I have been thinking about this painting a lot more in recent years because it always comes to mind when someone mentions AI art. It's arguably the most important piece by arguably the most important artist of the 20th Century (the "arguablies" are intentional, I'm not going to have that argument because that isn't the point of my comment, but including "arguably" makes them both statements of fact) and it's bleak, upsetting, and just flat out ugly, but that is all intentional and what makes it fascinating to look at. The goal of art isn't merely beauty. It's primarily communication. And this piece very clearly communicates the horrors of war. Sure, AI can make pretty pictures, but it can't make art because it has nothing to communicate.

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martinpw 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> The goal of art isn't merely beauty. It's primarily communication.

"Painting isn't an aesthetic operation; it's a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange, hostile world and us" - Picasso

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joatmon-snoo 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Well, is Pixar’s Toy Story a work of art? Or what about Julia set renderings, where people make choices about the colors? ;)

Tongue-in-cheek aside, I do think I agree with you in that (1) art, as perceived by us human meatbags, is art because of the human element of it (if not in creation, then in perception), and that (2) AI absent explicit steering trends towards a rather bland medium.

But there’s art in everything from the blurry, out of focus, disposable film cameras, to a 5-year-old’s crayon scribble scrabbles, to the neon glitter themes we used to copy-paste over our geocities and xanga pages, and as frustrating as it is to our own sensibilities, an AI prompt “draw a pink elephant” isn’t all that different.

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slg 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The element of creation is central to art. A painting or a photo of a sunset can be art, but the sunset itself is not art.

In addition, the communication doesn't need to be explicit or intentional. It can be communicating something antithetical to the artist's original intent like a blurry and out of focus photo. Or it can even be antithetical to the piece itself like a lot of modern art (Fountain[1] comes to mind). I'm also sure that the 5-year-old will happily tell you a story about why they scribbled what they did. I'm not diminishing any of those. But if all the person contributes is a prompt, the text of that prompt is the extent of their art.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)

	▲	Jare 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> a photo of a sunset can be art ... > But if all the person contributes is a prompt, the text of that prompt is the extent of their art. The natural question to pose is, does that mean that when the person who pressed the shutter button in that camera, that button press was the extent of their art? Of course not; intent, sensibility, timing, understanding there's something special about what's in front of you, preparing a composition, orchestrating poses, framing to create a special composition, manipulating the medium via speed or exposure or etc to create an appropriate texture... all those and more can play a part, and the button press is just the delivery method. Millions of photos per day are not art even if they show a pretty thing, and nobody has a problem with that. Even when we actively try to capture something special, most people will later look at their photo and say "it shows the place, but it doesn't communicate anything like what being there made me feel". So in the same way, I think the interesting discussion will be not that AI images are not art. Millions of prompts per day will not be art, and nobody (except grifters) has a problem with that. But how can AI become another vehicle for people to produce interesting art? Perhaps there's nothing special there. But I hope people with the drive to explore and the need to communicate continue giving it a shot and prove or disprove the notion that "it's just a prompt".
	▲	balamatom 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Is building a technofeudal entity and bootstrapping pseudo-AGI art?

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cal_dent 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

But it completely is different. To you point its why a 5 year old's crayon scribble is more powerful to certain people than Guernica for instance. History is littered with gazillions of scribbles, stray notes, meaningless stuff that just goes straight in the bin. AI will do that. But for something communicates the feeeell of something you need warmth and emotional relatability.

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robot-wrangler 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm not a fan of AI "art" at all, but this particular attack does leave something to be desired.

Beyond aesthetic judgements of good/bad or intentional stance re: communication with others, there is such a thing as "process art" which could also be described as communication with oneself, or as kind of being locked into conversation with the medium, or with the universe. People will get distracted here and want to fight about whether Pollack is good, but I think that's missing the point. It just happens to be a very direct way of engaging with the dialectic tension of order / chaos that's incompressible, irreducible, and completely without substitute.. and that's just one of many dialectics you could explore.

Another self-communicative aspect of art is about exploring the limits and mastery of technique, where the details and result per se don't matter much. You can see this with a bunch of dorks building useless programming languages and doing amazing stuff with them, or see it with a smith at a forge. Someone will say this is about being a technician or a craftsman, but I'd say no, those activities typically have a practical purpose. Especially if you're doing this for the joy of it without even caring whether you're actively learning something you can apply elsewhere, then it's probably art.

	▲	slg 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I’m not sure what specifically you think you’re disagreeing with me about because I don’t see what you’re saying as incompatible with what I said. Communication with oneself or the rest of the art world is still communication. What makes Pollock’s art “art” is the context in which it was created. It’s not like One: Number 31, 1950 would have the same reputation today if you sent it back a couple centuries in a time machine. It’s appreciated because it’s part of an ongoing conversation.

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chairmansteve 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As a tool in the hands of a great artist, AI will make great art.

	▲	dudefeliciano 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Not sure why you are getting downvoted. I don't think an artist would "one-shot" an art piece, let's say an image. At what point of the iterative process does the output become "Art"? What if the artist makes it a point to one-shot images and the ugliness of the output becomes their commentary of the current aesthetics... I'd say it's much more about intent than the process, there are plenty of "Artists" on instagram (in quotes because I would not consider them artists), who paint by hand, surely talented people, but their images convey nothing. They are clearly marketing/branding themselves, the instagram post becomes the actual final output...I don't know.

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cal_dent 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Hole. In. One. I have so little fear of AI replacing true art because its fundamental purpose is to transfer emotions (and its the best way humanity's been able to do this) that can be indescribable in any other way than feelings. AI does not have that and so can never be a true substitute for it. it can be a tool to help someone convey that but it needs humans.