Photography AI as art

[faberryman]

it's under "Our Vision"

Not really dispositive. The words "draw" and "sketch" are used frequently, but no media is specified. In fact, there is this:

"5.) We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles."

Somewhere between traditional drawing media and the iPad lies the Etch A Sketch. Hmm...

As noted somewhere above, this is just the same old tired debate about whether digital is photography. Anybody familiar with the concept of semantic change?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Alright, but that's inconsequential, because the inconsistency is still there:





With the latter, you apparently referred to AI as well.

So it's created by a human. And it's created by a computer. At the same time. That makes it rather ambivalent, and difficult to marry with the staunch positivist views that were put forth before (not by you).

Note that I'm nog arguing whether AI is or isn't photography. If you feel it isn't, fine. If you feel it is, fine. Art - the same thing.



That's not the most fortunate comparison, I think. Maybe if you compare it to Illustrator; that would probably be a better match. Even still, there'll be very significant differences that spoil the broth.

I really don't understand your posts

 

[koraks]

OK.

 

[cliveh]

AI has got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Id like to read more about this famous experiment, but I can’t find it on the internet. Do you have a link I can follow?

Two stories are confused here. The one about the synthetic Usenet user Mark V. Shaney and what has become known as the Sokal affair, an intellectual hoax imagined by (real person) Alan Sokal that aimed to criticize the language of, amongst others, Derrida and other deconstructionists.

See here:

Sokal affair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And here:

https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/weinberg.html

*

 

[Alex Benjamin]

De gustibus non est disputandum​

There's no accounting for taste.

Still, read more than one argument a falsis principiis proficisci in this thread. Which only proves, a fortiori, that errare humanum est

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Apparently line must be drawn somewhere between art and not-art.

Why?
For whom?
Until when?

 

[koraks]

Why?
For whom?
Until when?

Good questions.

I don't think it's really necessary to go there, though. To my mind, it would be far more effective and interesting if we tried to come up with a way to use AI to make something meaningful, profound, beautiful, and moving. Of course, this would not really settle the matter of what is or isn't art. But that doesn't really hurt.

 

[faberryman]

Good questions.

I don't think it's really necessary to go there, though. To my mind, it would be far more effective and interesting if we tried to come up with a way to use AI to make something meaningful, profound, beautiful, and moving. Of course, this would not really settle the matter of what is or isn't art. But that doesn't really hurt.

No, it wouldn't really hurt. It would simply change the subject, and move the debate to the definitions of "meaningful", "profound", "beautiful", and "moving". Surely we can find agreement there. I mean, in this context, it's really just a foray into the field of Aesthetics. Nothing controversial there.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

To my mind, it would be far more effective and interesting if we tried to come up with a way to use AI to make something meaningful, profound, beautiful, and moving.

I've read many posts here who have defined art exactly in these, or in similar terms, i.e., a creation that is meaningful, and/or profound, and/or beautiful, and/or moving, and/able to stir the soul, etc.—with some holding one term more important than the other.

And I haven't read a single post that proves in a conclusive, definitive manner that this can't be done, or won't one day be done by AI, no matter the degree in which a human hand is behind it. That, to me, settles the OP's question.

As for the "what is art" question, again, yeah, it may be fun to discuss how many angels dance on the tip on a needle, but are we really still there?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I've read many posts here who have defined art exactly in these, or in similar terms, i.e., a creation that is meaningful, and/or profound, and/or beautiful, and/or moving, and/able to stir the soul, etc.—with some holding one term more important than the other.

And I haven't read a single post that proves in a conclusive, definitive manner that this can't be done, or won't one day be done by AI, no matter the degree in which a human hand is behind it. That, to me, settles the OP's question.

As for the "what is art" question, again, yeah, it may be fun to discuss how many angels dance on the tip on a needle, but are we really still there?

Ther OP's question is not answered because there's a conflict in his question. It assumes AI is photography. It isn't. It's only a tool. If the final image isn't created from an original photograph by AI, the resultant image may be art, but it isn't photography.

For reference here;s the OP's post:
"Digital photography and image manipulation is now a well accepted art form, but should photographic images produced by AI be considered in the same way? I don't think they should."

 

[VinceInMT]

As noted somewhere above, this is just the same old tired debate about whether digital is photography. Anybody familiar with the concept of semantic change?

Yes, and I was acknowledging that and that even in the laid back world of sketching there are still purists.

 

[faberryman]

Yes, and I was acknowledging that and that even in the laid back world of sketching there are still purists.

"Purist" is certainly one moniker for them. But how "pure" are they, really? Traditional sketchers seem more so; film photographers less so.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

It assumes AI is photography.

It doesn't. It talks about photographic images. Images that are made (by AI) to look like photographs. There is a huge difference.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

It doesn't. It talks about photographic images. Images that are made (by AI) to look like photographs. There is a huge difference.

The OP didn't say "looks like a photo" He called them "photographic images". That implies a camera was used originally.

 

[Pieter12]

AI isn’t photography but it uses photographs to create new images that can look like photographs depending on the source material and the input descriptionsz. For the umpteenth time.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

That implies a camera was used originally.

Not if you understand "photographic images" as images that look like photographs.

I can do this all night, Alan, but one of us will have to break the loop. If not, either we get too close to the event horizon and get sucked in, or we create a rift in the space-time continuum and everybody gets sucked in.

 

[TJones]

Two stories are confused here. The one about the synthetic Usenet user Mark V. Shaney and what has become known as the Sokal affair, an intellectual hoax imagined by (real person) Alan Sokal that aimed to criticize the language of, amongst others, Derrida and other deconstructionists.

See here:

Sokal affair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And here:

https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/weinberg.html

*

Thank you. I had found the Sokol hoax, but not Mark V Shaney. Not quite what the earlier poster described.

 

[DREW WILEY]

"Ai isn't photography but uses photographs" - often themselves patently manipulated - "to create new photographs" that also look stupid and fake; but sometimes laughter is what we need.

 

[MattKing]

This thread reminds me of an important piece of Canadian literature - Hugh MacLennan's "Two Solitudes":

Except it would probably need to be re-titled "Multiple Solitudes".
"Through the Looking Glass" comes to mind:

 

[VinceInMT]

Rather that debate whether something is “art” or whether it is a “photograph,” maybe just discuss whether it has “value,” a word defined as:

value: relative worth, utility, importance, desirable, a monetary worth, the regard it is held in

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Not if you understand "photographic images" as images that look like photographs.

I can do this all night, Alan, but one of us will have to break the loop. If not, either we get too close to the event horizon and get sucked in, or we create a rift in the space-time continuum and everybody gets sucked in.

I was once admonished by a US Federal judge in court when he scolded me, "Mr. Klein, you know words have meanings." He didn't say it in a friendly manner at all.

However, I wouldn't want anyone to be sucked into a black hole where we couldn't get a photograph because all the photons would be trapped for ever. So, I'll pass on any further comments about what a photograph exactly is and defer to Humpty Dumpty.

 

[MattKing]

I was once admonished by a US Federal judge in court when he scolded me, "Mr. Klein, you know words have meanings." He didn't say it in a friendly manner at all.

Trust me - judges get very tired of people who try to render words meaningless
So if your suggestion about the meaning of something wasn't liked, grumpiness is not surprising.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Trust me - judges get very tired of people who try to render words meaningless
So if your suggestion about the meaning of something wasn't liked, grumpiness is not surprising.

This is the same judge that responded to me in his chambers on another occasion when I complained when he approved my lawyer's request to drop me as his client, "You know Mr. Klein, the American jurisprudence system isn't always fair. "

I understood all his words clearly and was shocked a federal judge would even say them.

 

[MattKing]

Life is frequently unfair, and jurisprudence mirrors life.
One could say the same thing about photography.