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What is the opposite of AI art?

I began trying to answer this question because I thought it would be an interesting quest to try and create it.

I came up with several potential components of an answer:

It corresponds to reality. On Youtube I began watching some of the oldest videos that had ever been uploaded, from 20 years ago. At the time, these videos were simple moments in real human life, but now, in an era when many of these records are no longer extant due to the passage of time, and millions of fake videos could be created using AI, these videos become extremely meaningful because they represent reality from two decades prior.

It is intensely intentional. Every stroke, every word, every sound, every image, would be specifically selected and chosen or created for this project. Nothing could be included thoughtlessly; everything would have purpose behind it.

It is unique because of an artist's unique vision, intention, and process of creating. A similar piece could not be easily created because it is so heavily influenced by the decisions the artist made, the skills and experiences they have or do not have, and the process of assembling the piece.

It comes from physical interaction with the physical world. Even if the art was presented in a digital form, it would have to be created through the artist's interactions with physical objects. The artist's interaction with the material world would be obvious in every part of the piece.

The origins of each constituent part could be tracked down and understood. You could investigate and learn how each part was created and where the pre-existing materials came from.

The act of creating it would be crucial to what it is. The art would not just be a finished product, but the actual process and motivation of creating it.

I say that these are part of an answer because none of them in isolation are the answer, and together they do not form a complete answer. A complete answer is impossible. But they form a very interesting basis for an art project.

Possibly this would allow me to explore "Why is it important that humans continue to make art?"

wowzerwyrm

Hmmm, this is interesting. I really like the analysis of art breaking things apart into the parts of it that are important to you.

I’m curious if someone could find distinct examples in each of these directions? You say a complete answer is impossible, (which I mean, yeah, makes sense to me, it’s a big complicated thing and finding the exact ‘opposite’ of something is not necessarily possible)

But maybe there are certain pieces or types of art out there that can take some of these specific extremes (even if not all of them) and explore them to their fullest? Like, I could see maybe a handmade sweater for number 5, if someone say, raised their own sheep, found and created their own dyes, wove the thread, and knitted the sweater from all that? Seems pretty close, even if you could feasibly keep going indefinitely (breed the sheep yourself to get the right texture? Learn woodworking to craft your own loom?)

Regardless, seems like an interesting project to both see the depths that individuals can feasibly go to create and understand what they’re creating, and also how we’ve changed or added shortcuts to those steps as time goes on.

headspace-hotel

I will give it some more thought.

iheartvelma

It’s a valuable question.

I think it’s possible to mistake the medium for the art.

Artists have certainly used algorithmic methods in both composition, execution and performance, for over a century. we wouldn’t have certain branches of modern music, stochastic composition, “machine-generated” music that involves levels of looping, triggers, sampling, randomization, or even just the simple automation of using sequencing and drum machines.

There is a line between “I made art by setting up a Rube Goldberg contraption out of modular synths, Lego Mindstorms parts and a Raspberry Pi running janky Python scripts” and “I wrote a really complex prompt to generate a hit single,” to be sure, but what would make the latter more palatable? Building your own AI model trained solely on your own music, powered by you on an exercise bike?

We have had a long and fraught relationship with the concept of “authenticity.” The Romantic idea that things start in some sort of Rousseauian state of nature, pure, only to become sullied by Civilization, so you must avoid Selling Out.

see also: the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition; people’s reaction to Bob Dylan playing electric guitar in 1965; the disco records bonfire of 1979; stickers on records proudly proclaiming “there are no synthesizers on this album,” and so on.

Note also that “bad” AI art has many qualities of kitsch; It is ersatz. There has often been a cultural backlash against “knowing” kitsch because of its association with LGBTQ & satirical resistance to authority. That said, can you satirize accidental kitsch, a mechanical byproduct?

Once you overvalue authenticity you start down a slippery slope in a quest for “un-coopt-able” art, which ironically is entirely about pose and artifice, which makes such “cool hunting” ripe for satire.

Consider also that the valuing of “authenticity” leads us down some highly questionable paths - like asking who is an Authentic American? Who is Pure? Did they do an Art the Right Way© ?

headspace-hotel

You mention authenticity multiple times, which makes me think about how my questions engage the idea of "authenticity," since I normally detest the idea of authenticity in art.

I guess the idea of correspondence to reality or being based on interaction with the physical world could be similar to authenticity, but it is not the same, because authenticity is a quality art supposedly has, not a quality of the process of creating.

The reason "the process of creating" is so important to "the opposite of AI art" is that with AI art, that part is mostly gone. You type a prompt, but unless you made the model yourself, you aren't part of anything that actually happens to turn the prompt into an output. You don't know or control what inputs the model was trained on. You as the user are almost entirely excluded from the process of art.

Art involves making thousands upon thousands of choices, from each individual stroke of a pen, to the decision to pick up that pen in the first place. It involves conflict and struggle between what your body can do, what your memory can hold, what your imagination can drive you toward, and what your medium can embody. These different aspects have different levels of importance in different types of art, of course, but AI art gives you virtually no agency in this conflict.

wowzerwyrm

I’m curious what metric for ‘art’ you’re using here? Mostly you do say ‘AI art’ rather than ‘AI images’ or ‘AI slop’, but I’m not sure if that is because you do see it as Art of a kind, even if not the same, or if it’s just the most convenient shorthand.

I think I’ve seen a number of different ways people approach it? Some people see some things as ‘more’ art or ‘less’ art depending on certain metrics like effort or time or inspiration, some people just have a specific hard line they express where everything above it is art and everything below it is not art, and some people say that it’s all art but they are judging it by a different metric, ‘good vs bad’ art or ‘quality vs crap’ art or ‘deep vs shallow’ art.

Do you happen to fall along any of those lines, or a mixture between them? Maybe somethng different?

headspace-hotel

Who is to say what is and isn't art? I know very little about that, but I know art is expansive, and tends to be always growing its tendrils and vines outside of our boxes and lines for defining art.

I feel confident in saying that at least some "AI art" is in fact art. Some of the eerie, dreamlike outputs of very early AI image generation models could be very compelling. Is something being compelling enough for it to be art? Some non-art things are compelling, such as a waterfall or sunset or any natural wonder.

I'm not sure if "Shrimp Jesus" is art but it did have an effect on me, so I can't rule out that it could be art.

I think that very little of what the "AI art" era has produced is good art, in the sense of the output being good from a viewer's POV, and I think probably none of it is good in the sense of what is good about creating and creativity as something humans do.

"Why would I want to read something nobody could be bothered to write?" is a sentiment I agree with.

When people talk about "effort" being important for art, it can be misunderstood to mean that you have to "work hard" for the art to be any good, but I think the role of "effort" in a thing being art is something more along the lines of "the art mattering enough to the artist for them to actually bother making it."

so-much-for-subtlety

all the criteria seem focused around the intention of the artist as a creator, the process they use, and the tangible artifact that the artist creates - art as an act of creation

but why not equally value the role of the audience - art as an act of interpretation

I mention this as a possible path to consider because I’ve been reading and learning about semiotics and how meaning is constructed

maybe art isn’t so much about the artifact, but the meaning that is constructed by the audience

as a thought experiment, imagine a gallery that presented visual works, and they have the sort of slop style that is sort of recognizable as generative output, but actually each work has been painstakingly painted by a human artist - perhaps intending to be ironic or whatever.

maybe audiences would be moved, and find a lot of meaning from the works (maybe others wouldn’t - but something doesn’t have to have consensus to be art)

but what if it was later revealed that it was a hoax, that the art was not created by the artist, but is actually just direct output from a generative model. What does that say about the meaning the audience originally experienced?

There’s so many interesting paths to think here- around ‘outsider’ art, art that children make (which might not be ‘good’ but certainly has value, at least to some audiences like their parents), or post modern artists like Warhol who claim that there is no meaning behind their work (although claiming there is ‘no meaning’ is an act which itself generates meaning), the distinction between art vs craft, or how professional art is often the result of a team of dozens or hundreds people either directly or indirectly supporting the creation of some artifact.

headspace-hotel

The audience's experience is definitely part of the art, I just didn't talk about that part because I was thinking about the question from the POV of an artist/creator.

In your example, the people could experience meaning from the exhibit, but finding out that it was a hoax would be disappointing, because they would feel like they were sharing that meaning with someone (the creator) and then feel like they had been betrayed.

alectofaildstdnt

TLDR: I don't think there was a lot that you said that makes AI not art. My solution is: AI gets disqualified after the fact, the same way athletes who test positive for drugs do.AI isn't art because it relies on stolen training data. If an artist could be %100 certain their own art is all that the AI model is trained on then I would consider it just another tool at that artist's disposal.

I take the time to respond to everything below because that's just how I can best organize my thoughts... Sorry for the long winded reply...

So I'll start off by saying I am in no way for AI I actually rather despise it and I will draw a hard line against AI being art, although I do give the benefit of the doubt most times (something I can talk about later). That said I don't think this conversation happens exclusively about AI. So let's discuss.

It occurs to me none of your first points necessarily exclude AI.

It corresponds to reality. AI is a part of our reality. That means the person is interacting with our current reality in a way that reflects the world as it is. What would someone 20 years from now think about this? Or 1000 years from now learn about our present time?

It it intensely intentional. I've seen some people's prompts be over a thousand words long and talk about on stream how they can't use some words in the prompt or they'll get the wrong thing. Is this too discounted? Is that not intentional at the stroke of a key?

It is unique to the artist's perspective, skills, and experience. This kind of ties in with the last one. That back and forth with the medium to learn what words can be used or not is a part of experience. The perspective is in what exactly they are trying to prompt or the final piece.

It comes from interacting with the physical world. This is a hard sell for me at the start. Most of the art I see is digital art put on the internet. If using AI software isn't interacting with the physical world then how is using Gimp, Krita, or Clip Studio Paint interacting with the physical world in a way that AI isn't?

The origins of the parts can be tracked and understood. Computers, software, training data can all be traced (the larger LLMs' data can be traced in the way that we know they just fckin stole everything). If you want to go back to learn how indigo was first made 2000 years ago then you can surely learn how each part of a computer is made.

There is another interpretation of the above point that you mean the artist (or prompter for AI) could do this and get back to the starting point to do their art. In which case I'd mention that seamstresses don't typically go all the way back to raising sheep or growing cotton to be able to make clothes.

The act of creating is essential and not just a product. This is hard for two reasons, one because no one treats art like that (whether they should or not aside). Do you see a picture you like online and demand a gif of the creation process video and then save that, or do you just hit the "download image" button? If you do exclusively use the first option then what would it mean if the AI made that process video as well? The other reason is more reflection of the making of the prompt again.

As for what wowzerwyrm said (first reply in this thread). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to be saying that the act of deconstructing the parts that go into the craft and being able to make those aren't necessary to the craft of the art. This falls in line with what I was saying in response to your point five, but in a way that is better explained.

In response to iheartvelma (like from Scooby Doo? Good taste. No wait, nvm). This is the part that I have trouble reconciling with my detest for AI. Because if I say AI isn't art but digital art is then how am I to draw that line? What becomes the deciding factor? I could say the prompt then becomes the art and not the result of feeding that prompt through AI, but I get the feeling that would fall on deaf ears. Who would bother to read the prompt without looking at the result? And then we're back to how people treat art as a thing to consume and not something to interact with.

Your response to iheartvelma seems underdeveloped. Because you can feed the same prompt through different AI models and get different results. You can also learn how AI models respond to certain words, sentences, phrases, and account for how that affects the output. This is interacting with what is turning the prompt into output.

And if the decision to pick up the pen in the first place is a choice that makes art art, then the same can be said for the choice to use AI.

What wowzerwyrm says after that brings me back to what I first said I'd come back to. "I will draw a hard line against AI being art, although I do give the benefit of the doubt most times (something I can talk about later)". The decision to use AI is something that disqualifies AI from being art for me. I rationalize this much the same way we handle sports. The athletes are allowed to compete, but if they use drugs (which is usually tested after the race, I think) then they are disqualified and whatever accolades they might've won go to someone else.

I agree with most of what you say after to that. Except for the Shrimp Jesus thing... I have no idea what that is...

so-much-for-subtlety poses a good question, but it ultimately fails against my hardline against with benefit of the doubt kind of stance. (I feel like I talked about that enough to convey why that works as an effective answer, lmk if you'd like more here though).

Ultimately I despise AI as an "art" because of it relies on stolen material. That said, if an artist could use their own art as an exclusive source of training data (and be certain of that) then I would consider it just another tool in the hands of the artist. They wouldn't have to make the AI model themselves because I don't expect digital artists to make the paint software themselves. I still think it would take an unreasonable amount of art for a single artist to make for training data for that to work, but hey, maybe they get better at that in 20 years time or whatever.

headspace-hotel

"Whether AI is art or not" was a topic that got brought up later in the thread, but it was not part of my original post.

My original post isn't about whether AI is art, neither is it about coming up with a definition of art that includes all non-AI art while excluding all AI art. It is just about, "what is the opposite of AI art." And it is looking at it from the perspective of an artist, not a viewer or reader. It is investigating how I could make something that is as close to "the opposite of AI art" as possible.

alectofaildstdnt

To make the opposite of AI art you'd have to know what that is, therefore defining art in a way that excludes AI helps with that objective, hence why it was brought up later in the thread.

I have two stories and a question for you.

There's this story about an artist, Jackson Pollock, I think who did a lot of splatter paintings. One had been sitting across from the one he was currently working on and got a bit of red on it's otherwise black and white surface, the painter didn't notice until people had already been theorizing about the meaning. When he told them that he didn't intend for the red to be there, did that diminish his painting's value?

On youtube I've seen this person who hates AI so much he's learning to draw just to spite AI. (He's also making exceptionally rapid progress).

If we're using my definition of what AI art is or isn't then we could say your objective is to make art that is the opposite of a tool. Then my question is what is the opposite of any other tool used for art?

headspace-hotel

I tried to answer this question for a little while. For example, the opposite of art created by a sewing needle could be art created by ripping apart an existing textile, maybe through mechanical or otherwise impersonal means.

But I kept finding a large difference between these answers and "the opposite of AI art."

Trying to find the opposite of a paintbrush or a crochet hook ends up with a process of art where the artist has much less control over the result and much less involvement in the process.

What is the purpose of a paintbrush? What does using a paintbrush allow the artist to do? A paintbrush lets the artist precisely control the way the paint goes on the canvas. So the opposite of a paintbrush might be something that slings paint onto the canvas arbitrarily. This has been done before and created some cool art. It is in many ways more limited than using a paintbrush.

Most tools for creating art seem to allow the artist to interact with the creation in a more focused, intentional, and precise way. I think focusing effort or energy in a way that is more precise and targeted could be considered common to all tools regardless of what they are for.

By this definition, though, I don't think AI is a tool. It removes and distances the artist from the process instead of enhancing the artist's interaction with the art.

wowzerwyrm

Been really enjoying the way this post is spreading out and exploring ideas, I just caught up on some of the other threads.

This one is interesting to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever conceptualized ‘tool’ as specifically something that adds more control or detail to a project. Tools to me have always been more about efficiency of purpose, and while that can mean more precision and control, it doesn’t have to be.

I guess running with the paintbrush example. A standard paintbrush (handle, hair/brush tip) has the purpose of picking up paint and placing it onto a canvas. The shape of the standard paintbrush (🖌️ like the emoji) is a teardrop shape, with a tapering point. This does provide much more precision and control than, say, using your fingers, and it’s fully possible to create a whole painting using this.

But not all paintbrushes are shaped that way! There are some very broad, large, square brushes, for example, that lack that control or precision, but are very good at painting large areas quickly and evenly, something that you would struggle to do with finer point. This is less control, but more efficiency of purpose, when that purpose is “I want this two foot section of the canvas to be blue.”

And—actually, let me go find a picture, I’ve got some specific brushes in mind but it’s hard to describe.

I was thinking of the Fan brush specifically, but all the bottom four work well. Each brush is specialized for a differnet task, and some of those tasks are to create certain types of designs easily and quickly. It would be possible, of course, for an artist to use a thin Round brush to create a Rake or Stippled texture, and doing so would have a higher level of control over the end result. But it would take much, much longer, so instead some tools were created that create the desired texture, albeit with more chaos on a granular scale. Control has been ceded to efficiency, because the artist has decided that this level of detail is not important to the message they are trying to convey.

Digital art has this in spades. Even just my Procreate app that I have on my phone has entire sections of the brush selection dedicated to more strange and obscure shapes and textures than I’ve ever used. I can even easily add and create my own.

(Some of my favorite shapes)

I could of course create most of even all of these shapes manually using just an inking pen, which would also in some cases maybe look more natural or professional, depending. But it’s also just not always worth it.

Not to mention the number of filters and adjustments I can make at practically any time. Blur, twist, hue shift, opacity. Many of them do specifically give me more control over what I create, but many of them are there simply for the sake of getting it done faster and easier. It’s all about what is most efficient for the sake of the artist’s vision, whether that efficiency is gained through better control or easier use.

Do you have some thoughts on that? Maybe I’m seeing it differently than you, and you would still consider most of these to increase control and intentionality for the artist?

Maybe you have some thoughts on photography as an art form? (One of my other favorites things to do.) It’s can easily be seen as the ultimate way to cede control for the sake of efficiency. Someone could take the thousands of hours it would take to learn to paint realism professionally, and thus have the most amount of control over creating an image that looks exactly how you want… or you could point and click a machine, and get something that looks good but is fundamentally limited by… well, reality. You can only take a picture of something that exists.

(Thinking about it more, I kinda feel like the learning curve of photography as an art form as opposed to painting/illustration (as an amateur of both) is that while painting is about knowing what to include, photography is about knowing what to *exclude*. Once you have something to take a picture of, you need to decide how it’s framed and how much to keep in focus and what kinds of light to filter out, ect. And of course this is all assisted by automatic filters, which can be turned on or off depending on need, some of which give more control)

headspace-hotel

Having worked a lot with painting, I think that even a big square brush offers control, it allows you to cover a larger area with paint, cover it evenly, and cover only the areas you want to cover while leaving alone the areas you don't want to be painted.

This opens up some interesting things in regards to "using a tool vs. not using a tool" because your fingers are also a tool, and they can be very precise and create specific effects in their own way. I've used my fingers to smudge ink, for instance, because I didn't have a better tool for creating the impression I want.

Being able to create your own brushes in Procreate is definitely an example of increased control and intentionality. Digital art allows you to modify every single aspect of your process of painting exactly the way you want it.

I haven't done much photography for art purposes, but the way I understand it, it could maybe be described as curating the experience of seeing.

Your eye is an organ that takes in light, a camera is also, but the camera can turn it into an image that transmits it to many people.

Therefore, the task of a photographer could be, how do I configure this artificial eye to capture the world the way I am seeing the world? Not just configuring the camera to capture light the way a human eye does, but configuring the camera to capture more of the details that the brain filters as more salient or important, to emphasize the qualities of the light that spark certain feelings or impressions.

Or, you could be using the camera to "see" in a way that humans can't see. It doesn't even necessarily need to be a camera; one of the things I've thought about is using synthetic aperture sonar to create artistic images because the visuals it creates are so eerie and cool to me.

ourdarling

not to sound like the joker but im not fucking around when i say weird al covering killing in the name completely seriously and not changing any of the lyrics at all is a very scary statement about society rn......... a man who built his entire career on whimsy and being sort of family-friendly doing a sincere rendition of killing in the name by rage against the machine. we've awoken Serious Alfred. we're so fucked.

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"Now I understand that the telling is the medicine—not the cause of shame but the thing that heals it."

- The Tell, Amy Griffin

------ • • •

Inspired by Amy's story, I realize how tired I am of keeping everything inside. I'm tired of keeping my past, and the shameful secrets of others to myself for the sake of not disturbing the peace.

As if telling my truth will distort others' perception of me.

I'm tired of feeling unknown to my friends and family.

Tired of not standing up for myself, or being loud.

Or honest.

For a long time I've taken solace in the respite of not speaking about my past because it was a relief to not have to live in that space anymore; the dramas of my abuse were the central story line of my life for years, and I didn't want that to define me.

Now, I feel like it would be healing to speak my truth.

When I realize that I've been living in this State for 4 years, and so few of my friends even know that I was previously married - let alone the rest.

Beyond that: how few people know how it really all began.

How does a person start this process of telling?

#the tell #amy griffin #childhood trauma #trauma #abuse #abusive relationships #honesty

maryoliveoil

Gonna chill out the rest of May and then change my entire life in June. Possibly July if that doesn't work out. Certainly no later than September or October.

queen-mayhem

I used to be mad about "whole language" reading approaches in theory but now I work with school-age kids and I am mad about it in practice.

queen-mayhem

the word is "commute"

kid: complete?

me: do you see a P in that word?

kid: uh.... compare?

me: where are you getting a P??? sound it out.

kid: com... complete?

me: is that a P after the M? sound it out.

kid: *stares blankly*

me: [oh right, nobody taught them how to do this. fucking hell...] okay, we'll do this together [like it's kindergarden even though you're thirteen years old...]. what sound does C make?

queen-mayhem

I am not a reading teacher or a dyslexia specialist but I'm having to do remedial phonics instruction for middle schoolers because nobody ever taught them how SO THEY CAN'T FUCKING READ

queen-mayhem

I cannot overstate how much these kids are just making wild guesses when I ask them to read something. Because that's what they were taught to do. If you don't know a word, use context clues and make a guess at what you think the word might be.

Which is a fucking insane approach to reading, by the way, and I could rant about this forever because this makes absolutely no sense and I cannot figure out how the entire educational field was duped into thinking that this makes a lick of sense.

But I also want to emphasize that even kids who are decent readers have this problem. I work with some kids who straight-up can't read, but even my kids who absolutely can read will just guess wildly at an unfamiliar word. Those kids will go back and sound it out if I force them to, because they can read, so they have the necessary decoding skills. But they have to be pushed to do it and reminded several times to quit fucking guessing and read the actual letters on the page, Jason.

queen-mayhem

For example. I have a kid who is actually a pretty strong reader - probably one of my best.

The word was "disagreement."

He made a couple of guesses - some nonsensical, but after pushing him to sound out the word, he got closer. He kept saying "dis-age-ment" and "dis-argue-ment."

And I said okay, let's break this word down. Is there anything in here you recognize?

"The beginning is 'dis' and the end is 'ment' like argument, but I don't know the middle."

Great! Let's pull the middle out. I wrote the word "agree" on the page. Do you know this word?

"Age? Argue?"

SOUND. IT. OUT.

"Ag... agriculture?"

Jason the love of god. I drew a line in the middle. Ag/ree. Sound out each part.

"I don't know."

JASON. I wrote them out on opposite sides of the paper. Ag...........ree. What sound does ag make?

"Ag?"

YES GREAT FANTASTIC. Now come all the way over here. Ree. Sound it out.

"Are?"

JASON. R. E. E.

"Rey? Ree?"

Yes, thank you, it's Ree. Put it together.

"Ag...ree? Oh! It's disagreement!"

YES. EXCELLENT. THANK YOU. WHY WAS THIS SO HARD?

ms-hells-bells

For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have

queen-mayhem

#however the situation is better in liberal states that invest substantially more money into education than conservative states

As much as I wish that was the case, "Jason" and all of his classmates are students in a strongly blue state with some of the highest educational spending per student in the country.

I'm not saying the situation is better in red states - I've seen what my friends who are teaching in Texas are dealing with and the situation is dire. I'm just saying it's less of a red/blue or funding issue than you might imagine.

batboyblog

My mother was a special educator for 40 years? with two sons with reading disabilities, SO! when Covid hit at the same time my oldest niece was supposed to go into Kindergarten she swung into action and got my sister a bunch of phonics stuff (Learning Without Tears) and so my sister taught my oldest niece to read by sounding out.

lets say she's not a naturally really strong reader and without those decoding skills she'd be in SO much trouble but because she has them she's at grade level (and enjoys reading for fun, which I doubt she would if she hadn't learned the right way)

and I see her younger sister who is naturally a stronger reader, who's working on books 2-3 grade levels above her but they never taught her those phonics skills in school, she does it kinda because her sister does but I know like she'd be at the 5th grade+ reading level rn if she'd learned to read sounding it out

its just so interesting to see the difference with two kids in the same house and how much being taught to sound it out helps and how much not being taught that hinders

sanguinifex

The science of reading is real, and it’s phonics

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