General AI Discussion

General Forums Off-topic Chat
42

There is a saying that the eyes through which you are experiencing the universe and the eyes through which the universe experience you are the same.

Art made by humans holds much more value than forms generated by an automat just because the creative process was part of someone else’ experience, and you have an opportunity to share it.

Value of an artwork is something that is degrading for well over a century now. You can blame mostly post-modern, materialistic philosophy for it. Canon deconstruction is a major problem with human collective unconsciousness where shared symbols reside. One example of said symbol could be skeleton as a symbol of death, or egg as a symbol of new life, etc. Over century ago we had more strict canon about various symbols. This allowed us (artists) to create pieces that were much easily understood by general audience. Because everybody instinctively knew the canon.

Too loose canon and too much freedom of interpretation leads to lack of common symbols upon which audience can agree or debate. This leads to lack of understanding what author had in mind and in the end - erosion of value of art.
Same when you listen a song in different language. The difference is that you usually learn new language, not try to forget it.
But collective unconsciousness depends on, well, the collective. So we need to decide together if we want to change it.

On the other hand when the canon is too strict the forms ossify, and start to repeat which negatively impacts creativity - ancient egyptian statues sometimes had unchanged form for hundreds of years. But everybody knew what they were about.

Modern art theory is a well crafted dumpster fire. The really important question is this: Should artists ditch post-modern philosophy about the purpose of art in human life? Maybe art should add value to your life, and if yes, in what form? Maybe art should teach you, and if yes, what exactly? Maybe art should express something relatable, and if yes, what should it be?

Because now art is a formless chaos from which you extract temporary sensual pleasure without meaning, just to be bored with it after 5 seconds.

43

The reason why I don’t care about those philosophical views is that I don’t see how it helps me to understand why certain individuals think that art can only be created by humans.
It might be a rich description regarding art. As I am not trying to build a theoretical framework, but I am merely trying to get a better understanding of the views of others, those philosophical descriptions have very little to no value to me (in this context).

1 Like
44

And you won’t be able to understand it without philosophy. You are artificially limiting yourself and your potential understanding.

It’s like someone would wanted to write 3d mesh editor, but decided that will never use math in it. IMO It’s stupid.
Philosophy for art is what math is for programming.

But, you know, its a free world, so good luck I guess.

1 Like
45

Philosophie and philosophical views about art can be very interesting. As I wrote, I try to understand why individuals believe that art can only created by humans. If there are philosophical texts which answer this question, I would be very interested in them.
If I have to read a ton of literature to get a better understanding of what philosophers think about art without getting an answer to my question, I will pass.

From my point of view, a better analogy would be that I am trying to create an experimental 3d mesh editor. For this, I need to understand the mathematics behind it. However, I am not trying to build a production ready application like Blender where a lot of different aspects are important.

For programming, pretty much everyone is required to have a basic understanding of math. On the other hand, art can be created without the need to have a solid philosophical understanding.

46

Your own word - ‘believe’. So if I can help you with anything, good starting point would be the basics of belief systems. “Hero with a thousand faces” by Joseph Campbell might be a good starting point. There is also “The Golden Bough” by James Frazer but it’s too dictionary-like, and too outdated for my taste. Nevertheless still very good lecture on the subject. Side by side I’d also study the differences between Freudian and Jungian model of human psyche, and how they impacted modern culture - and in the effect why people believe in certain things.

For art pretty much every one is required to know what message one want to convey and in what form. On the other hand, ‘hello world’ can be created without the need to have a solid mathematical understanding.

1 Like
47

I think we are done here.

1 Like
48

@silex

Thanks for sharing your interesting point of view.

I will add that the art crisis at its core is a crisis of language. Art itself forecast this conundrum with the genius work of Duchamp, and then Dada, Pop-art, and so on.
Furthermore, language is strictly related to the humanistic crisis, as our cultures shifted towards technic.

Nowadays, the lack of knowledge of the history of art by who is supposed to create it is affecting its very creation in a detrimental way. No field is safe. Take photography, for instance. Many believe that a photographer is like a painter, that manipulating a photograph in post is no different from creating a painting, obliges to the same rules, and that it’s always been like this after all. The irony lies in the ignorance these people exhibit as, by praising their modern, free artistic spirit that reflects in their post-process endeavors, they’re tied to an old, romantic idea of art, as if the only paradigm was painting, completely ignoring what happened after the 19th century.

Our language suffered great loss. I say cow, one thinks milk, I say tree, one thinks wood, and so on. So, when someone starts using the word art to designate something that has little or nothing to do with art, and this happens in the context of a culture that constantly redefines the meaning of words, you can see where the problem lies.

When I moved to the US, I was surprised to hear producers referring to myself, and my colleagues, as “artist”: 3d artist, AE artist, and so on. Things kept moving in that direction and what once was a 3d render, is now a piece of art, what was an illustration, art.

The excuse that most rely on when they talk about art is “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, while creating such a turmoil all at once about two broad concepts, art and beauty, two concepts that deserve a deep analysis.

So, when I see NFT art, or AI art, I can only smile, though to be honest I just feel depressed as I can’t help but think where our culture is headed.

About the philosophical issue you raised, for whoever who might be interested, I think it would suffice to read a couple of books by J. Baudrillard, and Marshall McLuhan: those readings alone can shed so much light on what’s going on, and the task should be less demanding than reading philosophy.

2 Likes
49

If, as you seem to be suggesting, the activity engaged in by content creators in the Entertainment Industry is not art, then the proposition that such content creators can’t be replaced by AI as only humans can create art is in fact not relevant. Of course that’s not the same thing as saying they can be replaced by AI, but it seems a plausible consequence.

50

What do you consider as art? I am also fine with just a few examples and why you consider them to be art.

51

Art debates can easily become tedious, as seen above.

A missing piece of this conversation is where ‘craft’ falls in to the discussion.

I have seen nodegroups that are so carefully constructed and laid out that they seem artful in their design. Beautiful topology with even spacing and smooth edge flows is an art. hand painted textures on low-poly game models are beautiful and well crafted art as well. But none of those fit a more formalized definition of art. They are however, fantastic examples of crafts people practicing their craft.

Are comic books art?
Is the writer an artist?
Is the person doing the pencil work an artist?
Is the person inking the lines an artist?
Is the person coloring the images an artist?
Is the person prepping the digital files for print an artist?

Are movies art?
Is the writer an artist?
Is the director an artist?
Is the cinematographer an artist?
Is the focus puller an artist?
Is the boom mic operator an artist?

Is CG art?
Is modeling art?
Is digital sculpting art?
Is UV mapping art?
Is shader development art?

Where do you draw the line, and who do you exclude from the definition of art?

5 Likes
52

No, I’m not suggesting that there can’t be art in the entertainment industry.
I only mentioned one fundamental issue very common nowadays about art, as I believe it’s an issue particularly relevant to the topic.

That said, I haven’t read all the posts in this thread, but I was under the impression that the point isn’t about AI in general, but whether if AI can create art or not. If that’s the case, the proposition is still relevant.

2 Likes
53

That’s the kind of questions I would have loved to asked as follow ups for clarification.

54

Sorry for the long post, those aren’t simple questions to answer.

What I consider Art?

Examples

Art can be a denunciation, I think for instance to the emotional work of Gina Pane, and to what it represented for the women.
Or art as condemnation. I mentioned Duchamp, Dada, though other Avant-Garde movements fall in the same bucket.

Why

If we take Duchamp, for instance, and we think to the famous urinal, or the bicycle wheel, we can see how in his work there isn’t anything of the canonical idea of beauty — though one may argue that’s not the case for “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even”.

The urinal (titled Fountain) is just a ready-made object, elevated to the realm of art. What are the implications? Several.
One take away is that the title can give an ordinary object a new meaning.
Or that for the artists it is not necessary anymore to create the object with their hands, a found object can fit the purpose just fine.
Or even that if we bring something ordinary to a gallery, all of a sudden this object receives new light. Lastly, all of this can be just a farce, a means for Duchamp to mock the art world — to some extent though, as there’s still a fundamental concept in all this, just think to what a photograph is, and then you realize how the objet trouvé acquires new meaning altogether.

Now, that to me, is the power of art. It doesn’t stop at the surface of the artwork, it goes beyond. It triggers discussions, debates, a rethinking of what we know, and what we take for a fact. It’s so powerful that it can shatter our beliefs.

Of course, there’s also the emotional work, though, personally, I’m not interested in that for the simple reason that something I find suggestive to my senses, remains a personal feeling, and in a sense more superficial (but this hard to explain). Mind you, not that I deem those types of works less important. I simply find a provocative artwork, a piece that can engender discussions within a society more interesting in terms of cultural experience.

Ultimately, that’s what art should do: foster cultural progress.

1 Like
55

That is basically

That is basically what destroyed Art. It turned all art that was not political or not “progressive” being despised as “celebratory” so inferior or not even art. That pollicization basically cornered Art itself out of society.

Instead for me Art is to touch the Divine. It is the quest for sublime, either be in sound, an image, a sculpture etc.

1 Like
56

Can you do some examples?

57

I would argue that ‘being cultured’ or being a man of culture these days is actually a bad thing.

Look around you and watch as one societal ill after another gets birthed and how even basic things like math are being questioned. In today’s society, few would even attempt to answer Sterling Roth’s questions because we know the answer to everything now is ‘whatever you want it to be’.

58

Well you have Banksy. For me what he does is not that much different than a newspaper article.
Instead 5th Symphony advanced progress how?

While this sample is not very large, since it is in context of a population that goes listen to classical/barroque music in Youtube, many youtubers that post Vivaldi pieces put in background a painting. I was quite surprised by how many people asked what are the paintings.
An example:

59

There is the joke that companies should hire teenagers with utmost urgency when they still know everything…

60

Funny, I don’t think artists were birthed these societal ills:

image
image800×533 192 KB

image
image2303×3072 1.66 MB

image
image2560×1669 817 KB

1 Like
61

I do not think resource gathering (if done with modern standards) is considered a societal ill (as otherwise it would not be possible for us to even have this conversation). The third image though does show a problem not caused by artists, so I can give you that.

For a counterpoint, I could begin by pointing out what Hollywood has been pumping out lately, but that is a can of worms unto itself.