zlacker

>>dredmo+(OP)
I've been finding that the strangest part of discussions around art AI among technical people is the complete lack of identification or empathy: it seems to me that most computer programmers should be just as afraid as artists, in the face of technology like this!!! I am a failed artist (read, I studied painting in school and tried to make a go at being a commercial artist in animation and couldn't make the cut), and so I decided to do something easier and became a computer programmer, working for FAANG and other large companies and making absurd (to me!!) amounts of cash. In my humble estimation, making art is vastly more difficult than the huge majority of computer programming that is done. Art AI is terrifying if you want to make art for a living- and, if AI is able to do these astonishingly difficult things, why shouldn't it, with some finagling, also be able to do the dumb, simple things most programmers do for their jobs?

The lack of empathy is incredibly depressing...

>>meebob+kc
If "making art is vastly more difficult than the huge majority of computer programming that is done" - then I'm sorry, you must not be doing very difficult computer programming.

>>knight+mr
what's the most difficult art project you've produced?

Comparing these is very "apples and oranges", but I think you'd better have a strong background in both if you're gonna try.

>>NateEa+DM
I have a strong background in both and I think creating good art is worlds more difficult than writing good code. It's both technically difficult and intellectually challenging to create something that people actually want to look at. Learning technical skills like draughtsmanship is harder than learning programming because you can't just log onto a free website and start getting instant & accurate feedback on your work. I do agree that it's very apples and oranges though - creating art requires a level of intuition and emotion that's mostly absent from technical pursuits like programming, and this very distinction is both the reason technical people can be so dismissive of the arts AND the reason why I think making art is ultimately more difficult.

>>Cadmiu+gW1
This is a very strange thing to say since great art is often not technically difficult at all. Much of modern and contemporary art is like that, nevertheless the art is superb.

> Learning technical skills like draughtsmanship is harder than learning programming because you can't just log onto a free website and start getting instant & accurate feedback on your work.

Really? I sometimes wonder what people think programming really is. Not what you describe, obviously.

>>quonn+a22
I actually think a lot of modern and contemporary art is more technically difficult than it appears (though certainly not as technically difficult as making a marble sculpture or something). But fair point.

Not sure I fully understand your second point: are you implying that I don't really know what programming is?

>>Cadmiu+232
> Not sure I fully understand your second point: are you implying that I don't really know what programming is?

What search algorithms have you developed?

What non-trivial, non-Flask/Django/React, non-plugin/non-API tool, or library, or frameworks, have you written?

What actual percentage of your work output comprises computationally hard problems?

If we're talking programming, that's real programming, the kind you should be comparing 'hard' art to.

>>knight+Rj4
The majority of my career has been in back end web development so lots of work on APIs and related microservices. Judging by the tone of this comment I've probably never worked on anything that you'd consider computationally difficult. That being said, I've never sculpted something out of a block of marble or done a photorealistic painting or composed a symphony either. I'd say my technical skills are middling in both domains. I have, however, been paid for my code for the better part of a decade and I've produced decent enough work to be hired by major companies and consistently promoted. I've added useful features to platforms that many people on this forum probably use. Getting to this point in my career certainly wasn't trivial but it was much easier than getting to the point where I could produce any art that other people actually found compelling, and I still think I've only created one or two things in my life that were truly "good" art that meant something to anyone other than myself.