[peepee1982]

Because code is fundamentally not a creative work the way art is. Code "just" has to be correct, even if that correctness has demanded to come up with ideas. And as a software developer you usually get paid a nice salary to write it, no matter if you're typing it yourself or generate it with an AI.

Art can't be generated. We can only generate artefacts mimicking art styles. So far we have no AI generated images that are considered actual Art, because Art's purpose is to express the artist's intent. And when there is no artist, there is no intent.

I have to stop now, but I guess you can see where I'm going with this.

[jeroenhd]

Art can be generated perfectly fine. Only artists and connoisseurs care about details and art style. Most art is purchased by a business, and that business just wants a picture of a woman being happy next to a cake that looks similar enough to the other corporate pictures.

Code can be art the same way writing can be. There's a big difference between artistic code and business code, the same way there's a big difference between poetry and a comment chain on hacker news.

[peepee1982]

I don't mean to be mean, but I don't think you understand what Art is. For example, I don't consider a picture of a woman being happy next to a cake art. That's a decorative artefact. And I don't really consider myself a connoisseurs, nor do I particularly care about details or art style.

I'm not trying to be pretentious or precious about art. But I consider the process of creation to be as much a fundamental part of art as the resulting artefact. If I can't contextualize a work of art to a human's inner life - be it implicitly or through knowing about the artist - it's not really art to me.

Artistic code can be a work of art. But only if created by a human (in a way that humans make art), and I think the same principles should apply to it as any other medium of art. But that kind of code is so rare and insignificant compared to all other code being written and published, that I don't think it's worth watering down the discussion with it.

I would only consider AI generated output art, if the way to get there were a substantial artistic expression.

So I think visual arts and music fall in a different category because it's much more artistic, unconstrained, and personal by nature than code. Even if that difference sits on a spectrum. But on that spectrum they're worlds apart.

I struggle explaining my point of view better and hope I manage to get my point across at least to some extent.

Having said all that, I do consider training LLMs on other people's code without compensation wrong as well. Just not as wrong as I do with other stuff.

[makerofthings]

I don’t think that’s completely true, there is an art to code beyond it just being correct. There are a great many correct implementations of a program, but only some of them are really beautiful as well. Most people don’t see the code or appreciate this, but the difference between correct and art is clear to me when I see it.

[bananaflag]

Code can be beautiful or ugly but that doesn't make it art.

Art is not just about beauty, it is about expressing the mind (feelings, experience etc) of the author. AI will never do that (except if it learns to express its own experiences, which would be art, but not something competing with human art; it would be like if we had contact with alien art).

[peepee1982]

I think that's the main thing many people who've never seriously made art or aren't deeply involved with it on an emotional and psychological level are unable to grasp.

[makerofthings]

Code is my art and is how I express myself. I agree that nothing that AI does is art.

[peepee1982]

I think most of us agree that writing code can be expressive. But I don't think that alone qualifies you code as art.

I have written code myself that I deem beautiful and expressive. But I'm also a musician, and making music (and listening to it deeply) has given me such intense, mystic experiences, that they dwarf anything I've ever experienced writing code. It's also much harder to make good music because it requires a kind of courage and psychological constitution that is simply not required for writing code.

[Kiro]

Code in general is obviously not art, which is all that matters here.

[makerofthings]

I respectfully disagree, I think code has always been more of an art than a science. It's an odd one, I'll grant you, as you need to do a lot of work to really appreciate it.

[peepee1982]

I agree that it's "more art than a science", colloquially speaking. But I would still not call it art. Not by a long stretch.

[bananaflag]

Fair enough.