"AI Art" as a medium arguement

[Zombiethederg]

So before you come at me with pitchforks and torches, please know I am vehemently against AI Art in every respect. You would not catch me defending it with a 1 million foot pole. BUT I am very near alot of people who like to pretend their artists using it, and I notice an argument come up quite often.

Barring any of the stupid ones, an argument consistently comes up with these people that what AI Art is is a medium. They claim that the prompting of generators such as this is an art form in of itself, and people arguing their art is invalid are insulting a medium of art, and their argument is reductive due to this.

I have my own (likely obvious) opinions on this argument, but what do you all think? Is it valid to call it a "Medium"? Does this argument hold any water?

Edit: haha WOW okay I really did not expect this one to get this out of hand!! Im going to just read responses here for now but these are all very interesting!!! dearly sorry aldksjbfalksdjbf 

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Hihi  .
I hope this doesn't go to far off.

Try to consider AI to be a tool to create a medium. Example: You use it to create a text to write a book; create a image; etc; since the AI isn't "in" the created medium once it is done, it seems like a legitimate perspective. You can still consider the usage of this tool as a form of art - I wouldn't disagree. Lets see two - in my opinion interesting - examples of artworks that try to utilize AI:

Oneohtrix Point Never attempted to use generative models to create sounds, and his results are not boring. But I preferred his more affective output of earlier days:

Another piece of art that - as far as I'm concerned,successfully - used AI generated stuff is the game "Shell Song". It installs a "lense" to break the generated stuff by its story.

Both examples put in a lot of work beneath the AI stuff, that is only a fragment of the whole thing; but this tiny fragment can do a lot, and surely changes the essence of the whole thing.

I think the reasons for this are that:

a) The generative AI is a piece of art in itself. Once you use it, you make yourself to a part of the developers art project. You need some way to distance yourself, break the art project of the developers if you want to make your own thing.

b) Even if you attempt this, it is hard. The amount of work and energy that is included in the algorithm and the "models" (both are, in the end, transformed work) weigh heavy, so that your own work will - in the end - be a rather small touch. You need to work very effective to make your own touches matter in a meaningful way. This is difficult!

So, it seems that a AI generated piece of art always inescapably has the "imprint" of being created by AI, making it a medium in its own. We can apply good old McLuhan and say that the medium is the message, and the message is the replacing of human creativity, creating joblessness, environmental destruction, and even worse. And we are right with it!

But at the same time, all of this only comes to bear if the viewer knows that the art they are viewing is AI art! Assume I'd create a exact copy of the Mona Lisa using a AI generator, and replace the original in Paris without anyone knowing. All the people would stand in front of it, thinking they would see the original thing, enjoying its artiness, history, gravitas (aura) - and since the whole complex isn't loaded in, all of the above wouldn't apply anymore, and AI isn't a medium in itself anymore. As the tools improve and the usage increases, this will happen more and more - as viewers will "consume" AI "art" without knowing it. At the same time, a doubt will fall on every form of art for the viewer sensitive about it, and infecting it with the AI discussion: is it AI, bearing all the negative things associated with it? Can the creator who says it isn't be trusted? Could the AI do the same? Does this matter?

At the end, everything above the plain materialist level is constructed. AI art is a medium if we consider it one (and we can't do anything but doing so as soon as we are aware). It is none if we consider it as none. And it certainly doesn't matter, if you ask me.

That being said, I've yet to see a piece of interesting art created with a prompt and a generative AI; it certainly is possible, though.

[xixxii]

i think if someone makes something and considers it art, or if someone sees something and considers it art, then it is art!
nobody can decide on someone else's behalf whether or not they felt artistic fulfillment from something. there are people who feel inspired, creative, and/or artistically fulfilled when engaging with image-generating AI and the stuff it makes; therefore it is a medium for making art.
i do not personally feel artistically fulfilled by cooking food, but that doesn't make that universally true, and it doesn't make cooking not an art form.

i think a lot of people tend to assume that "art" is inherently morally good and therefore anything they consider morally bad is "not art" - so, if image generators are bad, that means the things they make can't be "art."
i think that's reductive and, honestly, a pretty bad way to approach art!

art can be bad, ugly, boring, lazily-made, thoughtless, produced under unethical conditions, soulless, stolen, or whatever other complaints people have, but that doesn't make it no longer art!

[grubbyfox]

I try not to discuss AI "art" because I am not so well informed as I could be to have any meaningful to say. I dislike AI for what it's doing - gathering information and training on it without permission, using TONS of resources/energy on it, when we need to...uh, NOT be doing that the way things are now. And that it literally takes away jobs and such from creative people.

That being said, I do actually enjoy a few AI content creators on IG. Mostly, they just use Midjourney (I think) to create beautiful rooms, like "a pink 80s bathroom" type stuff...it's just inspiring to see beautiful homes I can never afford, but I might build in Sims, lol. I wouldn't miss this content if it was removed, though. And there are others I follow that actually post scans from magazines where people actually posted images like that, for home decor inspirations. And you could ask, if someone did the prompt - and I saw it and was inspired by it - does that not make it true art?

I also enjoy a few "funny" AI stuff, like those who make cartoon characters sing a cover of a song, and makes it sound actually good. And lately I've been laughing at those who do the prompts where they make an AI "continue" the video/image of a classic meme and then it always just turns into some hellish nightmare ... and somehow the AI always makes the people in the videos run away, which is just so comical, because why? xD What are they escaping from?

As a side note, there was a firm here that dealt with transcribing court cases that were pretty heinous in topics. I knew someone who worked there and they couldn't say anything obviously, but they said that while transcribing, you had to have a pretty strong stomach/keep your head cool, because you would have to sit for hours and listen to these cases involving really messed up things. And it did of course affect them. But it was a fairly OK paid job, good hours and overall good work place. They closed down this year, as AI had completely taken over now. Is it better to have people not having to sit through these transcripts about the most awful crap ever? Sure..... but they lost their job, a pretty good job, so... :|

Anyway, so yeah, it's difficult. I dislike a lot of what AI is doing and how its doing it, but AI can help us in a lot of ways too.

[zawieja]

Hmm, to consider something a medium, it needs to be used to make art. And whether AI generated images are art is a controversial in itself  For me, the current status is that it could be used to make art, but is too much uncontrolled to really consider it that - for now. Nothing regarding the copyright law with it being trained on people who did not consent for it is yet cleared.

We've already had art forms that already used existing art in one way another, for example, photomanipulation or collages. The difference is that those a) still need to be carefully thought of in terms of lightning, composition, colors, or even the message you want to convey b) need to use legally obtained sources

The big majority of AI generated images are just that - pretty images. The machine does the most of the artistic process.

Yes, some people do direct the machine towards specific colors, style, composition - but they still don't quite control the output, the machine does based on what it knows other people to do. If the machine doesn't have the data for the vision you have, it will just get confused. So - is there really that much involvement on the prompter side? Does it really make something unique like the true art should be?

These are just my thoughts regarding the subject. I don't like AI trend, but I'm still trying to stay positive that it will all be sorted out and legally trained databases become a helpful tool - or even a medium if someone wants to consider it that

[xixxii]

We've already had art forms that already used existing art in one way another, for example, photomanipulation or collages. The difference is that those a) still need to be carefully thought of in terms of lightning, composition, colors, or even the message you want to convey b) need to use legally obtained sources

so for you, legality plays a role in whether or not a thing is "art"? that's very interesting!  could you expand on that some more? is it just copyright infringement that's a factor for you, or do other laws about speech/content play a role as well?

[zawieja]

so for you, legality plays a role in whether or not a thing is "art"? that's very interesting!  could you expand on that some more? is it just copyright infringement that's a factor for you, or do other laws about speech/content play a role as well?

I guess I just feel like it's a pretty big factor in all the controversy around the subject    I wouldn't call a traced drawing "art" either. there is no artistic process behind it other than grabbing a pencil and tracing the lines. all it says about a person is that they don't care about the artist they traced from.


now, redrawing something different, since you need some knowledge and an art process for it. you can express yourself with strokes, your interpretation of the image... or with the medium you used.

using AI trained without consent is kind of like expressing "i don't care about other artists" and that's about it for me. kind of subjective, but i can't help it    maybe if it were legal, i would at least be able to stop and think about what the prompter wanted to convey with it. but not only the majority of them don't want to think about what they are creating, but also the 'artistic process' part is still dubious.


ultimately, art is a process of expressing yourself. using ai severely limits you in that.

hopefully that makes sense - i'm just a simple person, and i don't know much about other laws as well  although I used to do graffiti art I suppose, which is illegal, so there is that, buuut there is also a fine line between vandalism and street art as well. Not many would consider vandalised living places an art, so yeah, I think consent and law plays a big role in how you are viewed. Are you an artist, a vandal, or a thief? Depends often on who you ask.

[BlackMageGaming]

When I was finishing High School, and coincidentally when AI was on the rise in public eye, I had read DUNE by Frank Herbert. One quote that always stuck with me from that novel was:
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
In the DUNE franchise, AI dumbed down humans, making them dependent on their "tools". Which led to AI taking over humanity until humans would eventually rise up. (Read DUNE: The Butlerian Jihad for more information)
This is why I'm against AI, because I don't see it as a tool, I see it as a dependency. AI takes other pieces of art it has in its database and essentially mashes them together until it creates something legible. One could argue that humans do this too, but I feel like that dehumanizes art, as real art is more than the sum of its inspirations.

About a year ago, I had take a class about social media, and we would debate if social media was a medium for different medias, whether it be videos, art, or even text. Now, this might just be my interpretation of mediums in general, but I consider a medium as the way a certain piece of media is presented in its given case. A museum has its physical paintings, a book has its stories, a TV has shows, etc. We would come to the conclusion that social media can be a medium, I used different interactive media as my example, essentially letting the audience have a direct influence on how art is created. AI isn't exactly presenting its own art, and the closest thing I can consider it being is a tool, but everybody I know that uses AI in any serious manner is a tool.

So I don't think AI art can be considered a "medium".
But, this is just what I believe. Maybe I interpreted the question wrong! I am biased.

Edit: When I say AI in this post, I mean generative AI.

[bugholder's epiphany]

I do not consider AI art to be a medium. It lacks the things that people put into art with time, effort, energy, love, and all that, and just gives a manufactured milqetoast end result. A medium would imply any of those were spent into the creation of AI art.

Sidenote, I think calling it an "AI" is a terrible misdemeanor. The actual term is "Large Language Models", and it's effectively just super autocomplete. There's no actual sentience to it.

[xixxii]

I do not consider AI art to be a medium. It lacks the things that people put into art with time, effort, energy, love, and all that, and just gives a manufactured milqetoast end result. A medium would imply any of those were spent into the creation of AI art.

oh, this one's also interesting! is something only art if it has time AND effort AND energy AND love put into it, for you, or does it only need some of the four? someone can put time, love, and energy into fiddling around with an image generator, after all, even if it's not actually taking much/any effort; but it's also the case that lots of famous works that we call "art" - especially historically - were not imbued with much love, just time and effort and energy!

[bugholder's epiphany]

oh, this one's also interesting! is something only art if it has time AND effort AND energy AND love put into it, for you, or does it only need some of the four? someone can put time, love, and energy into fiddling around with an image generator, after all, even if it's not actually taking much/any effort; but it's also the case that lots of famous works that we call "art" - especially historically - were not imbued with much love, just time and effort and energy!

I like to think that all four are an important aspect, but you do have a point on that, and in some cases there may not've been a mix of all four things. Although yeah i'll conceed that love may not've been put into some art historically, I feel like there's a distinct difference in typing in a prompt and generating a couple of hundred images and trying to find the one that looks the least bad VS pouring your time into making art yourself.

Something else I neglected to mention in my original post that I just remembered, though, is that the tools for making 'AI' content is only going to get more expensive as the costs rise for hardware and maintaining said hardware. Which I imagine at some point isn't going to be sustainable.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

oh, this one's also interesting! is something only art if it has time AND effort AND energy AND love put into it, for you, or does it only need some of the four? someone can put time, love, and energy into fiddling around with an image generator, after all, even if it's not actually taking much/any effort; but it's also the case that lots of famous works that we call "art" - especially historically - were not imbued with much love, just time and effort and energy!

Or, when it comes to modern art - maybe with love, but certainly not with much time, effort, or energy:


The thing is, xixxii, that all art definitions are subjective, or, if they aren't, comprehensive. While I stick to the latter (as you seemingly do, too), this is just as subjective, and not more true than "I think only portraits of girls in front of elevators are art", since the term art is - in the end - meaningless (especially if you use it as comprehensive term). Or not?
Is there much sense in discussing this again? Do you think that AI art is a medium in itself (rather than just one for creating art)?

edit: Cleared the post up a bit. Hope that came in time ;)

[Zombiethederg]

i think if someone makes something and considers it art, or if someone sees something and considers it art, then it is art!
nobody can decide on someone else's behalf whether or not they felt artistic fulfillment from something. there are people who feel inspired, creative, and/or artistically fulfilled when engaging with image-generating AI and the stuff it makes; therefore it is a medium for making art.
i do not personally feel artistically fulfilled by cooking food, but that doesn't make that universally true, and it doesn't make cooking not an art form.

I really hope your just trying to be objective, ive seen multiple replies like this and im not gonna lie im not liking what im seeing, as it seems like your defending it.

I didn't want to state my reasons in order for things to stay unbiased but I guess i'll have to put mine foot forward. So i'll state now and out in the open and say that I despise AI art with my whole chest. That being said...

While I will take your stance to a degree, I dont disagree AI art isnt a medium. By all definition, AI Art is a medium. But that's the keyword: definition.

AI Art is a medium, but whether it is a good medium is ultimately a different question. This medium (as it currently stands) runs and feed off of stolen artwork, with no actual generation occurring. The "generation" that occurs is based off of several stolen artworks that have been stolen. Works that have been scalped from the internet and morphed into mechanical madness that spews out colors and shapes that resembles art of a humans.

i think a lot of people tend to assume that "art" is inherently morally good and therefore anything they consider morally bad is "not art" - so, if image generators are bad, that means the things they make can't be "art."
i think that's reductive and, honestly, a pretty bad way to approach art!

art can be bad, ugly, boring, lazily-made, thoughtless, produced under unethical conditions, soulless, stolen, or whatever other complaints people have, but that doesn't make it no longer art!

When you say this, a question comes to my mind. Can you name any examples of good art that was created unethically, lazily, and thoughtlessly? Stolen and soulless? Sure, bad, ugly and boring are appropriate descriptors of things that can be art. Cruelty Squad, one of my favorite pieces of art, is a great example of that (except for the boring part).

When we say something is "art" we are not referring to the fact it exists. We are referring to the process. Painting is an art. Photography is an art. The human toils, the hours spent, the tears cried, the paper torn. We are not referring to the product of art, the painting in front of us or the photo of a cliffside.

If I came up to you and said I painted a red sunset by typing some words in and clicking a button for 5 minutes, your first reaction would probably be "that's not art." Which is natural. The process is dull. Easy. Not art.

Personally, I think your wrong. I think if the process of creating art involves stealing, laziness, thoughtfulness, and soullessness, its not art. I don't think its reductive to think that way either. Art is meant to be enjoyed at the end of the day. How can I enjoy art if I know the water and power drained from the land that made this pointless piece? How am I able to view it and enjoy it knowing the countless artists who had their style ripped, stolen, torn apart, and put back together again to make it?

You could depict me being brutally murdered with the most beautiful brush strokes, style, and colors, and I'd enjoy it. If it was made with an AI art generator, I cannot enjoy it nor call it art. Just the meshing's of a computer slapping together things that work.

so for you, legality plays a role in whether or not a thing is "art"? that's very interesting!  could you expand on that some more? is it just copyright infringement that's a factor for you, or do other laws about speech/content play a role as well?

I dont have anything to say with this one really since you were asking a question but i'll just respond with "yea. I do need an art piece to be made legally in order to consider it art." lol

oh, this one's also interesting! is something only art if it has time AND effort AND energy AND love put into it, for you, or does it only need some of the four? someone can put time, love, and energy into fiddling around with an image generator, after all, even if it's not actually taking much/any effort; but it's also the case that lots of famous works that we call "art" - especially historically - were not imbued with much love, just time and effort and energy!

This is a rough one. I think a GOOD art piece needs all 4 of these things. I think a bad art piece has none of these things. But these aren't things you can put to scale, which makes them hard to argue for AI art as a medium.

AI Art cuts out 2 of these things. Time and Energy. (Well. Specifically it cuts out the need for YOU to use energy but you get what I mean.) So then that raises a question of "do we count AI Art as a separate thing since it technically cuts out 2 components of art?". But that would also require us to quantify how much Effort and Love is required to make an art piece.

I think is hard to quantify ANY of these things, or how much is required to make art. BUT I think what we can say is that an art piece shouldn't remove the ability to use these things. A piece of art should try to have some of these things, but for a piece of art to not REQUIRE some of these things, I think, doesn't make it a piece of art.

Time can help you realize mistakes in a piece, it can help you ruminate and learn and become inspired in order to create a piece of art. You can watch as an art piece grows and changes, morphing into something completely different as time goes on. AI Art removes that, keeping the same style and shape unless you tell it something different, and AI art does not shape naturally overtime as if by human hand.

Energy can make you feel more satisfied about a piece, after spending grueling amounts of hours, days, or even months on a piece can make it more powerful, with real, quantifiable chunks of a persons life spent working on a piece can show its worth. AI Art takes it away, with only the energy needed to type a few words being required.

So all in all, AI Art isnt Art. It is AI Art. Sounds obvious but I think you get what I mean.

[garystu]

AI art is a Tool. The medium is Digital Art. AI generated art is also Art. It is often bad art, but still art.

I think a lot of ai art is slop and audiences should demand better. I'm not loving it. but I will mention some faves at the end!!!


Art has a contextual definition, which has been poked and exploded over the past 100+ of art discourse. There is no world in which performance art, concept art, derivative art, remix culture are all art but AI isn't.

Stealing, laziness, thoughtfulness, and soullessness? Hey, I thought Disney movies were considered art! (Ba-dum Tiss)

Some great art is made very quickly. How long did "Take The Money And Run" take to make? Doesn't matter.

The labor theory of value has been incredibly challenged by art over the years. It makes people throw up their hands and sigh: Art and capital are just incompatible.


I also strongly disagree that AI is stealing (and/or plagurism or something). Data scraping is a good thing, data scraping powers so many good parts of the web. Copying is not theft. Derivative and remix art is not theft. Collage is not theft, and AI is not collage. AI datasets don't contain the images they were trained from. Dataset training is Fair Use, and Fair Use is officially not stealing. Any want to further weaken Fair Use is scary to me. Derivative art is already so suffocated, and it would be devastating if it were crushed more.

I do not like corperate controlled AI and prefer open source AI, largely due to other moral principles. I also agree with criticisms that OpenAI and other tech companies are committing openwashing.

Deeply Artificial Trees, from back when it was called Deep Learning. The tech is significantly different, but I think I'm right in saying it's still in forerunner to modern AI tech. Part of the evolution tree...

Peter Gabriel's AI generated music videos are far from my favourites of his, but I think it makes a strong aesthetic case for AI itself. images blending in strange ways emphasising a song about how all things are connected.

AI Wizards got pretty popular.

I kind of love Shrimp Jesus/Weird Facebook AI shit? Its all bad and baffling. Every horrible, awful, rancid, grotesque part of AI distilled into one ugly package. But in a way I find its transparent horror compelling? It sucks deeply, but in a way I'm obsessed with.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

AI art is a Tool. The medium is Digital Art.

Wouldn't you agree that a image made with a pencil is inherently different from one made with a brush?
Also, if I take a AI generated image and print it, is it still digital art? ;)