just relative interpretation. As a for-instance, Guernica is a depiction of an important event in history, by an important Spanish painter, who was exploring new ways to visualize and record the world through his own lens. Conversely, using generative AI, I can synthesize any history, context, culture, or aesthetic input. Very cool and novel I'm sure, but completely disconnected from, say, the screaming women, dead babies, and dismembered soldiers of the Spanish Civil War that Guernica depicts.
    - lmm 3y ago
      > All of these things can be associated with objective facts, not just relative interpretation. As a for-instance, Guernica is a depiction of an important event in history, by an important Spanish painter, who was exploring new ways to visualize and record the world through his own lens. Those may be objective facts (I'd argue some of them are subjective judgements, but let's put that aside), but they are not the content of the painting. As Magritte would remind us, Guernica (the painting, rather than the town) does not contain any "screaming women, dead babies, and dismembered soldiers"; rather it contains arrangements of pigments that we interpret as representing those things.