I will say this: I have worked with real artists and with computers. I can give a written prompt to an artist and they give me back something like what I asked for. Computers do this much faster, sometimes more accurately, and there's no delay. I am myself an artist as well as writer (though primarily I'm a writer), so I understand your arguments on a cultural level. And I could probably replicate what the computer makes for me (or another artist makes for me) but it would take me a very long time to do it by hand. The computer tool allows me to get more visions captured quickly, which is useful for things like role-playing games and story art supplementation. Is it high art? Probably not. But it is useful and it captures my vision.
Great points. would love to hear how you've used it for story art supplementation, as I'm thinking the same thing. I too see it as a tool for art and other things. But it will be used as a tool by many and will flood the already altered, already fake screens that we're glued to. I think this means that we will have to prepare ourselves for that new world (I'll stick to art, since one need only think of how bad faith actors will generate new photos to make a political or even more nefarious point). I'm also guessing that people will take art in new directions (perhaps not putting them up on the internet, and thus out of sight of the AI's "eyes") just to stand out from what the AI creates. An attempt to be even more human than ever. That being said, we might also start changing the definition of art.
(I should note that I don't necessarily agree with the article and some of its definitions of consciousness or even art, but with things like these I'm guessing such definitions will change anyways)
Yeah. I have to admit I'm worried about where we're going with this AI-art movement. (It's inevitable, I realize that.) Certainly there are pros and cons, as with almost anything. I'm thinking more in terms of writing. I recently edited a client's work (I'm a writer and book editor) and she started using "Word Tune" which apparently is an AI program that "helps with literary voice." This just automatically strikes me as dangerously antihuman and anti-art. Are we really to believe that AI can come up with that sophisticated, nuanced, complex, rhythmic literary voice that took the masters often years and even decades to find, hone, and write with? Part of me wonders if it's just a sign of our contemporary cultural laziness. Or the idea that we don't as a society truly care about Art anymore. Maybe we don't. I've heard of writers now penning whole books using AI. I guess I just wonder: Where does that take us? Certainly AI can be helpful. Heck: I'm using the variety of wonderful AI voices to record my Substack work. And computers and digital programs are always evolving, changing, growing, becoming more efficient. We're always progressing; I get that. But there are downsides here, too. Just like Facebook "connected" us more, it also disconnected us in deeper ways. Lot to think about here but these are some of my thoughts. Thanks for posting.
I'll have to check it out, but I tried one on MIT site and as far as story generation, it wasn't that great at all. Now, if it can work as a slightly better or much better grammar (or even copy-editing) assistance, then it's fine... Actually, I just tried word tune. It caught something I don't think most spell checks would. So that's good. Then it told me when I said I was "oceans away" I should try something more fluent like "living abroad" or "living overseas" or "living thousands of miles away"
Now, to my ear those sound like less poetic and more boring versions of the original (yeah, I know, kill your darlings, oh writer), and correct me if I'm wrong, but I wouldn't be worried just yet.
And would love to look at a text generator that churns out something coherent (over more than a paragraph).
As for art itself, the visual kind, I think that it will change the internet and the screens we glue our faces to. When they can equate it in the physical world as well, robot arms painting or sculpting exactly what the ai art brain envisioned, maybe things will really be different. But our screen worlds are so artificial, I wonder if we'll miss much at all. Though, given that there are many forgeries in museums around the world, I wonder if the entire human experience is so fake it's ripe for such easy takeovers like what AI Art will do (note that I think it will be a great tool for many artists and at the same time saturate our visual screens). Well there I go again, drinking wine and trying to be smart on the internet. be safe.
Earlier today I took some notes for myself where I compared AI art to a visual Library of Babel and that any patterns were likely pareidolia. Then I find that you've written something that is far better at getting my feelings across than anything I could put into words. I don't know what to say other than thank you!
My comment in verse form may be too long. It’s part of a project not yet published and it’s dense with ideas developed prior to this, but it speaks to the heart of the issue of what AI can’t do.
Aesthetic Theory
The virtual images
Susanne Langer named in
Feeling and Form
are the beholding of qualitude’s
self whole forms
hovering over
the exoskeleton of physicality.
When that
(which Susanne described)
happens,
we behold a work of art
in the light in which it lives
and came into being
with the artist’s midwifery.
This hovering virtual image
can be seen in two lights:
The light converges on the exscape,
usually the artist’s birthing view,
(seeing the image in its material),
or,
the light refluxes from
the art-formed exscape limits,
without those limits
being disclosed,
the art clients’ view
(seeing the image emerge from its materials).
In either case,
wonder touches the heart,
because what lives
in the virtuality of qualitude
is always singed
with the fire of creation’s meaning,
in beauty—maybe stark and awful,
yet,
a new facet of the glory of God.
An example of what we’ve said
(my scrawny Muse and me)
is said much better next by Denise
Levertov:
“The Life of Art
The borderland—that's where, if one knew how,
one would establish residence. That watershed,
that spine, that looking-glass … I mean the edge
between impasto surface, burnt sienna, thick,
striate, gleaming-swathes and windrows
of carnal paint—
or, canvas barely stained,
where warp and weft peer through,
and fictive truth: a room, a vase, an оpen door
giving upon the clouds.
A step back, and you have
the likeness, its own world. Step to the wall again,
and you're so near the paint you could lick it,
you breathe its ghostly turpentine.
But there's an interface,
immeasurable, elusive—an equilibrium
just attainable, sometimes, when the attention's rightly poised,
where you are opulently received
by the bravura gestures hand and brush
proffer (as if a courtier twirled
a feathered velvet hat to bow you in)
and yet, without losing sight of one stroke,
one scrape of the knife,
you are drawn through into that room, into
its air and temperature.
Couldn't one learn to maintain
that exquisite balance more than a second?
(One sees even
the pencilled understrokes, and shivers
in pleasure—and one's fingertips
touch the carpet's nubs of wool, the cold fruit in a bowl:
one almost sees what lies beyond the window, past the frame, beyond …”
[Denise Levertov, Selected Poems, preface by Robert Greeley, edited by Paul A Lacey; New Directions, ISBN 0-8112-1520-2]
I will say this: I have worked with real artists and with computers. I can give a written prompt to an artist and they give me back something like what I asked for. Computers do this much faster, sometimes more accurately, and there's no delay. I am myself an artist as well as writer (though primarily I'm a writer), so I understand your arguments on a cultural level. And I could probably replicate what the computer makes for me (or another artist makes for me) but it would take me a very long time to do it by hand. The computer tool allows me to get more visions captured quickly, which is useful for things like role-playing games and story art supplementation. Is it high art? Probably not. But it is useful and it captures my vision.
Great points. would love to hear how you've used it for story art supplementation, as I'm thinking the same thing. I too see it as a tool for art and other things. But it will be used as a tool by many and will flood the already altered, already fake screens that we're glued to. I think this means that we will have to prepare ourselves for that new world (I'll stick to art, since one need only think of how bad faith actors will generate new photos to make a political or even more nefarious point). I'm also guessing that people will take art in new directions (perhaps not putting them up on the internet, and thus out of sight of the AI's "eyes") just to stand out from what the AI creates. An attempt to be even more human than ever. That being said, we might also start changing the definition of art.
(I should note that I don't necessarily agree with the article and some of its definitions of consciousness or even art, but with things like these I'm guessing such definitions will change anyways)
Thanks! You can click my Stack next to my name there to have a look at how I use it here on Substack.
If you'd like to see my gallery, that's here: https://www.wombo.art/profile/t_van_santana
And I post a good bit on Ello: https://ello.co/tvansantana
As for the future, I dunno. People love to forecast doom 😅 It's cathartic, maybe, and certainly easier than figuring out what to do to avert it.
yeah I think the saying is: sure you're predicting the flood, but how about to build the boat? Will check it out, thanks.
Yeah. I have to admit I'm worried about where we're going with this AI-art movement. (It's inevitable, I realize that.) Certainly there are pros and cons, as with almost anything. I'm thinking more in terms of writing. I recently edited a client's work (I'm a writer and book editor) and she started using "Word Tune" which apparently is an AI program that "helps with literary voice." This just automatically strikes me as dangerously antihuman and anti-art. Are we really to believe that AI can come up with that sophisticated, nuanced, complex, rhythmic literary voice that took the masters often years and even decades to find, hone, and write with? Part of me wonders if it's just a sign of our contemporary cultural laziness. Or the idea that we don't as a society truly care about Art anymore. Maybe we don't. I've heard of writers now penning whole books using AI. I guess I just wonder: Where does that take us? Certainly AI can be helpful. Heck: I'm using the variety of wonderful AI voices to record my Substack work. And computers and digital programs are always evolving, changing, growing, becoming more efficient. We're always progressing; I get that. But there are downsides here, too. Just like Facebook "connected" us more, it also disconnected us in deeper ways. Lot to think about here but these are some of my thoughts. Thanks for posting.
Michael Mohr, "Sincere American Writing"
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
I'll have to check it out, but I tried one on MIT site and as far as story generation, it wasn't that great at all. Now, if it can work as a slightly better or much better grammar (or even copy-editing) assistance, then it's fine... Actually, I just tried word tune. It caught something I don't think most spell checks would. So that's good. Then it told me when I said I was "oceans away" I should try something more fluent like "living abroad" or "living overseas" or "living thousands of miles away"
Now, to my ear those sound like less poetic and more boring versions of the original (yeah, I know, kill your darlings, oh writer), and correct me if I'm wrong, but I wouldn't be worried just yet.
And would love to look at a text generator that churns out something coherent (over more than a paragraph).
As for art itself, the visual kind, I think that it will change the internet and the screens we glue our faces to. When they can equate it in the physical world as well, robot arms painting or sculpting exactly what the ai art brain envisioned, maybe things will really be different. But our screen worlds are so artificial, I wonder if we'll miss much at all. Though, given that there are many forgeries in museums around the world, I wonder if the entire human experience is so fake it's ripe for such easy takeovers like what AI Art will do (note that I think it will be a great tool for many artists and at the same time saturate our visual screens). Well there I go again, drinking wine and trying to be smart on the internet. be safe.
Earlier today I took some notes for myself where I compared AI art to a visual Library of Babel and that any patterns were likely pareidolia. Then I find that you've written something that is far better at getting my feelings across than anything I could put into words. I don't know what to say other than thank you!
My comment in verse form may be too long. It’s part of a project not yet published and it’s dense with ideas developed prior to this, but it speaks to the heart of the issue of what AI can’t do.
Aesthetic Theory
The virtual images
Susanne Langer named in
Feeling and Form
are the beholding of qualitude’s
self whole forms
hovering over
the exoskeleton of physicality.
When that
(which Susanne described)
happens,
we behold a work of art
in the light in which it lives
and came into being
with the artist’s midwifery.
This hovering virtual image
can be seen in two lights:
The light converges on the exscape,
usually the artist’s birthing view,
(seeing the image in its material),
or,
the light refluxes from
the art-formed exscape limits,
without those limits
being disclosed,
the art clients’ view
(seeing the image emerge from its materials).
In either case,
wonder touches the heart,
because what lives
in the virtuality of qualitude
is always singed
with the fire of creation’s meaning,
in beauty—maybe stark and awful,
yet,
a new facet of the glory of God.
An example of what we’ve said
(my scrawny Muse and me)
is said much better next by Denise
Levertov:
“The Life of Art
The borderland—that's where, if one knew how,
one would establish residence. That watershed,
that spine, that looking-glass … I mean the edge
between impasto surface, burnt sienna, thick,
striate, gleaming-swathes and windrows
of carnal paint—
or, canvas barely stained,
where warp and weft peer through,
and fictive truth: a room, a vase, an оpen door
giving upon the clouds.
A step back, and you have
the likeness, its own world. Step to the wall again,
and you're so near the paint you could lick it,
you breathe its ghostly turpentine.
But there's an interface,
immeasurable, elusive—an equilibrium
just attainable, sometimes, when the attention's rightly poised,
where you are opulently received
by the bravura gestures hand and brush
proffer (as if a courtier twirled
a feathered velvet hat to bow you in)
and yet, without losing sight of one stroke,
one scrape of the knife,
you are drawn through into that room, into
its air and temperature.
Couldn't one learn to maintain
that exquisite balance more than a second?
(One sees even
the pencilled understrokes, and shivers
in pleasure—and one's fingertips
touch the carpet's nubs of wool, the cold fruit in a bowl:
one almost sees what lies beyond the window, past the frame, beyond …”
[Denise Levertov, Selected Poems, preface by Robert Greeley, edited by Paul A Lacey; New Directions, ISBN 0-8112-1520-2]
And here the poet sees the work in qualitude,
escaped from its exscape’s four joining walls.
The virtual image linking
what the artist
made
and the artist’s heart root
are ever present in eutrophic time
between them,
the exquisite balance ever achieved
and ever shimmering new in wonder,
waiting for the second
when it catches the eye.