Because tons of people want to make art, and a lot of art currently requires years of training to make anything close to "good". Making art more accessible to create is a boon to everyone who's dreamed of being able to make their own paintings and music, but doesn't have the skills required.

Everyone asked for this, including artists. If you make a living off of making art, having the best tools to help you do that is a constant, and the tools are finally starting to get properly good. Will "the job" change because of the tools? Of course. Will the nature of what it means for something to be art change? Also of course. Art isn't some static, untouchable thing. It changes as humanity does.

Actually I agree with you, but HN is not really a place where you will find artists defending themselves. However you will find alot of people defending the automation of art. Generative art has it's place. But ultimately until humans are extinct, human generated art is the only thing which really represents the species. Everything else is an advanced form of puppetry or mimicry.

I would say it's not "generated," but interpolated...

It doesn't make anything new or fresh. It doesn't pull any real-life emotions or experiences into a synthesis that a person can relate to. It's more like asking a teenaged comedian to imitate numerous impressions of music styles. e.g. in Clerks when the Russian guy does "metal": https://youtu.be/7gFoHkkCaRE?t=55

Of course the modern conception of music in the West is as an accompaniment to other, mostly drudging, activities, as opposed to something to be paid singularly attention. Therefore, there are many "valuable"(*) occasions to produce "impressions" of music. E.g. in advertisements and social media flexes where identity and attitude are the purpose of music. For these, a shallow interpretation or reflection of loosely amalgamated sound clips will suffice. But we don't just attend concerts or focus sustained energy on sonic impressions. We listen to lyrics and give over our consciousness to composed works because we want to find secrets others give away in dealing with this crazy thing called life- ideas to succeed, admissions of failure, and what the expected emotional arcs of these trajectories looks like. This lofty goal is to date not within the scope of AI stunts.

As Solzheinetysn said, "Too much art is like candy and not bread."

Because art is the low hanging fruit of "close enough" applications.

You can't automate a live performance or an oil painting with AI in this way. This isn't going to replace musicians and artists. If anything, I think a preponderance of AI art would make people appreciate the real stuff more.

As to why, music is fun to create, and this is just a tool.

> Who asked for this?

I did.

> The future seems depressing when I look at all this AI generated art.

You should talk about your concerns with an AI psychotherapist.

We're not automating art, we're creating tools that make it easier for humans to create art. These are nothing more than new and exciting tools. The cream will still rise to the top, same as it ever was.