[UtopiaPunk]

I'm not the person who responded, but I believe it came from a place of "what is art" (and you had used the word "artist").

My own position is that "art" can only be created by a human. AI can produce text, images, and sounds, and perhaps someday soon they can even create content that is practically indistinguishable from Picasso or Mozart, but they would still fail to be "art."

So sure, an AI can create assets to pad out commercials for trucks or sugary cereal, and they will more than suffice. Commercials and other similar content can be made more cheaply. Maybe that's good?

But I would never willingly spend my time or money engaging with AI "art." By that, I mean I would never attend a concert, watch a film, visit a museum, read a book, or even scroll through an Instagram profile if what I'm viewing is largely the output of AI. What would the point be?

I'll admit that there is some middle ground, where a large project may have some smaller pieces touched by AI (say, art assets in the background of a movie scene, or certain pieces of code in a video game). I personally err on the side of avoiding that when it is known, but I currently don't have as strong of an opinion on that.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The point would be to have an interesting and novel experience in an experimental medium - which has been a major driver of art since its beginning.

Also, realistically, most people want entertainment, not art (by your definition). They want to consume experiences that are very minor variations of on experiences they've already had, using familiar and unsurprising tropes/characters/imagery/twists/etc.

The idea that only humans can make that kind of work has already been disproven. I know a number of authors who are doing very well mass-producing various kinds of trashy genre fiction. Their readers not only don't care, they love the books.

I suspect future generations of AI will be better at creating compelling original art because the AI will have a more complete model of our emotional triggers - including novelty and surprise triggers - than we do ourselves.

So the work will be experienced as more emotional, soulful, insightful, deep, and so on than even the best human creators.

This may or may not be a good thing, but it seems as inevitable as machine superiority in chess and basic arithmetic.

[UtopiaPunk]

I agree with the sentiment that "most people want entertainment, not art," or at least they do a lot of the time. I have a pretty wide definition of what is art, in that almost anything created by a human could be appreciated as art (whether that's a novel, a building, the swinging of a baseball bat, or even a boring sidewalk). But a lot of people, a lot of the time engage with movies and books and the like as merely "entertainment." There's art there, but art is a two-way interaction between the creator(s) and the audience. Even in the pulpiest, most corporate creations. I'm not engaging with cat food commercials as art, but one genuinely could. I agree that AI can generate stuff that is entertaining.

"The idea that only humans can make that kind of work has already been disproven." That I disagree with, and it ultimately is a matter of "what is art." I won't pretend to offer a full, complete definition of what is art, but at least one aspect of defining what is and is not art is, in my opinion, whether is was created by a human or not. There is at least some legal precedent that in order for a copyright to be granted, the work has to be created by a human being: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

"I suspect future generations of AI will be better at creating compelling original art because the AI will have a more complete model of our emotional triggers - including novelty and surprise triggers - than we do ourselves."

Again, by my definition at least, AI cannot create "original art." But I'll concede that it is conceivable that AI will generate entertainment that is more popular and arousing than the entertainment of today. That is a rather bleak future to imagine, though, isn't it? It seems reminiscent of the "versificator" of 1984.

[vladvasiliu]

> But I would never willingly spend my time or money engaging with AI "art." By that, I mean I would never attend a concert, watch a film, visit a museum, read a book, or even scroll through an Instagram profile if what I'm viewing is largely the output of AI. What would the point be?

Why not? The output of AI is usually produced at the request of a human. So if the human will then alter the request such that the result suits whatever the human's goal is, why would there be no point?

This, to me, sound like the debate of whether just pressing a button on a box to produce a photograph is actually art, compared to a painting. I wonder whether painters felt "threatened" when cameras became commonplace. AI seems just like a new, different way of producing images. Sure, it's based on prior forms of art, just like photography is heavily inspired by painting.

And just because most images are weird or soulless or whatever doesn't disqualify the whole approach. Are most photographs works of art? I don't think so. Ditto for paintings.

To your point about Instagram profiles, I actually do follow some dude who creates "AI art" and I find the images do have "soul" and I very much enjoy looking at them.

[spiderice]

> I mean I would never...if what I'm viewing is largely the output of AI. What would the point be?

I agree with the sentiment, however..

Good luck to all of us at holding to that philosophy as AI & Non-AI become indistinguishable. You can tell now. I don't think you'll be able to tell much longer. If for no other reason than the improvements in the last 3 years alone. You'll literally have to research the production process of a painting before you can decide if you should feel bad for liking it.

[UtopiaPunk]

I don't want to come across as judgey, gate-keeping what is in good taste or what should make you "feel bad." The human element is just a very crucial part, at least for me. Art is a way of humans beings connectig with each other. That can be high-brow stuff, but that can also be, like, pulpy action movies or cheesy romance novels. Someone might be expressing deep beautiful ideas that change my life forever, or they might think that it was totally sick to have a car jump over a chasm and through a big loud explosion. In both cases, I'm engaging with another human being, at least at some level, at that means something.

But if I see something that I think is cool and interesting, and then I discover that it was mostly the result of a few AI prompts, then I just don't care about it anymore. I don't "feel bad" that I thought it interesting, rather, I just completely lose interest.

I do fear that it will be increasingly difficult to tell what is generated by AI and what is created by humans. Just examining myself, I think that would mean I would retreat from mainstream pop-culture stuff, and it would be with sadness. It's a bleak future to imagine. It seems reminiscent of the "versificator" in George Orwell's 1984.