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Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

Except this is not "Art" with a capital "A", it is pretty imagery, with an interesting backstory. The technology is fantastic, but do not get carried away - this is in no way "Art" in the same way human constructions in a museum is Art.

Art is a human expression of an aspect of life, a human reflecting this aspect of life in a manner betraying a comprehension only possible with the emotions and understanding of a human facing our complex society, their limited frame of reference, and describing their situation through the mediums we call "Art".

Art is not pretty pictures. Art is a complex, multi-dimensional communication medium between highly complex, self aware, comprehending entities. AI and AI generated "art" has none of these qualities. These are pretty pictures with an interesting technological backstory. They may be sold as art to unaware consumers, but they are less "art" than a bikini girl poster.

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It seems more like mimicry to me than actual “creativity”; although I am pretty certain there will be a whole trend of artists doing this for the next ten years and we will get someone really big out of it. It could be someone like Andy Warhol who would democratise the “fine” art and not just pop art? For example, imagine a combination of 3D printers with brushes and deep learning inspired paintings? These will not be as unique as the original inspirations for these paintings; however they would be a cheap alternative to what you can only get as a very cheap looking art print.

I am in no way saying they will not be popular with consumers, these curated AI constructions; nor am I saying the people behind them will not hire PR agencies to promote them and their work as serious Art. It is curation that carries any human expression within them, and not the generative AI art's idiot savant pooping output.

The most fascinating thing about these programs is the undeniably imaginative, dreamlike nature of the output. Spend time actually using them and you will be continually surprised and engaged. Any human nuance you can interpret visually can be generated.

There is a high level of similarity with the mechanism human brains use to visualize things. This makes sense, because the neural networks are being trained to approximate that very function.

The output of these programs is not mimicry any more than the output of a human artist is. It's just more limited in the computational power available to the algorithm. The space of these generative expressions is vast, and significantly overlaps the space of art humans are able to produce.

Moore's law and algorithmic improvements will inevitably expand the capability of software to produce art to such an extent that all "human" capacities will be exceeded, for any and all metrics and nuances you can imagine.

Ernst gombrich (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Gombrich ) talked about a “motif in the artists’ inner world” in relation to art creation. There is not an inner world to be represented in the case of the Ai creations.

There is no distinction of art with a capital A versus with a little a.

I agree that there will be challenges to broad respect of this creation process and result, but I can see communities gathering around specific personalities no matter what they create.

Similarly, the public will likely be moved by stories, perhaps even some artists will create new poetry specifically for to generating an image where the poetry itself moves the audience too.

But the distinctions you have created are not a relevant way of articulating this path.

It's a different sophisticated and mysterious brush for a human artist to use - but the AI is not generating any art. The human curating the AI's output through their lens of human experience is the Art.

That's like saying it's not the painter generating any Art, the gallery curating the art through their lens of critical artistic appreciation is the Art.

No, a human behind the brush is significantly different than an algorithm. The human operating the brush "curates" what to create in themselves, the artistic creative process. But, at the same time, many an art gallery is known through their curation more than the specific artists they carry at any given moment. This is similar to the fame of the classic club DJ - their curation of what to play when is the cause for a club's popularity, and not just a listing of the songs played, in alphabetical order. Art is collaborative, even when performed by a single artist. Art is a communication. Algorithms generating images are not communications, unless the developer behind the algorithm is trying to operate "their brush" for specific image creations the artist imagines in their head and is using algorithms in place of a brush because they are that artistically technically sophisticated.

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