AI art is the ‘machine made fabric’ of tomorrow.

Submitted by thetwitchy1 t3_zwm1p1 in singularity

We use art to produce beauty and to induce emotion. It makes our environment more livable by making it diverse and unique, and by increasing the emotional sensation to our spaces. Everyone needs something in their space, even if they have to put it there themselves.

Compare this to clothing: everyone needs something to keep them warm, to keep the sun off, etc. if you don’t have something, every person will, almost instinctively, make something to wear. We need clothing to make our spaces more livable, by protecting us from the elements and to give us some social distance.

But like machines making clothes, AI can make art… to a point. However like clothes, when a machine makes it for you, it has a bland ‘sameness’ that makes it obvious that it is not made FOR you but rather for anyone who wants it.

And there’s nothing wrong with buying clothes off the rack, just as there’s nothing wrong with getting art from a machine… as long as you are aware that what you are getting is not the luxury good but instead are getting the “off the rack” material.

Is it worth it to spend the extra for the luxury? It depends, but usually it is, if you can afford it… but it shouldn’t be shamed when you can’t. Vimes boot theory is an important factor.

Artists are a luxury producer. AI is a democratized producer of the same goods, and like all democratization there is good and bad in the process.

39

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

Snipgan t1_j1vkgbb wrote

And like the artists of old, many are going to be out of a job due to automation. With AI art this time.

At this point, we really need to consider or work out how to do Universal Basic Income. Automation has already gotten rid of too many jobs for the average person.

With AI and automation burning through more and more, what can realistically be left that will employee most people? Sure, some can work in more advanced physical labor or work on programming, but that can only employ or last so long.

What happens then? When will it hit this point of no return?

Crazy stuff.

18

Surur t1_j1vlv52 wrote

Dont you think its more similar to a pattern knitting machine which was popular decades ago?

Little skill needed, but you still got decide what you wanted to make, and you could even customise it.

6

Tanglemix t1_j1x6y5e wrote

There will be no qualitative differences.

But are quality and value the same thing?

I saw a post from an author who was worried that he might be sold cover art by someone using an AI art generator posing as a Human artist.

What worried him was not that the quality of the AI image would be worse, but that it would be impossible for him to tell the difference, leading to a scenario in which he was tricked into paying more than he should for the work.

What's noteworthy about this post is the instinctive seperation being made here between the quality of the image and the value of that image.

In his mind the AI generated image had far less value than one made by a human, even though both may be of equal quality- the reason being-I assume- that the AI image required little time and effort to make when compared to a human made image.

So humans seem to allocate value to a thing not only based on it's quality but also on the degree of cost and effort required in it's creation- AI Art is seen- rightly or wrongly- as being a cheap low effort activity , and as a result the products of AI art are likely to be seen as having low value no matter how well executed they may be.

How this perception of AI Art as having low value will impact on it's adoption as a commercial solution is not yet clear. In some contexts it may not matter at all, while in others it may matter a lot.

The potential danger for companies using AI Art is that the message it sends to their consumers may be a negative one- ' In this product we have used the lowest value art available in order to save costs'

So here's the thing; If the main reason you are using Art in your product is to enhance it's perceived value in the eyes of your customers, it makes no sense to use a form of Art that those customers may see as having low value- you end up doing the opposite of what you intended. And in a world where anyone can create AI Art in a few minutes what value will we place on Artworks created using an AI?

One ironic consequence of AI Art may be that some companies not only avoid using it but make a point of the fact that they only use human made art, enhancing the status of human artists as a source of high value as well as high quality artworks.

The very things that make AI Art so attractive from a production point of view- it's fast and it's cheap- may be toxic from a sales perspective if- by using it- you convey the impression that you neither respect or value your own customers.

5

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1x82ay wrote

Luxury is sometimes artificial: diamonds, lobster, fashion… all are luxury because we decided to make them so.

Scarcity drives demand. When something is hard to get, (lobster is a good example, as it is not easy to transport and near impossible to farm away from the ocean) it becomes more desirable by the nature of its’ scarcity.

When a pretty image can be made by anyone at a computer with a few keystrokes, the value of ‘pretty’ goes down, while the value of ‘evocative’ or ‘communicative’ goes up… and these are things that, while a human can create in art almost instinctively, can only be made by AI art when a human spends significant time poring through the results and selecting high value images.

This may be the first example of “post scarcity” that we as humans have to deal with, and figuring out how to do that is going to be a good roadmap for the future… or we can watch just how badly we screw it up.

2

Thundergawker t1_j1zm5jk wrote

This. AI art might well be the best thing to happen for artists.

Also it's really good for reference, I had a commission recently and instead of wasting my energy looking for good reference on Google, I just prompted midjourney, and in seconds I had the data I need to visualize what i wanted to make in my minds eye.

1

Tanglemix t1_j26azd1 wrote

Could you see a scenario in which your clients simply bypassed you and used Midjourney themselves to create the image they wanted?

I ask because this idea seems to be almost an article of faith among many AI Art enthusiasts- they are convinced that AI art in the near future will eliminate the role of the human artist in most commercial contexts.

Personaly I don't find this idea credible for a number of reasons- not the least of which is the fact that very often people who commission art don't really have a clear idea or vision at the start of a project, which is why they hire an artist in the first place.

A commercial artist is not simply a device for rendering images- there is a collaboration involved that current AI image generators lack the ability to provide.

And there is a real problem- at least in my view- with the idea that words and images are fungible- they really are not. Even the most detailed and comprehensive written description of a face is a poor substitute for a simple photograph. No one ever commisioned a portrait by sending the painter a written account of what the subject looked like- because we all understand that the idea of creating art just by talking to your tools is like the idea of playing the piano while wearing mittens- entertaining perhaps, but sadly lacking in the precision required to get the job done.

1

isthiswhereiputmy t1_j1zmlq9 wrote

The value of quality in fine art caps out relatively low. A completely unknown artist would be lucky to sell a painting for more than $10-20K. Above that it's all just name-recognition and hype, more of a social game.

I think we'll be in a strange vein for awhile where artists putting software to work like studio-assistants will gain an advantage over approaches that are more strictly one way or the other.

I agree with your comments about how companies think about this. It's why million dollar sculptures by established artists still appear in spaces around the world.

1

Tanglemix t1_j267zys wrote

I think you are right about fine art- having tried to sell in this market for a long time it's very clear to me that quality, at least in terms of craftsmanship and technique, are completely irrelevant. The perfect proof of this is the trend in some high street galleries to sell the visually illiterate scribblings of celebraties as having some legitimate aesthetic value, when in reality it's simply the 'brand recognition' of the celebrity that is the real and only 'value' being offered for sale. ( The perfect example of this being the famous Cricket player who made his 'Art' by throwing balls covered in paint at a sheet of paper- this is not a made up story. To be fair the balls in question were cricket balls, so there was some kind of obscure link between the marks he made and the skill for which he was actually famous.)

The interesting thing about AI Art is that the opposite situation might occur- you could have images that exhibit a high degree of apparent skill and technique- yet be seen as having almost no value because they were so quickly and easily made.

The analogy here might be the golden leaves of autumn scattered in their millions on the ground- each one is actually unique in it's pattern and even beautiful in it's way, but none are regarded as having an real value.

1

Ijustdowhateva t1_j1w2yma wrote

Is this the newest round of cope?

There is only a noticeable difference between handmade art and AI art right now because the technology has been available to the public for less than one calendar year.

Before you know it there will be no way to discern between the two, especially as AI (soon) progresses into music and video.

There will be no qualitative differences.

4

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1w729y wrote

Is there a difference between a handmade leather jacket and a factory made coat? Or a difference between a bottle of 12 year scotch and a random bottle of Johnny Walker?

If you don’t notice a difference, then to you there IS no difference. And I would honestly say that to that person, they shouldn’t bother getting the ‘premium’ item. (I can’t tell the difference between Johnny Walker and good scotch, for instance…)

But if you DO notice a difference, then it might be worth the extra to you. Because it’s luxury. That’s what luxury is; a bit better, a bit nicer, for a bigger pricetag.

AI art will, for the foreseeable future, be derived from human art and be a synthesis of artwork that is already in existence. That’s not a bad thing! It puts random art in the hands of the people, much like mass production has done for other luxury goods. But it also means that art for arts sake (art that is done by artists to make a statement, to communicate emotion, to FEEL) will become a luxury item even more so than it is now.

4

jeffkeeg t1_j1wr8x2 wrote

>AI art will, for the foreseeable future, be derived from human art and be a synthesis of artwork that is already in existence. But it also means that art for arts sake (art that is done by artists to make a statement, to communicate emotion, to FEEL) will become a luxury item even more so than it is now.

Peak delusion.

2

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1x5mn8 wrote

The biggest issue with Ai art is this attitude that artists have no value other than 'drawing pretty pictures'.

This conceit that programmers/engineers/computer scientists have the ability to bring value to the world while artist/artisans/makers are silly hobbyists that should just stop trying to make money is shortsighted and weak.

1

Ijustdowhateva t1_j1x9khb wrote

You can say it's weak all you want, won't change reality or the way things are going to happen.

0

Poemy_Puzzlehead t1_j1wecwy wrote

Artists are a luxury producer?

All of them?

4

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1wfowh wrote

Do you NEED art to live? No.

Is live better with art in it? Yes.

Ergo, art is a luxury item.

9

greenbeanbbg t1_j1wk6w6 wrote

ngl most artists are not producing luxury 😭

2

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1wlquc wrote

It’s like any other luxury item: some think it is everything you could ever want, while others think it’s fish eggs and fried snails.

Luxury items are valuable because someone wants them. That’s it.

7

natepriv22 t1_j1wmjv5 wrote

That's all goods though...

Marginal utility plays a large role here

−1

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1wwo8j wrote

Bread, rice, houses, shoes… none of these are really “something you can live without”.

Croissants, wild risotto, mansions, air Jordan’s… these are all items you really never NEED.

Imho, that’s the difference.

4

natepriv22 t1_j1yaql8 wrote

And yet the ones you listed below are worth more than the ones you listed above

That's due to marginal utility theory: "People make decisions on the margin. No one chooses between "guns" or "butter", but between a definite amount of guns and a definite amount of butter.

As an actor acquires more and more units of a good, he devotes them to successively less and less urgent ends (i.e. ends that are lower on his scale of values). Therefore the marginal utility of a good declines as its supply increases. This is the law of diminishing marginal utility."

Source: https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Marginal_utility

0

eve_of_distraction t1_j1y8mt2 wrote

According to Collins Dictionary:

"Luxury goods are things which are not necessary, but which give you pleasure or make your life more comfortable."

Let's not overthink it.

2

natepriv22 t1_j1yaecj wrote

That's a linguistic not economic definition.

"In economics, utility is the satisfaction or benefit derived by consuming a product. The marginal utility of a good or service describes how much pleasure or satisfaction is gained by consumers as a result of the increase or decrease in consumption by one unit."

The definition you provided still doesn't give a proper method of classification of what a luxury good is.

Here is what you're probably looking for:

"In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending."

TLDR: in other words, in a desert full of diamonds, water is a luxury good, while in a city full of water, diamonds are a luxury good.

0

eve_of_distraction t1_j1yk50o wrote

>water is a luxury good

Nonsense. Water is one of the basic necessities of survival regardless of the environment. Get out of here with your esoteric relativistic obscurantistism. 🤦

3

guilen t1_j1wq3jp wrote

I need art to live. We’re not strictly biology just because we derive that way.

−2

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1x6xtd wrote

You need art to WANT to live. You can’t survive without water, but you can survive without beauty.

I agree though; art is more valuable than just “pretty pictures”, which is why AI art sometimes just… doesn’t really fit.

9

HeinrichTheWolf_17 t1_j1yg0u2 wrote

The people saying it’ll never be as good as a human are cute. They have no idea what Dalle was making last year, it looked like total garbage. Now it’s rivalling human made art.

They’re right, it won’t be as good as human made art, it’ll be even better. Transhumanism is the way forward to higher states of self awareness, we will become even more human.

4

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1yr904 wrote

It cannot surpass human art until it has the ability to do more than synthesize human art. I’m not saying that an AI doing so is impossible, just that the technique we currently use does nothing more than synthesize human work.

2

HeinrichTheWolf_17 t1_j1yxrjr wrote

The human brain learns and produces original content in the exact same fashion via reference, you do it from the moment you step out of your mother’s womb, this is exactly how infants learn everything, through repetition of reference. Neural Networks just require a lot more examples until they understand the concept of what it is they’re looking at (adult humans have one shot learning when it comes it understanding a concept). But one shot learning will be solved soon enough.

Diffusion models don’t take existing art and put new ones together, it only manages to make an image of a raccoon playing a guitar while on a chair under a window at night in the style of deco until it understands what a raccoon, guitar, a chair, the concept of the raccoon sitting, night time and deco are by looking at all of those things and understanding what they are, and then put those different concepts together in the manner requested via prompt.

This is, note for note, how the Human brain learns and trains. Looking at other references in the world around you to learn what something is isn’t recycling the same content, everything Diffusion Models produce is original content.

Everything humanity has produced is plagiarism though, that’s true.

3

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1z1psx wrote

2 things:

  1. Most artists do what you are saying. 99% of human art is a recycling of other human art. But without that 1% that is new and creative, there would be nothing for the others to copy, and we would still be looking at stick drawings on cave walls.

  2. Human art, even when purely derived from other works, is put together in a particular way to communicate a message. Sometimes that message is “This looks nice”, but there’s always a message. AI art is not CREATED with a message. It is chosen with a message, usually through iterations of prompts and repeated requests, but the act of creation is separated from the message. Which is not necessarily a bad thing; this allows people who can’t create the ability to communicate in this media. It is, however, a noticeable difference between unassisted art and AI art.

2

HeinrichTheWolf_17 t1_j1z4usx wrote

Right, which is also a great reason to combine the Human with the Tech, this will be more profound when content generation is out of it’s infancy of relying on prompts. I’m a massive proponent of Brain Computer Interfaces to conjoin man and machine, this way you’ll be able to create what you want just by thinking about it, this kind of thing has already been demonstrated in a lab with crude BCIs, so proof of principle is there, Transhumanism+Posthumanism is the meta move. No need to remove the Human, have the best of both.

As for your second point, see above. Our tools are extensions of ourselves. Human beings evolved for tool manipulation, it is in every single way apart of us.

1

NarrowTea t1_j1x2rsa wrote

AI, Cloud Computing, and Internet is the fourth industrial revolution equivalent of textile mills instead of cottage industry.

2

Panopticocon t1_j1yg7mb wrote

A more adequate thesis could be that art itself will be the like typewriter in the digital age. Will we still need this primitive language of human emotion and subconciousness? Or will this means of expression become obsolete in a transhuman world where the human condition will change fundamentally in the sense that there will be no more suffering or misunderstandings about our the nature and the universe.

2

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1yrexw wrote

AI art as it currently exists is not what you are describing.

Will AI be able to create art on a level of communication? Eventually, yes. But that’s not what we have now: that is a post AGI goal.

1

Independent_Canary89 t1_j1wpmtu wrote

Nah, it's far cheaper for both personal, and business use that wants art. Major business can save dramatic costs on design, and people wanting commissions can save money on their end.

Art as an industry is a walking corpse, and art as a hobby is honestly isn't going to adapt well to the world we're going towards. People are going to be working long, manual labor jobs for the foreseeable future. And I don't think that gap of knowledge will be bridged after who knows how many years of scarce, human-made art when it can be processed in a prompt. No one will have time to develop art skills, and it is a legit grind in order to learn the fundamentals and the process in order to be half-decent. Just the ways of things I suppose.

1

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1wye8v wrote

Also, Art, when done by people, is usually done to express an emotional message. It is done because NOT doing it feels wrong.

I have written many stories, some even to the size of novels, not for the recognition, and certainly not for the money… but because NOT writing the story felt wrong. I had something to say, and the best way to do it was through writing.

Good art, REAL art, is communication: you feel something that the artist is drawing out of you. It’s one of the reasons AI art falls flat a lot of the time: the feeling is there, but it’s drawn from so many sources and synthesized from so many things that it is random. Like pulling words from the dictionary because they sound good together and putting them in a song, it’s nice and pretty and meaningless.

That doesn’t mean that AI art doesn’t have a place in our world. AI art is great for making things pretty, for adding illustrations to the words you can write, for creating images to match descriptions… But there will always be a need for art that communicates emotion, and that is a need that AI art cannot fulfil on its own.

3

Panopticocon t1_j1yel58 wrote

AI art makers also try to communicate emotions. Only the process to do so (prompt iterating) is different from 100% self made art. Artists where traditionally seen as some sort of ultra profound individuals because they had the skills to express their thoughts into the physical realm. While others could not. Now everyone can do it. There will probably still be some respect for the dedication of the artist, but they wont be on the same piedestal for it anymore.

1

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1wy60p wrote

Have you ever experienced the maker culture? People learning to forge steel in their backyards, making tools and trinkets and toys, by hand and with techniques requiring years of practice, for no reason other than to say they can. Because sometimes the act of making a thing is what is worth doing, no matter the value of the thing you make.

2

cuposun t1_j1y8qbg wrote

I will still write songs even when there is an AI band next year that’s better than Radiohead or whatever. Radiohead was already way better than my music. I write songs because they are inside of me. AI can’t take that away.

2

lacergunn t1_j1wuszb wrote

The fact that we're approaching art as a product instead of a foundational form of human expression and psychology proves that we'll live in an artificial scarcity dystopia when agi comes around.

1

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1x63o0 wrote

The one thing I _like_ about AI art is that it separates the "product" art from the "expression" art. Art should be communication, but sometimes we just want/need art to look pretty... and that's where AI art can fit.

2

Ahaigh9877 t1_j1yn6vm wrote

Can't it be both of those things, seen from different perspectives?

2

Cr4zko t1_j1x3jxt wrote

The craftsmanship of clothing today just sucks. From circa 1910 to roughly the 70s clothing was mass-produced by factories and the quality was far superior, and that could be said for almost anything produced in factories in that period. Standards just fell through since everything was sent to China to be made by the lowest bidder.

1

Lartnestpasdemain t1_j1xjt94 wrote

Extremely clever way to simply explain why the anti-AI movement makes no sense and that artists are not dead. They just need to adapt.

1

gavlang t1_j1yiq5b wrote

Why narrow it to AI art?

1

natepriv22 t1_j1ykms9 wrote

Value of a good is subjective and therefore, calling AI art "off the rack" is a subjective personal assessment rather than an objective one.

1

Ahaigh9877 t1_j1ynra4 wrote

Won't AI art become (as it already is to quite a degree) the opposite of "off the rack". It can become as bespoke as you want, and increasingly so as the technology matures. And it'll surely be far more versatile (not to mention fast and cheap) as any individual artist could be.

But traditional, hand-produced art will presumably continue to hold its value, and there might remain a collector's market for new pieces.

And, something that's often overlooked for some reason, hand-made pieces from non-famous, local type artists will surely continue to sell for quite some time, because they're hand-made.

1

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1z23wo wrote

There is something about an item that is made by someone who cares about the process of making it, who loves to create purely for the sake of creation, that is special.

1

isthiswhereiputmy t1_j1zlopa wrote

It's a little different in that 'Art' often involves a social dynamic. Patrons like to meet and know an artist. It's more like someone commissioning a custom dress from a fashion designer.

In the realm of high-end fine art there's been a luddite movement the past decade of many collectors preferring traditional materials and modes of production. It's nostalgic in ways, but art always has been about conserving the past or at most the present moment.

1

Tip_Odde t1_j1wmhar wrote

Well, technically there is something wrong with buying off the rack. Especially if its fast fashion, but that only applies to you if you can afford more environmentally sustainable clothes.

0

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1wwbnh wrote

The same really applies to AI art, but you don’t say that too loudly in this sub.

2

Tip_Odde t1_j1wxxma wrote

So you dont know how destructive fast fashion is huh

1

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1x4suw wrote

Training a single AI for a particular process (which is required before you can even start producing images) releases 250,000 pounds of CO2. Then producing each image requires a significant amount of data processing. AI art has a similar carbon footprint to crypto, but it is more front-loaded (the costs are earlier in the process, rather than later like crypto).

I'm not saying fast fashion is fine. I'm saying there's a lot of environmental costs to AI art that are not even acknowledged by proponents of it.

2

Tip_Odde t1_j1xejub wrote

Yes, technological advancement requires energy. Its not anywhere near the same as the objectively short term goals of fast fashion and the ecological disaster it is.

2

PhysicalChange100 t1_j1ys900 wrote

Luxury items are simply for pretentious people who created their identity as being above others... In other words, Narcissism and superiority complex. A post scarcity society will be the death of their identity and therefore they will be the ones who will lash out the most.

This is comparable to artists who lashed out because art is now democratized by AI... The social prestige of being an artist is now slowly slipping away.

0

thetwitchy1 OP t1_j1yzych wrote

Did you enjoy your morning coffee? How about that glass of wine at Christmas dinner? The nice crochet blanket you got from your grandmum? The nice phone you probably used to make this comment?

These are all ‘luxuries’ by the definition of ‘something you don’t need by makes life better anyway’. By any definition , the wine and the nice coffee would be luxury items.

Thinking that luxuries are only for the “narcissists with superiority complexes’ is some seriously weird classist bullshit. Nobody needs luxuries to survive, but everyone deserves some luxuries in their lives, and honestly? Luxury is what makes life better. Not ‘worth it’, but better.

1

PhysicalChange100 t1_j20yua9 wrote

Nah, I'm thinking on the lines of yachts, mansions, sports cars, jets, and high end fashion. If everyone can get it then it ceases to be a luxury.

B

0

JenMacAllister t1_j204ci5 wrote

There is no way an AI will tell us what Humans believe is art.

Get an AI artist to post on Twitter and it will find that out REAL QUICK.

0