What are your thoughts on using AI for web design?

[schlime9k]

What I argue is: The more complex your tool/media is, the less is your ability to take influence, while the influx of the medium increases

If you're saying "the more complex the medium is, the less creative control you have" then I disagree hard. Are the Beatles less creative than Beethoven because they had access to Multi-track recording, microphones, synths, mixing consoles and audio editing technologies? No, in fact, all those expanded the range of ways they can be creative because they had more control over their artistry.

The same can't be said for generative AI because it's more simple. I think the real question is not "does complexity reduce creative freedom?" but instead "How much of a tool is being delegated creative freedom, and how much is too much when it comes to art?". Now, you are saying that, and I agree that is a topic that needs to be discussed further in order to come to a proper answer. But I think you're just too hung up on the "complex tool" idea.

This is the last I'll comment here, I think we've both said our pieces here nicely, so I'll leave it here. Also I've searched up the digital art stuff, it only came up with post-AI topics so I'll have to refine my search to like 2022-2021. Thanks.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

If you're saying "the more complex the medium is, the less creative control you have" then I disagree hard. Are the Beatles less creative than Beethoven because they had access to Multi-track recording, microphones, synths, mixing consoles and audio editing technologies? No, in fact, all those expanded the range of ways they can be creative because they had more control over their artistry.

I'd argue that Beethoven had more creative freedom - especially if you consider that he only used paper and pen to compose. In fact, he had so much freedom that some of his compositions weren't able to exist in the real world for quite some time. The medium is so free that it would have - theoretically - allowed him to compose like Avo Pärt as well as Penny Lane or Within You Without You; however, since he missed the instruments and tools, there is a low chance that he would have been directed to doing something like it.

The Beatles were highly dependent of their technique, and their individual skills - many songs were written with one of their members as singer in mind, to give an example. They used what they had masterfully, but it locked them out of even sounding like a band with a slightly different setup (lets say: The Velvet Underground) - the sound of a rock band is formed a lot by their technical equipment and their production, and many things can't be done with it, while a certain sound is rather easy to produce with it.

We can stop here - however, I want to say that this approach to see media works out in the end, while I believe that most others will entangle in discrepancies.

[Lyonid]

I have tried using AI on my work, and I found it dull and unappealing – especially for anything more expressive. People are using it though, and they may not be as informed about it as some may think. I am happy to see people knowing about the catastrophe that is any LLM, and taking action, no points. If someone attacks people over non-malicious AI use, then they are making the fight more difficult for anyone, I believe. That is all.

Really fun theory that I have been thinking about in this context tho!! David Pye in 1968 was thinking about how we attribute value to pieces of creative media based on the medium. He described "workmanship of risk" as the art people would be most impressed by, basically, the more things can go wrong, the more impressive it is that they made it work. A dull photograph becomes impressive when an artist has drawn it realistically with a pencil, basically. Or, you manage to translate whatever was on your mind to an oil painting, and people thought "damn that is neat." The opposite, the "workmanship of certainty" to him was stuff like any printing technique. It was pretty easy to be certain about the print turning out the way it did. Both ways of creating are legitimate as they all have purpose for various reasons, obviously, but now this is being put to the test very heavily. A printer is obviously not on the same level as the most demanding technology in the world (even though it's probably more useful and quite a bit less predatory ). If you give the chatbot zero to no guidelines, you also are probably very much uncertain about the outcome, rendering the artistic process very questionable. So taking it from an artistic perspective, I think that employing AI for your web design, in my eyes, just leaves you as someone who wanted to create something that you know will probably work out just fine. You didn't fail at any stage, and that is all there is to say about it! If people ask you about your process, you will probably not be able to say more than one sentence about it. If you're fine with people thinking about your work that way, no one can really stop you from using it. I personally click away an obvious AI-generated website very quickly.