Comment by 40acres | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 40acres | Hacker News Reader

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I think there are (at least) two parts to evaluating a creative product. The aesthetics and the context around it. I think AI will do a wonderful job of generating aesthetically pleasing art, but could an AI generate something like Guernica? when you look at Guernica you can feel the pain and trauma behind it, when you learn that Picasso was compelled to create it after Guernica was firebombed it adds something special to the final product.

At it's current state I have doubts about AI's ability to create new movements in art as well, a lot of the AI floating around there is very good at "coloring within the lines". If I watch a video of NFL highlights on YouTube I will be recommended more NFL highlights, where is the discovery? A fundamental challenge for AI art is can it create new genres. Could an AI create Jazz? How about Hip-Hop which has some Jazz elements. Could an AI create cubism? Guess we'll have to see.

You could feed a machine with context, on top of feeding it with existing imagery, or any kind of additional data you can imagine. A more sophisticated version could scrape a certain amount of "drama" for instance. Input from different news sources could be programmed to affect art style. You could enable artistic "moods" based on a set of random parameters. Each new source of data would affect its ability to generate new content. Given the fluctuating definition of art, I see no reason why AI wouldn't be able to generate original artworks in the future and trigger human emotions in the process. A new machine-generated artistic movement sounds much more complex but may well happen further down the line.

I fully agree. I believe that AI will be used in the future to pump out aesthetically pleasing, but "meaningless" art. The type of art that would be hung on a living room wall to bring the room together.

I am skeptical how much art by AIs will actually feature in museums and exhibits. High-caliber art is very reliant on its emotional context and the message that the artist is trying to convey with the piece. However, I could see AI art featuring when an artist invents a new algorithm or new AI-based technique. Again, going back to the context of the artist and the piece itself.

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