Thanks for sharing! I haven’t read much of the Oatmeal in quite a while but I’ve always liked their style and humor.
Haha. “Keith”.
Keith: The highbrow Kyle.
I was kinda against their argument at first, then I was with them and continued reading. But then they went into all sorts of detail, weighing pros and cons etc., and after reading more than half I evtl. gave up.
It seems all “why AI is bad” articles seem to go this way.
It seems all “why AI is bad” articles unwillingly even support the hype.
Fuck AI “art”, it’s not art you morons, it’s automation, which takes away real people’s jobs. The current implementations made by greedy companies also very obviously steal. 'nuff said.
I liked it, personally. I’ve read plenty of AI bad articles, and I too am burnt out on them. However, what I really appreciated about this was that it felt less like a tirade against AI art and more like a love letter to art and the humans that create it. As I was approaching the ending of the comic, for example, when the argument had been made, and the artist was just making their closing words, I was struck by the simple beauty of the art. It was less the shapes and the colours themselves that I found beautiful, but the sense that I could practically feel the artist straining against the pixels in his desperation to make something that he found beautiful — after all, what would be the point if he couldn’t live up to his own argument?
I don’t know how far you got through, but I’d encourage you to consider taking another look at it. It’s not going to make any arguments you’ve not heard before, but if you’re anything like me, you might appreciate it from the angle of a passionate artist striving to make something meaningful in defiance of AI. I always find my spirits bolstered by work like this because whilst we’re not going to be able to draw our way out of this AI-slop hellscape, it does feel important to keep reminding ourselves of what we’re fighting for.
I know that art is an art of it’s own and a way to express human creativity.
However people also complained once the loom was invented. It took lots of jobs.
The job argument is usually a stupid one.
The lack of creativity and quality is of course a much better argument against AI art.
The job argument is usually a stupid one.
The what? It’s the only one that objectively makes sense.
Ok imagine this:
You are an construction worker. The job is hard but the pay is okay.
Now robots replace your job slowly. They are cheaper and more accurate.
You can now:
-
Complain about the robots stealing your job
-
Be happy that you don’t have to do the hard work anymore.
Many people will go for 1. But the actual issue is that the social security net isn’t existent or so weak that no job means no food.
That is not the fault of technology though.
Remember that when you vote and when politicians want to cut costs by reducing payments for the unemployed.
Option 2 is soulless.
Option 3. Destroy the capitalists owned robots and bring the robots under the control of the working class.
Option 3 would be a weird way of communism. Which still enforces my point. The reason why you fear for job safety is not the fault of technology.
Option 3 is also what the historical Luddites wanted. They liked technology when it benefitted them, not when it was used to exploit them.
Option 3 still ends up with robots and no-one doing the jobs that the robots replaced.
Robots aren’t the problem.
-
I forgot how loooong Oatmeal cartoons are. I don’t think I have made it to the end of one in years.
Wanna go ride a bicycle?
That was a really good take on the whole thing. The Oatmeal is my people.
As a passable quality 3D artist who does it for a living I’ve found AI art (which can do 3D now to some degree) has kind of narrowed the scope for me. If you want generic Unreal style pseudo-realism or disney toon then AI can do that for you* I’ve had to focus much more on creating a unique style and also optimizing my work in ways that AI just doesn’t have the ability to do because they require longer chains of actual reasoning.
For AI in general I think this pattern holds, it can quickly create something generic and increasingly do it without extranious fingers but no matter how much you tweak a prompt its damn near impossible to get a specific idea into image form. Its like a hero shooter with skins VS actually creating your own character.
*Right now AI models use more tris to re-create the default blender cube than my entire lifetime portfolio but I’m assuming that can be resolved since we already have partially automated re-topology tools.
This was a great read! As someone who was initially excited about the possibilities of AI art, it’s been hit or miss with me.
I’ve come to realise over time that I like the connection that art offers. The little moment of ‘I wonder what the artist was thinking when they imagined this and what experiences did someone have to get to a place where they could visualize and create this?’
And I think that’s what missing with AI art. Sure, it can enable someone like me who has no skill with drawing to create something but it doesn’t get to the point of putting my actual imagination down. The repeated tries can only get to point of ‘close enough’.
For me, looking at a piece and then learning it’s AI art is basically realizing that I’m looking at a computer generated imitation of someone’s imagination. Except the imitation was created by describing the art instead of the imitator ever looking at it. An connection I could have felt with original human is watered down as to be non-existent.
“Yes, but I’ll be quick, I promise.”
Isn’t quick.
I think AI art serves a different purpose from the art we talk about when we say “real art has heart” or “the process of creating the art affected me when I looked at it”.
I think about how I feel when I’m scrolling through pictures in some app on my phone - some will be memes, some will be cats, but then some will be there for artistic purposes. As I’m scrolling through, such a picture will spark a brief glimmer of emotion - “huh, that looks neat” for example. I’m not looking close and examining the brush strokes, not thinking about what troubles the artist went through, and not thinking about the process of its creation at all.
In that context I don’t think it makes much difference that it’s AI-generated. I’d kind of like to know, and I don’t want to see a dozen different outputs of the same prompt because whoever hit the button couldn’t even apply the modicum of effort require to pick their favourite, but AI-generated images are just as able to instigate that glimmer of “hey that looks cool” that any image can.
Sounds like you’re not very skilled at art appreciation.
There’s zero need to throw insults around; I made the context absolutely clear in my comment and it has nothing to do with what I do when at an art gallery or something.
Maybe some people are having an experience like they are looking at a Rembrandt when they scroll through /c/pics or something, but I’m not. Do you also shit on people for being unable to appreciate music because they put something on in the background? Is it only OK to go to concerts and immerse yourself in it? If you’re in a shop and a tune you like comes on, do you park your cart to really appreciate the depths of emotion it’s inspiring in you?
Of course you don’t.
If you think that it was an insult then that shows what shame you have for your lack of skill, not an intention on my part.
Seems like you’re not very skilled at responding meaningfully.
Well I’m not going to slap you on the back and praise you for saying the equivalent of “I just eat potato chips anyway I don’t care if the new chips are made of styrofoam they still got flavor blasted”.
Also, I totally disagree with you. If I see a neat picture someone took from getting dropped onto earth from low orbit, I’m gonna think that’s way cooler than an ai image trying to emulate the same thing, even if I’m only looking at it for a second. I’m going to think a crudely drawn parody of a meme is funnier than an ai generated imitation of a meme, even if all I’m doing is making that little exhale with the nose instead of laughing.
There’s a difference. You can tell. If you’re so Internet addled you genuinely are saying you don’t think there’s a difference, then you’ve got like, negative skills in art appreciation.
I watched a short saying you might be an art director, at best, but not really an artist. Because you have the vision but you’re only telling someone (something) to materialize it. I was kind of happy with that.
Vision is a strong word. I think it’s a vague idea in most cases
Anyone who says ai at is easy has never tried it.
Uh oh guys, we’ve got a “prompt engineer” here
Just saying you should probably understand what your are taking about
Oh wow, it’s so hard to ask a computer to generate an image. You might get a repetitive stress injury from writing so many prompts to constantly pump out vapid slop devoid of any artistic merit or value.
I made a comment about a week ago about how copying people’s art is still art, and it was a bit of an aha moment as I pinpointed for myself a big part of why I find image generators and the like so soulless, inwardly echoing a lot of what Inman lays out here.
All human made art, from the worst to the best, embodies the effort of the artist. Their intent and their skill. Their attempt to make something, to communicate something. It has meaning. All generative art does is barf up random noise that looks like pictures. It’s impressive technology, and I understand that it’s exciting, but it’s not art. If humans ever end up creating actual artificial intelligence, then we can talk about machine made art. Until then, it’s hardly more than a printer in terms of artistic merit.
Sounds quite similar to Nick Cave’s letter on the topic, read here by Stephen Fry. (anyone feel free to reply with a piped link, for some reason it’s never worked for me)
There was a good interview with Tim Minchin by the BBC where he said something similar to this & used the word intent.
I suppose the intent/communication/art comes from the person writing the prompt but those few words can only convey so much information. When the choice of medium & every line etc. involves millions of micro-decisions by the artist there is so much more information encoded. Even if its copy & pasted bits of memes.Is this the interview? https://files.catbox.moe/ddp6tp.mp4
Tim Minchin has always come across as a good egg to me. It’s nice to hear he’s of the same mind, and I particularly like the optimism he’s promoting in his predictions for artistry going forward.
No, I hadn’t seen that one, thanks!
Hah, sure thing. I suppose it’s a point he’s discussed a few times.
I’ve been practicing at being a better writer, and one of the ways I’ve been doing that is by studying the writing that I personally really like. Often I can’t explain why I click so much with a particular style of writing, but by studying and attempting to learn how to copy the styles that I like, it feels like a step towards developing my own “voice” in writing.
A common adage around art (and other skilled endeavours) is that you need to know how to follow the rules before you can break them, after all. Copying is a useful stepping stone to something more. It’s always going to be tough to learn when your ambition is greater than your skill level, but there’s a quote from Ira Glass that I’ve found quite helpful:
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
Agreed.
It’s impressive technology, and I understand that it’s exciting, but it’s not art.
I would add that a lot (most?) graphical elements we encounter in daily lives do not require art or soul in the least. Stock images on web pages, logos, icons etc. are examples of graphical elements that are IMO perfectly fine to use AI image generation for. It’s the menial labour of the artist profession that is now being affected by modern automation much like so many other professions have been before them. All of them resisted so of course artists resist too.
The most generic logo from ten years ago still was made with choices by a designer. It’s those choices that make a difference, you don’t choose how things are executed with ai
But you still choose the final result…for something like that, the how is really quite irrelevant, it is just the end result that matters and that still remains in the hands of humans as they’re the ones to settle on the final solution.
That’s like saying you cooked a chicken sandwich because you ordered it off the menu.
Not really. It’s the equivalent of ordering a “build it yourself” sandwich where you specify type of bread and content, and having someone else make it. Yes you didn’t actually assemble the sandwich yourself, but who cares how that happened, you have the sandwich you wanted, it contains what you wanted, it tastes and looks like you intended.
I’m not arguing that people using AI generated images can call themselves artists, I’m arguing that AI generated can have a useful purpose replacing menial “art” work.
Your example is shit. It would be more appropriate for when you commission a piece of work from someone, where they are using their skills and choices and you’re telling them what you want and don’t want on the sandwich.
AI doesn’t make choices when creating an image. It generates an image based off of other images and you hope that it gets something that follows some aesthetic principles that it’s lifting from other images. Just because you reroll the die doesn’t mean you’re choosing shit.
That “menial” process when you’re making art is literally the best part. When you’re painting a sky for the background of something you don’t want that just filled in, that’s where you can experiment and maybe even add an element that you weren’t thinking of before when you started the piece. AI can’t do that for you.
and having someone else make it.
No, having a soulless machine make it.
Then claiming that you made it yourself even though all you did was select a few things on a menu.
Oh my fucking god people…I didn’t say you could claim you made something when using AI generated images. I claimed it still makes sense for some things because they hold pretty much no artistic value when made by humans already (like icons, stock images and logos)
the how is really quite irrelevant
That’s our point. The how is entirely relevant. It’s what makes art interesting and meaningful. Without the how and why, it’s just colors and noise.
it’s just colors and noise.
But that’s exactly my point; logos, icons, stock images etc. are already nothing but noise meant to just catch the eye…might as well just get it auto-generated.
That you can’t see or appreciate the intent of the artist behind those doesn’t mean it’s not there or not important. Why they were made or how they are used in the end is not important. All that matters is how they were made.
I would honestly argue that the way an artist makes art is also completely irrelevant. The art is only meaningful in the way it’s perceived, how the artist physically makes it is of very little importance. The tools and materials are just a means to an end, it’s the finished product that inspires feelings and thoughts, not the process of how it came to be.
The impact on livelihoods is important, but it’s ultimately unrelated to defining what art is. My consideration of art is not one born of fear of losing money, but purely out of appreciation for the craft. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to suggest all the criticisms against generated art is solely borne of self-preservation.
In regards to corporate “art”, all the things you listed, even stock images, are certainly not the purest form of artistry, but they still have (or, at least had) intent suffusing their creation. I suppose the question then is - is there a noticeable difference between the two for corporations? Will a generated logo have the same impact as a purposefully crafted on does? In my experience, the generated products I’ve noticed feel distinctly hollow. While past corporate assets are typically hollow shells of real art, generated assets are even less. They’re a pure concentration of corporate greed and demand, without the “bothersome” human element. Maybe that won’t matter in their course of business, but I think it might. Time will tell.
I’d argue that logos are a hugely expressive form. It’s just that 90% of them are basic ass shit tier stuff.
AI has basically raised the level of “shit tier” pretty high. I sometimes go check out Hotone Audio’s Facebook page to see if there are new firmware updates for my device, but they mainly peddle pointless AI slop marketing images. I’m sure there are tons of companies like this.
It’s the literal example of the marketing person being able to churn out pictures without an artist being involved, and thus the output is a pile of crap even more vapid than stock photos.
That was excellent. Thanks for sharing… although I’m more into pottery, I’m sure some soulless shithead will want to “democratize” it with a janky robot hand controlled by a dumb algo.
I mean, there are already better ways to automate pottery, like moulding.
I think this is completely missing the point when it’s talking about “the minutiae of art”. It’s making two claims at the same time: art is better when you suffer for it and the art is good whether or not you suffered. But none of that is relevant.
When Wyeth made Christina’s World, I don’t know if he suffered or not when painting that grass. What I do know is that he was a human with limited time and the fact that he spent so much of his time detailing every blade of grass means that he’s saying something. That The Oatmeal doesn’t draw backgrounds might be because he’s lazy, but he also doesn’t need them. These are choices we make to put effort in one part and ignore some other part.
AI doesn’t make choices. It doesn’t need to. A detailed background is exactly the same amount of work as a plain one. And so a generated picture has this evenly distributed level of detail, no focus at all. You don’t really know where to look, what’s important, what the picture is trying to say. Because it’s not saying anything. It isn’t a rat with a big butt, it’s just a cloud of noise that happens to resemble a rat with a big butt.
it’s just a cloud of noise that happens to resemble a rat with a big butt.
I’d like this on my tombstone
Visitor to your grave: “…I need more context.”
Your ghost: “It’s about AI art.”
Visitor: “…I still don’t get it.”
Ghost: “That’s because you’re a robot. Everybody’s just robots now. Us ghosts are all that’s left of humanity. All that you know is based on what we suffered to learn and create.”
Robot visitor: “…but why a rat with a big butt?”
Ghost: “Draw one, and reflect on the cloud of noise that you produce instead.”
Robot: *draws a rat with a big butt
Ghost: “…AI wasn’t as good back then. Fuck you.” *whisps away
One thing I’ve found interesting with AI art is that it’s changed how I look at handmade art. It is similar in a way to appreciating a handmade piece of furniture or a machine compared to a mass produced commodity item. Art that I previously would have dismissed instantly sometimes makes me think for a second about the artist and how it was made, even when it lacks a professional level of quality. That said, I’ve also seen enough AI art that I can distinguish between garbage slop and something (at least a little) interesting made in Comfy UI. There’s always been a lot of low quality art out there, but I think the real issue is with people trying to pass off low effort generated slop as real art, rather than the gen-AI tech itself (environmental impact notwithstanding).
