• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Can an AI create art?

Cheetah

Master Poster
Cheetah
Joined
Feb 4, 2010
Messages
2,934
Location
South Africa
OpenAI Dall-E:
It uses a 12-billion parameter version of the GPT-3 Transformer model to interpret natural language inputs (such as "a green leather purse shaped like a pentagon" or "an isometric view of a sad capybara") and generate corresponding images. It can create images of realistic objects ("a stained glass window with an image of a blue strawberry") as well as objects that do not exist in reality ("a cube with the texture of a porcupine"). Its name is a portmanteau of WALL-E and Salvador Dalí.
Click to expand...


Two Minute Papers explains:


A guy named Ben Barry got Dall-e to create a series of paintings of robots in different styles. He published the results in a free book:
1111101000-Robots
 
Last edited:
It depends on how you're defining art. I think most people would include "conveying a message" as part of the definition -- art is a form of communication. Therefore under that definition something can't be art if there is no intent on the part of the creator to communicate anything. Even if the message is as simple as "hey, this is interesting!" it's still a message.

Which is separate from just finding aesthetic value in something, of course, because we can do that with absolutely anything whether it's natural or created, communicating or not.
 
Well, as mentioned, the problem is that art is, per se, undefinable. Even the idea of conveying a message is hard, because the message is in the eyes of the beholder. It may be completely different from what the artist intended.

I think AI art is like pseudo-random numbers. Once generated, you really can't tell the difference.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
Well, as mentioned, the problem is that art is, per se, undefinable. Even the idea of conveying a message is hard, because the message is in the eyes of the beholder. It may be completely different from what the artist intended.

I think AI art is like pseudo-random numbers. Once generated, you really can't tell the difference.
Click to expand...

But you can tell the difference between a spider web (not art) and a really eye-catching photograph of a spider web with dewdrops on it, gleaming in the morning sunlight (art).

And you can tell the difference between a Jackson Pollock and a house-painter's drop cloth.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Well, as mentioned, the problem is that art is, per se, undefinable. Even the idea of conveying a message is hard, because the message is in the eyes of the beholder. It may be completely different from what the artist intended.
Click to expand...

It's the attempt at communication that matters, whether it succeeds or not. If I speak to you in a language you don't understand we have failed to communicate, but that doesn't make the noises I made meaningless. You're just not getting the message.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It's the attempt at communication that matters, whether it succeeds or not. If I speak to you in a language you don't understand we have failed to communicate, but that doesn't make the noises I made meaningless. You're just not getting the message.
Click to expand...

Well, but if you give me a good scolding, I will probably get the message, language notwithstanding. In fact I have always said, if you are going to chew out somebody, do it in a language YOU master; they will get the message.

As for art, one generally acknowledged characteristic is that the sender's (artist's) message might not be the one received, but as long as a message is received, it's OK.

Thus, if you behold an AI generated piece (be it painting, sculpture, music, or whatever), and feel you receive a message, it is art.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
As for art, one generally acknowledged characteristic is that the sender's (artist's) message might not be the one received, but as long as a message is received, it's OK.

Thus, if you behold an AI generated piece (be it painting, sculpture, music, or whatever), and feel you receive a message, it is art.
Click to expand...

I disagree: if the viewer imagines they are receiving a message when one is not present it won't put one there. The naive religious may seriously believe the shape of the dogwood's flowers are sending a testimonial about the Crucifixion but that doesn't mean that message is there. It's not communication unless there is an intent to convey a message. Imagining one has received a message that wasn't sent at all is something else.

In other words, mistakenly interpreting a message is quite different from mistakenly believing there is a message at all.

In the case of "AI generated art" it would hinge on exactly how I that A is, and is it trying to convey something? If not then it's not art, even if humans find the results aesthetically pleasing or even imagine it's sending messages.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I disagree: if the viewer imagines they are receiving a message when one is not present it won't put one there. The naive religious may seriously believe the shape of the dogwood's flowers are sending a testimonial about the Crucifixion but that doesn't mean that message is there. It's not communication unless there is an intent to convey a message. Imagining one has received a message that wasn't sent at all is something else.

In other words, mistakenly interpreting a message is quite different from mistakenly believing there is a message at all.

In the case of "AI generated art" it would hinge on exactly how I that A is, and is it trying to convey something? If not then it's not art, even if humans find the results aesthetically pleasing or even imagine it's sending messages.
Click to expand...

Well, that is one definition of art. Others might define it differently.

After all, even with AI, there is still a human creator somewhere.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
Well, that is one definition of art. Others might define it differently.

After all, even with AI, there is still a human creator somewhere.

Hans
Click to expand...
I don't think I would attribute AI-created art to the human programmer of the AI. There are different kinds of AI, but it's fair to say that apart from feeding it training data, the human programmer does not in any way control what the AI produces. Therefore the human cannot be described as the creator of AI-generated art.
 
I'm using the Turing Test. If you show a bunch of people a bunch of paintings and they can't reliably tell which ones are human and which ones are AI, there's nothing else to discuss.

Hell you don't even need AI. You can knock over a paint can and make a Jackson Pollock.

Or hell not even AI. Without cheating, without Googling, which of these is Composition (1990) by French painter Jean Miotte and which... was done by a chimp?

picture.php
 
Last edited:
JoeMorgue said:
I'm using the Turing Test. If you show a bunch of people a bunch of paintings and they can't reliably tell which ones are human and which ones are AI, there's nothing else to discuss.

Hell you don't even need AI. You can knock over a paint can and make a Jackson Pollock.

Or hell not even AI. Without cheating, without Googling, which of these is Composition (1990) by French painter Jean Miotte and which... was done by a chimp?

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1083&pictureid=13090[/qimg]
Click to expand...

The one on the right was done by the chimp.


(Now I'm going to go look up to see if I was right. I'm mostly confident I am.)

ETA: Congo does some pretty good work.

ETA2: In deciding whether something is art, instead of the Turing test, I would use the sofa test. Would I hang it behind my sofa?

In the case of Miotte or the chimp (Congo), both answers would be no. However, I have seen computer generated art that I could imagine hanging behind my sofa. I think AI can create art. I have never seen an AI that I thought made really good art, though. I have no intention of defining "good art". If I say it's good, then it's good.
 
Last edited:
JoeMorgue said:
I'm using the Turing Test. If you show a bunch of people a bunch of paintings and they can't reliably tell which ones are human and which ones are AI, there's nothing else to discuss.
Click to expand...

A very democratic approach, but I don't agree that art is determined by voting.

Whether a given piece of art is good or not is a separate question from whether something is art or not.

Which is still yet another separate question from "do I find this aesthetically pleasing?"
 
I just watched the video. That's art.

I conclude that an AI can generate art.

Now, can an AI know when it has generated art?

And, can the AI generate art without the human requesting it? So is it really AI generated art, or is it a human artist using the AI as a tool to generate art?

Meh....it's all philosophy and the worst kind of philosophy. The worst kind is when there's no right answer, because it all depends on definitions.

The most important thing to know is --- that program is totally cool.
 
TragicMonkey said:
A very democratic approach, but I don't agree that art is determined by voting.

Whether a given piece of art is good or not is a separate question from whether something is art or not.

Which is still yet another separate question from "do I find this aesthetically pleasing?"
Click to expand...

Double blind isn't democracy, it's just a way to determine if there's actually any difference.

And if there's no difference... we'll there's no difference.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I'm using the Turing Test. If you show a bunch of people a bunch of paintings and they can't reliably tell which ones are human and which ones are AI, there's nothing else to discuss.

Hell you don't even need AI. You can knock over a paint can and make a Jackson Pollock.

Or hell not even AI. Without cheating, without Googling, which of these is Composition (1990) by French painter Jean Miotte and which... was done by a chimp?

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1083&pictureid=13090[/qimg]
Click to expand...

This was really my point. Not to define, or make a definition of art that would include or exclude AI, but to observe that AI can create something indistinguishable from art. ... And so can a chimp.

Hans
 
I guess I just don't see the difference between "This is art and this isn't art" and "This is art and this isn't art but it's indistinguishable from art."
 
JoeMorgue said:
I guess I just don't see the difference between "This is art and this isn't art" and "This is art and this isn't art but it's indistinguishable from art."
Click to expand...

The difference between the two statements is that the first assumes that there exists an objective definition of art, whereas the latter does not.

hans
 
ETA: For clarification I am aware of the use of "That ain't X" as colloquialism for "That isn't a good X." But we all know when Cousin Bob goes "You bought a Chevy? Hell Chevies ain't real trucks!" he's not actually trying to make a philosophical debate about the the actual about the sortal taxonomic definition of a truck.
 
Last edited:
Intent does have SOME application to meaning, recently I said something to the effect of "even if they wind up the same thing in the end a failed quiche and scrambled eggs aren't exactly the same thing"

But art has always been bad, in my opinion, with the whole "It's art if you say it's art" thing and takes it to unreasonable degrees.

You define something based on intention, you can't just declare something based on intention.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom