zlacker

These are not artists being inspired by the works of other artists, these are programmers taking the work of artists and then claiming to create original works when in fact they are automatically generated derivatives.

Try telling one of the programmers to produce a work of art based on a review of all of the works that went into training the models and see how it works out.

>>jacque+(OP)
What distinguishes a derivative from an original work? What is it about AI-generated art which makes it so clearly derivative, in your mind?

>>brian_+I9
That the process is automated. That is one of the important tests of originality, that something is not created in a mechanical fashion.

>>jacque+(OP)
Modern artists use photoshop and benefit from a lot of computational tools already. There isn’t much difference between a computational or AI-assisted tool such as a “paint style digital brush” or “inpainting” and a tool such as a physical brush, paint knife, or toothbrush when used by the artist to achieve an effect. There is no universal rule that says only me mechanically made art is real art. Collage artists who literally copy and paste other people’s photos are also making art. In fact Photoshop already incorporates many AI assisted tools to add to the artist’s repertoire, and being able to generate unique images from a statistical merging of all the art styles online is just another tool in this fashion. Automation is the foundation of all our progress, as it is just the enhancement of another tool that replaces our hands and makes them bigger (metaphorically) so that we can build bigger and better things constantly.

Ok so now many more people can generate cool looking photos now in an automatic fashion. So what? It just means we’ve raised the bar… for what can be considered cool.

>>jacque+we
> that something is not created in a mechanical fashion.

I wonder if the nerds have shot themselves in the foot here with terminology? I suspect the nerd’s lawyers would have been much happier if the entire field was named “automated mechanical creativity” instead of “artificial intelligence”. It’d be kinda amusing to see the whole field of study lose in court because of their own persistent claims that what they’re doing is not just “creating in a mechanical fashion” but creating “intelligence” which can therefore be held to account for copyright infringement. Shades of Al Capone getting busted for taxes…

>>jacque+we
I submit that human artists are, at the most fundamental level, no less "mechanical". They're just more complex.

Also, should a human artist creating a pastiche count as copyright infringement as well?

>>bigiai+gh
Good point, I had not thought of that, but terminology really matters with stuff like this and you may well be right.

>>jacque+(OP)
Your division of 'artists' and 'programmers' into separate tribes is almost too telling.