Despite trying I have never found a satisfactory definition of Art that would encompass elements that are both necessary and sufficient and to which no exception can be found. Until the last 150 years most definitions were based in some concept of beauty or other aesthetic value, but such definitions have been abandoned in large part due to so called ready-mades, the most famous of which is Duchamp’s Fountain, and to Warhol’s pop art Brillo Boxes, which have gained entry into the western artistic canon. In the 1960’s Arthur Danto, a philosophy professor at Columbia University and, for many years the art critic of The Nation, put forward a notion that Art is what the so called Art World says it is, which became known as the institutional theory of art.
You caught the tail of the tiger with the word "meaning," Rick. Art is art because of its meaning, and there is no "meaning" for AI, at least in the sense of meaning as nature intended, "red in tooth and claw" (to quote Tennyson). The proximity of the human to his or her art is what matters to me. GPT4 is a crutch, a brilliant imitative crutch, that can fuse schools of art at a human's whim to produce something apparently "new." But it is neither new nor felt. Art derives directly from human meaning in its peculiar uniqueness and nothing else. There may be beauty that hails from other sources (a natural bridge or a nebula), but that is not human art.
AI art is really no different from any other, except that the agent used to create it is a computer program and not a brush , stick, camera, or urinal fasctory. All art is created by artists using the tools they choose.
Enter the right keywords and a truly profound work may be generated. The keywords will probably be part of the piece, imbuing meaning and concept.
Thanks Rick for this nice post on a topic I find very interesting. I played around with the GPT3 open AI software and also created a few pictures either by using key words or by pasting poems I like. The results were pretty amazing and I think there is always a human intention involved
You caught the tail of the tiger with the word "meaning," Rick. Art is art because of its meaning, and there is no "meaning" for AI, at least in the sense of meaning as nature intended, "red in tooth and claw" (to quote Tennyson). The proximity of the human to his or her art is what matters to me. GPT4 is a crutch, a brilliant imitative crutch, that can fuse schools of art at a human's whim to produce something apparently "new." But it is neither new nor felt. Art derives directly from human meaning in its peculiar uniqueness and nothing else. There may be beauty that hails from other sources (a natural bridge or a nebula), but that is not human art.
So, is art is like poetry in both standing on its own but allowing a great deal of subjectivity?
AI art is really no different from any other, except that the agent used to create it is a computer program and not a brush , stick, camera, or urinal fasctory. All art is created by artists using the tools they choose.
Enter the right keywords and a truly profound work may be generated. The keywords will probably be part of the piece, imbuing meaning and concept.
Thanks Rick for this nice post on a topic I find very interesting. I played around with the GPT3 open AI software and also created a few pictures either by using key words or by pasting poems I like. The results were pretty amazing and I think there is always a human intention involved