This newsletter is for those craving art talks, daily life philosophers, and the bored. Every two weeks!
✦ art + not art
How are we dealing with this (not well)
In the midst of AI dread, one of the most common questions I have been hearing is “What makes human art?”. Everyone wants to know what distinguishes our hand-crafted art from the generated AI art, because not having a distinction feels like defeat. I’m not sure I agree that it indeed is defeat, but I will leave this contemplation for the end of this little essay.
The most prominent answer I’ve been hearing is “experiences”. AI supposedly can not make art that reflects a specific human experience, because it has none. But what does reflecting a human experience in art mean? That I draw a scene of something that happened to me? AI never felt menstruation cramps so it can’t make a drawing about it? It never cried, so it can’t depict a crying person? Objectively, it of course can. The person inputting the prompts just needs to, well, input that prompt. If the person creating the prompt wants to depict their deepest moments of melancholy through a sad portrait, it will tell the AI to do so, somehow. I think here people will argue that it can generate an image of a crying person, but it will feel empty and meaningless. But then again, does every drawing of a crying person made by a human feel meaningful? Are all those cute girl drawings on instagram meaningful? Transmitting some deep human philosophical thought? An intense emotion that changes your life? No. And that is fine - I don’t think art is justified by its meaningfulness. If someone finds joy in drawing a cute girl, that is enough justification.
But wait - does that mean human art is defined by the joy the artist has while making it? No, because I’m sure you know that many artists hate whatever they are creating, hate themselves, loathe the process, get bored, and then create an amazing piece of art anyway. Their joy is not what defines their art. And I’m sure “prompt engineers” are heaving plenty of fun.
Let’s say AI becomes technically so advanced that it can depict any kind of image a human would be capable of drawing, regardless of how many hands, teeth, feelings or specific elements it has to it. What then? I think one logical conclusion could be that the most human art is tangible art - physical art. Drawings on paper, paintings on canvases. That is something that AI can definitely not do. Yet? I’m going to be dystopian and speculate: what if a very precise machine is developed that can use a brush and paint something that an image AI generated. Will the machine’s painting be different from mine? This speculation, even if not real yet, makes me discard the physicality of art as the only thing that defines it as human (though it currently is a great difference).
We need to remember that even if we say “AI generated this”, it was still a human that prompted it to. The generated image only exists because a human decided to make it exist. And I believe that is why it is so hard to find an argument for “human vs machine” because the reality right now is still “human vs human”. AI art, as of now, is still human art. It not only is prompted by a human, but a big amalgamation of human art, so how could it not be?
And here I return to the argument that yet, this does not mean defeat. AI art can be human art, and still bad. Why? Because the incentive of it’s existence is being cheap.
It wasn’t developed as some kind of new way to explore art, even though some people will find great ways to use it artistically. It was developed to make art quick and cheap, and we know from other products that that leads to less quality. Always. It’s literally fast food. Fast food is made by humans too. And that, to be honest, is the true sadness.
Art, and making food, can create incredibly enriching experiences, it can change a persons life, the way they see life, it transforms them. It can be a type of spirituality, mediation, escape, comfort, love language, protest, casual hobby, deeply fulfilling. And quick and cheap AI art, which gives you a result without any of the process behind it, steals all those experiences from you. Yes learning to draw is hard, but learning to pay taxes correctly is hard, riding a bike, swimming, being an engineer, a mother, all those things are hard and yet we do it. AI art is instant gratification. It’s birthing a grown up, as if that was the point of it all (sorry for that analogy).
Sorry to be another person to conclude that a capitalist system is the true problem of it all. I won’t stop, because I know that life is cyclic, the world goes through changes, and I hope that my constant mentioning of the problem contributes to the direction of the future change.
But I want to conclude in hope - all art is human. You do not need to be threatened by the machines, because it’s just us. We just really know how to ruin good things for ourselves. Will there be less art jobs in the future? Very likely. Will that take away art from you and all the things it can give you? No.
✦ Watching
Interview with the Vampire (series), Haikyuu
✦ Reading
The Creative Act, The Sorrows of Young Werther, The Essence of Shinto, Turning Point