Can AI be used to produce art?

[Cholentpot]

Yes I was probably very conservative and we are just 1 year away.

I will give you two photos one by AI and one by a famous photographer could you tell the difference?

#2 is a fake. I can list the tells if you'd like,

 

[MattKing]

FWIW, Hollywood was always a content source, but the business was always the distribution.
Hollywood was always there merely to fill the pipeline.
And as the means we use to experience the content has changed, so has the way that the pipeline is filled.
Ironically, all of this might actually be good for the theatre. Unless and until they come up with better robots and/or better holograms, live theatre will still need live actors to create the experience that live theatre offers.
I expect that is one of the reasons that my wife and I enjoy more British and, to a certain extent, European TV drama. So many of the actors - and I assume writers - have busy careers in the theatre as well.

 

[Cholentpot]

FWIW, Hollywood was always a content source, but the business was always the distribution.
Hollywood was always there merely to fill the pipeline.
And as the means we use to experience the content has changed, so has the way that the pipeline is filled.
Ironically, all of this might actually be good for the theatre. Unless and until they come up with better robots and/or better holograms, live theatre will still need live actors to create the experience that live theatre offers.
I expect that is one of the reasons that my wife and I enjoy more British and, to a certain extent, European TV drama. So many of the actors - and I assume writers - have busy careers in the theatre as well.

British tend to cast talent over looks too.

 

[nikos79]

#2 is a fake. I can list the tells if you'd like,

You are correct!
#1 is August Sander and #2 is ChatGPT

Please list the tells. They are not so obvious for me in the sense that it could very well be some editing that caused the different result, not necessarily generative AI

 

[nikos79]

FWIW, Hollywood was always a content source, but the business was always the distribution.
Hollywood was always there merely to fill the pipeline.
And as the means we use to experience the content has changed, so has the way that the pipeline is filled.
Ironically, all of this might actually be good for the theatre. Unless and until they come up with better robots and/or better holograms, live theatre will still need live actors to create the experience that live theatre offers.
I expect that is one of the reasons that my wife and I enjoy more British and, to a certain extent, European TV drama. So many of the actors - and I assume writers - have busy careers in the theatre as well.

For me the fact that Clint Eastwood couldn’t find a distributor for his film Juror #2, a Hollywood icon for Warner tells a lot…

Hollywood has always been content but in the past there were producers who believed more on cinema and gave directors artistic freedom. John Ford, Frank Capra, Nicholas Ray…

 

[Cholentpot]

You are correct!
#1 is August Sander and #2 is ChatGPT

Please list the tells. They are not so obvious for me in the sense that it could very well be some editing that caused the different result, not necessarily generative AI

Ok, to be honest this was not easypeasy. AI does well with blurry photos and bad footage. If you notice, all the shared slop videos have a security camera look or low resolution cellphone. It hides things better.

First major sign in her right hand. It doing the odd AI thing. The major tell for me was the wall. It's too sharp and too prominent in the photo. It just doesn't make sense in context. The subjects expression and facial features are wrong. Subtly but still wrong. Bottom half of dress isn't period correct and hair isn't either.

Compare to photo #1. Even though it's pretty low res the face is far more expressive and human. The clothes aren't perfect and the subject looks normal. The gloves look odd but on closer inspection it's due to compression. But the resolution is low enough that if someone were to tell me it's AI I'd probably accept it and not look twice.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The looming (depressing) reality is that "Hollywood" and studios worldwide will not factor into any future entertainment content whatsoever. They will likely be an empty husk that licenses ip to ai entertainment creation systems. I doubt that will even do much to protect their ip. At some point soon, these tools will be open source and able to run locally on most desktops. Anyone could spin up a session and say, "Generate a new Star Wars movie in the style of the originals" and a few mins later they're watching a new SW film. It would be all the same characters, lore, environments etc. They wouldn't bother sharing it, so no one would even know it existed. Another level would be VR and you can be in the movie. Everyone will generate content locally and on demand. Maybe Netflix etc will offer generative ai options and ability to watch what others created and what is rating the highest, but I think most will generate their own content and get their ais to learn what they like so it becomes refined. I'm not seeing much future for humans in this industry (or I guess most industry). Not saying I want this at all, just making predictions based on the trajectory I see.

But people will grow bored of Star Wars versions 6.02, 6.03 etc. Innovation and creativity produces new things, and AI seems to be lacking in that ability. It does a lot of mimicking. It could be that AI will push humans to try even harder to be different and create new products that make them stand out from the day-to-day AI stuff. After all, no one is going to get an Oscar for Star Wars 6.04.

 

[koraks]

But people will grow bored of Star Wars versions 6.02, 6.03 etc.

I sometimes can't avoid hearing some pop music, but the rare experience makes me wonder if you're right. It seems that people to a large extent are actually quite satisfied with the predictable, repetitive media. It's apparently soothing. Remember Dallas, or As The World Turns? That sort of thing seems pretty Ai-able to me.

 

[nikos79]

I would even say that Agatha Christie’s novels can be written by AI nowadays

 

[Sean]

But people will grow bored of Star Wars versions 6.02, 6.03 etc. Innovation and creativity produces new things, and AI seems to be lacking in that ability. It does a lot of mimicking. It could be that AI will push humans to try even harder to be different and create new products that make them stand out from the day-to-day AI stuff. After all, no one is going to get an Oscar for Star Wars 6.04.

Anything AI lacks right now is most likely temporary. It's a bit like someone looking at 2 megapixel images back in the day and saying, "well, that settles it, the resolution just isn't there, case closed". The story never ends abruptly with certain tech trajectories like this and we are in very early days with ai capability (still narrow, still LLMs). It's way to early to call it.

I don't think people are getting bored, maybe if anything becoming more conditioned to want more and more of the same. I see people scrolling tiktok for hours. I see ai content now getting 100s of millions of views.

I sort of like the idea of a Stargate SG-1 reboot. I am not sure how I would feel about it. Can it be as real as the originals in every way? Can it fool me 100%? Can it have great new stories and generate true escapism? Will I end up liking it or get bored of it because I know it's ai generated? Will I give in and become another rat tapping a lever for more endless content?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I think that AI getting so good will kill a lot of artistic work that humans like to do, especially for hobbyists. Why compete with AI? Let's face it. There is a certain amount of ego and competitiveness in photography and other hobbies. People want to see themselves improving against themselves and against others. We enjoy atta boys. Well, I do. What's the point of busting your butt on DOF if a ten-year-old can do better than us sitting at a keyboard typing prompts? We might switch our creative and hobby efforts to bowling or furniture making, things that computers can't compete with us. Who wants to be embarrassed by a snotty ten-year-old?

 

[Sean]

I think that AI getting so good will kill a lot of artistic work that humans like to do, especially for hobbyists. Why compete with AI? Let's face it. There is a certain amount of ego and competitiveness in photography and other hobbies. People want to see themselves improving against themselves and against others. We enjoy atta boys. Well, I do. What's the point of busting your butt on DOF if a ten-year-old can do better than us sitting at a keyboard typing prompts? We might switch our creative and hobby efforts to bowling or furniture making, things that computers can't compete with us. Who wants to be embarrassed by a snotty ten-year-old?

I think that might be a strong case for hobbyist communities or even strengthen existing communities. I won't give up doing something I enjoy just because ai can do it, but can agree many might. I'm a bit frustrated that ai is getting injected into the creative arts. Can it not just stick to curing disease, improving energy, environment?

 

[koraks]

Why compete with AI?

The problem in that sentence isn't AI. It's the choice to frame this in terms of competition. The nice thing about a hobby is that we don't have to compete. We can just enjoy doing something. Most things people do for a hobby they don't do particularly well. The fact that it's a hobby means we can set the bar as high or as low as we want. You can still make and enjoy your crummy photo of Half Dome even though Stable Diffusion will give you a technically better image. That's the nice thing about hobbies. We can ignore the competition because there isn't any.

 

[Sean]

The problem in that sentence isn't AI. It's the choice to frame this in terms of competition. The nice thing about a hobby is that we don't have to compete. We can just enjoy doing something. Most things people do for a hobby they don't do particularly well. The fact that it's a hobby means we can set the bar as high or as low as we want. You can still make and enjoy your crummy photo of Half Dome even though Stable Diffusion will give you a technically better image. That's the nice thing about hobbies. We can ignore the competition because there isn't any.

Yes, well said

 

[nikos79]

Yes, well said

Also from me

 

[Cholentpot]

I think that AI getting so good will kill a lot of artistic work that humans like to do, especially for hobbyists. Why compete with AI? Let's face it. There is a certain amount of ego and competitiveness in photography and other hobbies. People want to see themselves improving against themselves and against others. We enjoy atta boys. Well, I do. What's the point of busting your butt on DOF if a ten-year-old can do better than us sitting at a keyboard typing prompts? We might switch our creative and hobby efforts to bowling or furniture making, things that computers can't compete with us. Who wants to be embarrassed by a snotty ten-year-old?

This is a non issue for me. Where we are already I can't compete. I do it for myself. I enjoy the fruits of my own labor. I can't ever see myself being proud of an AI generated image that I prompted. A digital rendering sure, digital photo yes, film of course, even using AI to build a scene sure, I can see that. But to jot down some instructions and have the program crank it out is the same as popping a microwave meal into Chef Mike. I don't need art like I need food. If the art doesn't satisfy me artistically it's useless.

 

[Pieter12]

This is a non issue for me. Where we are already I can't compete. I do it for myself. I enjoy the fruits of my own labor. I can't ever see myself being proud of an AI generated image that I prompted. A digital rendering sure, digital photo yes, film of course, even using AI to build a scene sure, I can see that. But to jot down some instructions and have the program crank it out is the same as popping a microwave meal into Chef Mike. I don't need art like I need food. If the art doesn't satisfy me artistically it's useless.

I need art like I need food. AI will never be able to replace what I do unless I am the one feeding the prompts or possibly someone trying to imitate my work. My photography is based on my vision, my eye, my ideas. AI may be able to make one image like something I may make, but can it consistantly make a body of work that holds together and progresses? Much of what I do is personal, a leap of faith inspired by a subject or a concept. There is no way AI would know where that leads.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The problem in that sentence isn't AI. It's the choice to frame this in terms of competition. The nice thing about a hobby is that we don't have to compete. We can just enjoy doing something. Most things people do for a hobby they don't do particularly well. The fact that it's a hobby means we can set the bar as high or as low as we want. You can still make and enjoy your crummy photo of Half Dome even though Stable Diffusion will give you a technically better image. That's the nice thing about hobbies. We can ignore the competition because there isn't any.

What would you like to hear from others? - "That's a great shot. How did you do it? or, "Did you Photoshop it?"

 

[Pieter12]

What would you like to hear from others? - "That's a great shot. How did you do it? or, "Did you Photoshop it?"

No one would ever think my work was “Photoshop” or AI. It’s kind of like asking if Jeff Koons made that de Kooning.

 

[Cholentpot]

You know, this got me thinking. Back when CGI started in movies it looked pretty bad. Sometimes laughably so. Over time we got pretty good at it to the point it looks really really good. However, no matter how good CGI has gotten, CGI without practical effects backing it up still looks like GCI. It looks awesome and cool but it still looks like CGI. We don't care anymore because of how good it's gotten but that doesn't change that you can spot CGI when its used.

 

[Pieter12]

You know, this got me thinking. Back when CGI started in movies it looked pretty bad. Sometimes laughably so. Over time we got pretty good at it to the point it looks really really good. However, no matter how good CGI has gotten, CGI without practical effects backing it up still looks like GCI. It looks awesome and cool but it still looks like CGI. We don't care anymore because of how good it's gotten but that doesn't change that you can spot CGI when its used.

CGI has pretty much put car photographers out of business. Never mind how much is used in car commercials. No need to detail the car, or transport it to an exotic location, even option it out with items not yet available at the time of producing the ad or commercial. Stunt drivers not needed either.

 

[Cholentpot]

CGI has pretty much put car photographers out of business. Never mind how much is used in car commercials. No need to detail the car, or transport it to an exotic location, even option it out with items not yet available at the time of producing the ad or commercial. Stunt drivers not needed either.

On the other hand when it's over used or not needed and used people shun it. See Disney's recent Snow White remake.

 

[Sean]

CGI and videogames have always suffered from the cartooney look. I think we're starting to see ai changing this as it is not rendering anything, it is displaying what reality should look like. Maybe it is at 90% realistic and now chipping away at the final 10%. If it can portray reality 100% and at resolutions beyond the human eye, I don't see how it could be detected.

Recent example:

 

[koraks]

I think the whole talk about AI not being capable enough is bogus really; I'm with @Sean on this. For the most part, it's already there, and insofar as it isn't, it's a matter of a very short amount of time until it gets there. Seems like presently it's mostly the step that needs to be made from "too perfect" towards "sufficiently wabi-sabi to trick us into believing it's real". That puts us in a position where photo-realistic AI is literally just that, and indistinguishable from the real thing.

Where would that leave us?

Well, let's put aside one important matter - when it comes to art, there's a heck of a lot more than photography. The thread asks about AI being used to produce art in a broad sense, so that inherently includes everything else except photography. This spans forms of art that do not need to mimic anything that already exists. There are entirely new avenues that are open for exploration. What's limiting us mostly at this point is the limits to our own imagination and ingenuity. I follow AI 'art' generation with a slanted eye and for the most part, it really is uncreative slop - renders of barely clothed women in violent "Lethal Weapon, Kill Bill" kind of situations (what the heck is wrong with people). Or when it's a little more 'out there', it remains stuck at rehashes of Star Wars and Dune type of imagery of fantasy landscapes or space stations. Mind you, this is all being done with exceeding technical prowess and the images as such are pretty mindboggling/stunning. Particularly creative or artistically compelling they are not, and that's not due to the use of AI. It's due to the fact that most of this 'successful' imagery is made basically by nerds with an interest in IT, and not by artist. Wait until capable hands (minds) start wielding this technology. We're in for a ride, for sure.

The more important issue I'd like to put to the fore is the in my view kind of hilarious argument about AI being 'not good enough' as a means to disqualify it from the domain of the arts. That's not the point, at all, in my view. That AI can be used to make art is not even up for debate in my opinion. See above; the fact that for now, it's mostly relatively uncreative minds using it and this resulting in fairly unartistic slop (including the 'crazy realism' video above) does not mean the potential isn't there. It's like arguing that cars are useless because once in a while someone drives into a tree with one. It's a logical fallacy to discredit the technology on the basis of a non-exhaustive set of counter-examples. Black swans don't exist until the day you see one, and all that. There's no doubt in my mind we'll be seeing plenty of black swans soon enough.

The real question is whether or not we'll accept that art as actual art. And I think, it depends here on the degree to which we recognize a human hand in it. In the end, I think the question what is or isn't art boils down to what @thinkbrown said very early on in the thread; specifically this bit (I do not necessarily agree with what followed):

art is a way for a person to communicate something about their experience of the world. It's an expression of self.

This limits the scope of what art is to work produced with involvement and arguably control by the human mind. I think in the end, that's really going to be the dividing line. And that automatically means that imagery (or sound, or whatever) that's made essentially by a digital agent with no direct control of a person over the outcome will never be accepted as art by a broader audience - with the 'audience' being defined as people who have an interest in art to begin with. That's an important caveat, because the majority of mankind in my opinion has no real interest in art. People like pretty things, overall, but that's a different matter.

The underlying question is why we would draw a dividing line between 'art' and 'not art' on the basis of human control. In my mind, that's simple - we want to be able to relate to it, that's all. We can't relate to a datacenter any more (and in fact, much less so, on average) than to a pet cat. It's just too different a beast. When it comes to Ai-generated work, one of the key problems is that a datacenter is just too...good. It yields a perfect result, even if we require it to be imperfect - then it'll be perfect in its imperfection. For whatever underlying psychological or evolutionary reason, we can't really cope with that as humans. Probably it's just too threatening in the end and we can't cope with that in the way we usually do.

Think about it - why do people read tabloids? For that matter, why do people read biographies of people like Einstein or Musk? A large part of it is to be able to spot all the imperfections, vices, character faults, misbehaviors and flaws exhibited by the rich and famous. Those people we all somehow measure up against, who are the benchmark of success in one way or another - one of the main ways of dealing with them and the notion that most of us will never really succeed in life the way these happy few have done (that's why they're few, after all), is to focus not just on their success, but also on their failure. Einstein married his niece - LOLWUT! And didn't that video of Musk smoking a joint during a podcast recording go viral? Sex! Drugs! Human weakness!

It's a lame piece of Hollywood trash in many ways, but in some ways, Bicentennial Man is an interesting movie. At what point does Mr Robot get accepted (American-style: in a legal sense) as a human being? That's right - the moment he 'failed' in a human way: by (arguably irrationally) opting for mortality.

It shows in this thread as well. The moment the notion of Ai autonomously creating art arises, the response is essentially "it can't be, it's not supposed to be!" Arguments are all over the place - it's not good enough, it's too good, it can't think, it can't feel etc. In short - it's not human enough. It's insufficiently like me, and if it's not like me, I won't accept it. In the end, that's the criterion, the way I see it. And I think there's nothing wrong with that. If anything, AI is going to help us understand a little better what "being human" involves. Maybe that's the greatest 'innovation' it'll bring.

 

[Sean]

I think the whole talk about AI not being capable enough is bogus really; I'm with @Sean on this. For the most part, it's already there, and insofar as it isn't, it's a matter of a very short amount of time until it gets there. Seems like presently it's mostly the step that needs to be made from "too perfect" towards "sufficiently wabi-sabi to trick us into believing it's real". That puts us in a position where photo-realistic AI is literally just that, and indistinguishable from the real thing.

Where would that leave us?

Well, let's put aside one important matter - when it comes to art, there's a heck of a lot more than photography. The thread asks about AI being used to produce art in a broad sense, so that inherently includes everything else except photography. This spans forms of art that do not need to mimic anything that already exists. There are entirely new avenues that are open for exploration. What's limiting us mostly at this point is the limits to our own imagination and ingenuity. I follow AI 'art' generation with a slanted eye and for the most part, it really is uncreative slop - renders of barely clothed women in violent "Lethal Weapon, Kill Bill" kind of situations (what the heck is wrong with people). Or when it's a little more 'out there', it remains stuck at rehashes of Star Wars and Dune type of imagery of fantasy landscapes or space stations. Mind you, this is all being done with exceeding technical prowess and the images as such are pretty mindboggling/stunning. Particularly creative or artistically compelling they are not, and that's not due to the use of AI. It's due to the fact that most of this 'successful' imagery is made basically by nerds with an interest in IT, and not by artist. Wait until capable hands (minds) start wielding this technology. We're in for a ride, for sure.

The more important issue I'd like to put to the fore is the in my view kind of hilarious argument about AI being 'not good enough' as a means to disqualify it from the domain of the arts. That's not the point, at all, in my view. That AI can be used to make art is not even up for debate in my opinion. See above; the fact that for now, it's mostly relatively uncreative minds using it and this resulting in fairly unartistic slop (including the 'crazy realism' video above) does not mean the potential isn't there. It's like arguing that cars are useless because once in a while someone drives into a tree with one. It's a logical fallacy to discredit the technology on the basis of a non-exhaustive set of counter-examples. Black swans don't exist until the day you see one, and all that. There's no doubt in my mind we'll be seeing plenty of black swans soon enough.

The real question is whether or not we'll accept that art as actual art. And I think, it depends here on the degree to which we recognize a human hand in it. In the end, I think the question what is or isn't art boils down to what @thinkbrown said very early on in the thread; specifically this bit (I do not necessarily agree with what followed):

This limits the scope of what art is to work produced with involvement and arguably control by the human mind. I think in the end, that's really going to be the dividing line. And that automatically means that imagery (or sound, or whatever) that's made essentially by a digital agent with no direct control of a person over the outcome will never be accepted as art by a broader audience - with the 'audience' being defined as people who have an interest in art to begin with. That's an important caveat, because the majority of mankind in my opinion has no real interest in art. People like pretty things, overall, but that's a different matter.

The underlying question is why we would draw a dividing line between 'art' and 'not art' on the basis of human control. In my mind, that's simple - we want to be able to relate to it, that's all. We can't relate to a datacenter any more (and in fact, much less so, on average) than to a pet cat. It's just too different a beast. When it comes to Ai-generated work, one of the key problems is that a datacenter is just too...good. It yields a perfect result, even if we require it to be imperfect - then it'll be perfect in its imperfection. For whatever underlying psychological or evolutionary reason, we can't really cope with that as humans. Probably it's just too threatening in the end and we can't cope with that in the way we usually do.

Think about it - why do people read tabloids? For that matter, why do people read biographies of people like Einstein or Musk? A large part of it is to be able to spot all the imperfections, vices, character faults, misbehaviors and flaws exhibited by the rich and famous. Those people we all somehow measure up against, who are the benchmark of success in one way or another - one of the main ways of dealing with them and the notion that most of us will never really succeed in life the way these happy few have done (that's why they're few, after all), is to focus not just on their success, but also on their failure. Einstein married his niece - LOLWUT! And didn't that video of Musk smoking a joint during a podcast recording go viral? Sex! Drugs! Human weakness!

It's a lame piece of Hollywood trash in many ways, but in some ways, Bicentennial Man is an interesting movie. At what point does Mr Robot get accepted (American-style: in a legal sense) as a human being? That's right - the moment he 'failed' in a human way: by (arguably irrationally) opting for mortality.

It shows in this thread as well. The moment the notion of Ai autonomously creating art arises, the response is essentially "it can't be, it's not supposed to be!" Arguments are all over the place - it's not good enough, it's too good, it can't think, it can't feel etc. In short - it's not human enough. It's insufficiently like me, and if it's not like me, I won't accept it. In the end, that's the criterion, the way I see it. And I think there's nothing wrong with that. If anything, AI is going to help us understand a little better what "being human" involves. Maybe that's the greatest 'innovation' it'll bring.

I can't fault any of that. It is hard to process what is about to happen, as we're only touching on photography. There will be 1,000s of human variables changed forever and within a few years time. How about when job displacement hits hard (some say 80% of cognitive work in 5yrs time will be ai). How will people feel when insurance companies no longer offer insurance for human drivers? I could see ai/robotics getting so beyond human capability in medicine/surgery that it will be deemed immoral or even dangerous for a human to diagnose or operate on another human (robotic surgeons already perform at sub mm precision). Also, where does education go? "Do good in school, go to college, work hard, get a good job, build a life", what happens when that evaporates as well? Ageing is on the chopping block as well, with Senolytic drugs already in trials and full reversal is no longer a fantasy. I suppose we will shift to ultra long term long horizon tasks to keep busy, maybe even long journey's into space (if propulsion issues etc are solved). All I've said is not even a percent of what we'll need to contemplate soon.