On The Disparagement of AI Generated Art

On Disparagement of AI Art

Don’t you just love the negative comments that the new ai image generators are not art? Then proceed to lambast you with some appropriately inane comment about it being uncreative to do such work. Of course, these are usually people that have never had an artistic bone in their body and just love to pull anyone and all down for what is new technologies for artists everywhere. And of course, just like back in the 90’s when artists were developing the elaborate filters and toolsets for Adobe and other vast digital art systems said the same thing and now those types of art are seen just as that – “art”.

This will go the same way. Why? Because this is not automated one click crap, it’s going to take talent and genius to do things others have yet to figure out and produce images more elaborate and empowering that others will wonder “how the hell did they do that”. Most of these uncreative beings assume all of this is easy, so they bash anyone involved in it. So be it. I know that but it isn’t easy, and like anything it takes a certain mastery and then an ability to strike out on one’s own and do what is one’s unique being. All artists are singular and unique. One can always tell the mimic. I’m not a mimic and am doing my style even as I do as others before me an echo the masters I have chosen and who have chosen me. Art is the person not the object. The object is a manifestation of the expression of the artist not the other way around. So even in this unique collaboration with ai it will be seen that some will step out of the crowd and deliver art unlike others.

The guy then complained that I had not put a disclaimer that it was done by ai as if that were some simple feats. Of course, I’ll add one from here on.
It is my take. As I said above back in the 90s the gave the same lame comments on people beginning to create digital art with Adobe and other tools. I had stated my comment on the first post but sorry I did not do it now. I will from now on do that. But as I have stated even in the Renaissance the great masters we call by that name learned to repeat and use the technologies of their day in guilds. We now use computers a new technology that is developing new techniques available for artists. And the true artist will always step out with something new in the use of technologies. Even oils and other tools were once frowned own just like you’re doing now. I’m not pretending to be a master. Hell, at Seventy I’m just having fun and playing with these technologies.

The expression that it is “my take” is just a cliche for my view of her, not some formalized reduction that you seem bent on reducing to some nonsense judgment on me. I’m long winded because who else will defend such creatures in the new media? No one but those in it. And we know of course (I’ve heard others in the forums and on Discord receiving the same comments as you gave.) So what if it’s not art, I never said it was, because for most of my commercial life I was a lead developer in C++ working for a trade. I dabbled as a hobby with oils, sculptor, woodworking, etc. for my pleasure. Again, I’ll make sure to put the disclaimer out so as not to get this type of nonsense thrown down my throat again. But to me such a comment is useless by people… what’s the point to say that the collaboration with ai is not creative? Have you even tried it? If you do you’ll understand that making simple art is simple… one can just copy code from another. But to create something unique take a lot of mental power and time to think through. Sorry for being long winded but yes you got my goat and I had to let you and other know this is not some push button automation as you might thing. No, it takes thought and creativity to collaborate with these tools. They don’t do all the work, it’s a mutual collaboration on both sides between humand and artificial intelligence.

Before these new ai image tools came along I worked with oils and acrylics, then in the 90s I began working with Adobe digital art products and mastered all the techniques and went on into 3Dmodeling and other digital products. So, for 30 years I’ve been working such digital compositions. The learning curve for something like Midjourney ai is not as long and steep as the older tech, but to be creative at it is. Frankly there will be artists who step out from the crowd and do what others will wish they could. Some already take open-source code like on Midjourney ai and try to duplicate the efforts of others and soon find it’s just not that easy as they thought. I’ve been reading and speaking with people on Discord and most say the same thing, that people are giving them negative comments that these new applications are not art but “as if” they were just push-button technologies that anyone could do. Sure they can push buttons all day long and like the proverbial eight monkeys in a room maybe come up with a composition to beat Michaelangelo or Leonardo… but, no, it’s not all pushbutton technology. There is underlying algorithms and various tools to master just like one did with the earlier Adobe products to produce art and expression and do it uniquely and unlike any imitator.

I started doing commercial digital art back in the 90s with the new digital technologies that came out in that era and mastered the various tools and techniques. So I know, as you know that it’s not some push-button snap and bang thing. Even these new technologies have underlying algorithms and tool-sets that one has to master, and even then to produce something unique and different is the challenge since yes most dabblers will never grow or be challenged to try new techniques and produce excellence. Even the old Adobe products were based on digital one’s and zeros like all digital algorithmic tools. Granted in the new form there is something new: a collaboration between human and artificial intelligence in a form that is both challenging and can be rewarding. I agree with you that the legal aspects for capitalist or commercial use is yet to be decided. I doubt you are I will decide that. The technology and the market share for it is still beta and just beginning in the past few years. I’ll probably be dead before that happens, being the age I am the health I am. I can understand and sympathize with you being younger. All that is still up in the air. But I remember when all the digital tools coming out in the 90s faced the same commercial use issues back then. This is just one new hurdle that will be decided not by the artists but as always by the big corporate entities, even as they get input from us. I’m sure such companies as Midjourney ai will be bought out and the apps made as usual exorbitant and bound to a whole regimen of legalizisms. Sadly.