Leaving aside the whole debate about the ethics of AI art and copyright, I think one of my biggest gripes with the AI art industry is that generative AI art has this natural tendency towards producing weird and surreal imagery that I actually think DOES have a lot of artistic merit and potential if explored and leaned into as one of the unique strengths of the medium.
Like, when AI image generators were at the stage imbetween the vaguely recognizable imagery produced by neuralblender and the type of generators we're seeing today, they were producing really fascinating imagery that I'd argue had value as a contribution to the art landscape that was entirely unique to AI, since the weird surreal quality of the images was the result of Machine Learning programs interpreting words and images in a fundamentally different way than humans do.
Like i'd argue shit like this indisputably has a place as its own artistic style/medium, it's surreal and weird in ways which are completely distinct from what a human artist could produce because its unique strengths come from details that are inscrutable, ambiguous, and hard to parse to the human mind, which a human artist would have an extremely hard time mentally visializing, let alone translatong into an art piece.
But since the main selling point of AI art for both the people making these generators and the teach aficinados who are a little too into them is that AI art can serve as a cheaper/faster replacement and/or alternative for the work of human artists, progress is measured not in terms of how well they can use and explore the distincly non-human quality of AI art, but instead in terms of how well they can supress it to make it more closely mimic the work of human artists. So all advancement in the tech is geared towards progressively getting rid of the things I find artistically interesting about the medium instead of towards leaning into them as strengths that give it a unique, artistically worthwile style.
Like, I don't think AI art is inherently "soulless" or devoid of artistic merit, but I do think the focus on trying to make it increasingly indistinguishable from art produced by humans strips away the things that gave it artistic merit to me. This thing can produce imagery that is weird and wild and hard for us to even conceive but the profit motive's tendency towards rewarding homogenization has neutered that to turn it into a factory of increasingly bland, generic, serviceable imagery.
The problem I have with AI art now, outside of any arguments about intellectual property, effort, or "creepiness," is that its success is still measured by whether it can pass as fully human-made . AI art was most compelling to me when it was more imperfect--that picture that confused a prompt of salmon in a river with salmon meat, those hazy dreamscapes generated by neural blender. Art movements are often informed by technological breakthroughs, and the possibilities and limits of a new medium--see the ability to paint outdoors and impressionism, or acrylic paints and post painterly abstraction. The medium is the message. I just wish more people making or consuming AI art viewed the limits of the medium and the mistranslations between human minds and algorithms as something to work with and explore, rather than a bug to be fixed.
It's because "can this pass as human-made?" is key to "can we stop paying humans to make art?"
Honestly why haven't we invented tiny cloud producers like fog machines but for clouds yet. Ugh.
i mean this completely seriously but… a cup of coffee can save your life a little, a shower can save your life a little, making your favorite meal can save your life a little…….little things actually add up to really big things in the long run if you let them, the secret to surviving everyday is infusing a little bit of magic into the mundane i truly believe that
Frank O’Hara “Homosexuality” / Adrianne Lenker “Anything” / Trista Mateer “The dogs i have kissed” / Phoebe Bridgers “Waiting room” / Salma Deera “Letters from Medea” / Mary Oliver “Little crazy love song” / Sufjan Stevens “Cimmerian shade” / Richard Siken “I had a dream about you”
Yeah I'm 27 but everyone knows pandemic years don't count so actually I'm 24 but also being trans kills about 5 years of your life so actually I'm 19
Is it controversial to say telling anyone to kill themselves is vile. To me it's like calling someone a slur (a real slur), or being racist/sexist/bigoted in any form. It's not something you can do 'for good' even if it's against bad people. It's gross how commonly I see it all over tumblr and how lightly it's treated.
person w adhd experiencing symptoms of adhd: why the fuck can’t I do this thing . I wish there was some explanation for this
idk who needs to hear this rn but suffering is not noble. take the tylenol
One time when I was younger I was refusing to take headache medicine and my mom said “the person who invented that medicine is probably so sad you won’t let them help you” and now every time I find myself denying medicine I just imagine the saddest scientist making those big wet eyes like “why won’t you let me help” and whoop then I take the medicine
every girl should be given a 6tb hard drive for free so she can store her little collection of illegally obtained 4k ultra hd movies
I impulse bought this cat
Handsome man. What do I do with you