I agree, Walter. Artificial art from an artificial place. Art made by humans does not derive from randomly selected images and, what, ideas gathered by a computer "intelligence."? Sounds like meatballs.
I have been an artist (draughtsman, painter, sculptor, architect, songwriter, novelist, memoirist, non-fictionist) for decades. 100% of the Ai-generated art I've seen is crapola - no exceptions so far. Ai reduces the quality of human life, therefore it will soon become omnipresent in our lives like so many things that save capitalists time / money.
I am a financial analyst. So far, I have found LLMs to be incapable of doing what I do. So far no LLM has been taught GAAP and that's because GAAP is not a photo or an algorithm. LLM is a joke.
Also, I have found that an LLM can't write a short story that captures the voice of any known author. LLMs are a toy.
I agree, Walter. They're coming for us all, LOL. This year, for the first time in my 74 years of Christmas's I bought an artificial tree. But it's a REAL artificial tree. It doesn't smell like a fresh cut pine, but you can buy Pine Forest Fragrance in a spray can for that, I'm told. I still don't have an artificial, knee or hip, but I suppose like many of my friends, that might be in my future as well. At least I don't have any artificial friends, though I'm certain many other folks do. I often find myself saying I'm glad I'm closer to the end than the beginning.
Well they've already gotten into our food supply....been at it for a while in fact. I was alive to puzzle over and watch the oleo margarine-butter conflict play out well before and during the police action in Korea....".I can't believe its butter" or vice versa. I'm still confused. The only thing certain is that it always lands toast side up on the pet hair.
After that it was refined white sugar slugging it out with waves of chemical sweeteners for your refined cereal treats.
Now it's ersatz Trump steaks and rapidly filling freezer cases of God only knows what Klaus Schultz and his WEF fleisch barons concoct-all FDA approved thank you very much. While Bill Gates and China gobble up our formerly amber fields of waving grain to plant whatever the fuck the boys down at the lab come up with next. Lots of talk of insect protein to stampede the crowds into aisle 8 and the safety of GMO comfort foods. Don't believe me? What was the first thing to disappear during the pandemic? Toilet paper. Soft white toilet paper. They're still laughing at that one at Davos.
Future Art admirers won't need a David Hockney opus like Secret Knowledge to decode their the newgreat masters techniques-it will all be available on DALL-E at $.020 per image
Words make for a crude paint brush do they not? Most art lives somewhere beyond words, even poetry. AI art is the ultimate expression of design by committee, statistically calibrated, as dull and inoffensive as the new Minnesota State flag. Most people can’t see real magic anyways, art is what they are told is art. They are being told this is art. And why should we care about the herds or their farmers? Their music is awful, and I’ve stopped listening.
After reading this I'm reminded of the old statistics story that if 1,000 monkeys were given 1,000 typewriters and allowed to bang away for 1,000 years they'd produce all of the works of William Shakespeare. That was the foreshadowing of AI art.
It's Searle's Chinese Room with a somewhat more sophisticated set of rules for fetching replies. True understanding and creativity come from taking something outside of yourself and incorporating it into your own being, becoming more than what you were before. It requires interface with reality, as opposed to rehashing established conceptual structures. It's no coincidence that LLMs have difficulty telling the difference between truth and confabulation.
Taken to the extreme, AI would be so prolific that it would flood the internet with more AI works than human creations. At some point it would be incestuously seeding itself.
I doubt that AI will be much more than a passing fad, similar to Y2K.
Salsa was the best choice, wasn’t it? A passionless computer playing bongos and maracas was just a little more fun. Love the last line of this one. Merry Christmas.
As an artist who has “messed around” with AI image creation, I can perhaps (certainly not in the most excellent style of Walter Kirn) explain what I think is the potential of AI image generators as related to art and photography. I agree with the idea that words and phrases creating an image that is then viewed as art falls short of true art and indeed lacks the vitality of human life. What it does offer visual artists and photographers is the ability to try out ideas, scenes, points of view. It can provide images to be used in collage, photoshop artistry, and as the basis for study in various ways. I see it as another way of rolling around ideas, sparking inspiration and a jumping off point for further human exploration. I’m using AI in these ways in my own art; taking results and modifying them, manipulating them or simply using them to spark more of my own ideas.
I meant to mention you in my note but got distracted on my way to making dinner; another activity that’s almost gone the way of AI...the Jetsons anyway 🪐🌌
Beautiful piece, Walter. It reminds me of McD's and its ilk. In the '70s my family thought they were a wonderful sign of progress. Reliable! Predictable! The same everywhere! Maybe it was true for a while; maybe a disturbing proportion local diners had unsafe food. But now we have mass outbreaks of e coli or whatever, and unsafe obesity food at scale.
Money can’t buy love, but it can purchase a reasonable facsimile. AI can’t make art, but it can make a digital simulacrum.
I suspect this will all get sorted out and everything will take its place. A Bach cello sonata played by YoYo Ma experienced in person versus a digital sampler spun by a DJ at a rave. Both have their audiences.
The problem with AI isn’t fake art or fake fashion or fake copywriting. It’s wars and drugs and fraud.
Have a Merry Christmas. Illegitimus non carborundum, as I like to say in fake, non-AI Latin.
It strikes me that evaluating AI creative work at this time is like evaluating Da Vinci’s work as a three year old. Crude, unformed, and juvenile. The technology is only in its infancy and will continue to get better and more refined as it matures. My advice to any young creative - ignore the dystopian and apocalyptic predictions like this one, and instead learn how it can make your work even better. Technology relentlessly (and sometimes ruthlessly) marches on. The future belongs to those who will embrace it, and not to the pearl clutching resisters.
I don’t think he was”pearl clutching” at all. I think he made a reasonable argument of what art is and what it takes to make it and is doubtful that machines can replace the essence of that. I embrace technology but will not allow it to take away what I feel makes me human and allows me to lead the kind of life I want to. Simple.
Somehow you always capture the exact mixture of disquiet and disdain I feel about what is being presented to us as brilliant progress.
I agree, Walter. Artificial art from an artificial place. Art made by humans does not derive from randomly selected images and, what, ideas gathered by a computer "intelligence."? Sounds like meatballs.
AI is just automated plagiarism.
I have been an artist (draughtsman, painter, sculptor, architect, songwriter, novelist, memoirist, non-fictionist) for decades. 100% of the Ai-generated art I've seen is crapola - no exceptions so far. Ai reduces the quality of human life, therefore it will soon become omnipresent in our lives like so many things that save capitalists time / money.
I am a financial analyst. So far, I have found LLMs to be incapable of doing what I do. So far no LLM has been taught GAAP and that's because GAAP is not a photo or an algorithm. LLM is a joke.
Also, I have found that an LLM can't write a short story that captures the voice of any known author. LLMs are a toy.
I agree, Walter. They're coming for us all, LOL. This year, for the first time in my 74 years of Christmas's I bought an artificial tree. But it's a REAL artificial tree. It doesn't smell like a fresh cut pine, but you can buy Pine Forest Fragrance in a spray can for that, I'm told. I still don't have an artificial, knee or hip, but I suppose like many of my friends, that might be in my future as well. At least I don't have any artificial friends, though I'm certain many other folks do. I often find myself saying I'm glad I'm closer to the end than the beginning.
No you're not.
Like your last two essays the world has gone from disposable to artificial. The only real question left is what's next.
Well they've already gotten into our food supply....been at it for a while in fact. I was alive to puzzle over and watch the oleo margarine-butter conflict play out well before and during the police action in Korea....".I can't believe its butter" or vice versa. I'm still confused. The only thing certain is that it always lands toast side up on the pet hair.
After that it was refined white sugar slugging it out with waves of chemical sweeteners for your refined cereal treats.
Now it's ersatz Trump steaks and rapidly filling freezer cases of God only knows what Klaus Schultz and his WEF fleisch barons concoct-all FDA approved thank you very much. While Bill Gates and China gobble up our formerly amber fields of waving grain to plant whatever the fuck the boys down at the lab come up with next. Lots of talk of insect protein to stampede the crowds into aisle 8 and the safety of GMO comfort foods. Don't believe me? What was the first thing to disappear during the pandemic? Toilet paper. Soft white toilet paper. They're still laughing at that one at Davos.
Future Art admirers won't need a David Hockney opus like Secret Knowledge to decode their the newgreat masters techniques-it will all be available on DALL-E at $.020 per image
Words make for a crude paint brush do they not? Most art lives somewhere beyond words, even poetry. AI art is the ultimate expression of design by committee, statistically calibrated, as dull and inoffensive as the new Minnesota State flag. Most people can’t see real magic anyways, art is what they are told is art. They are being told this is art. And why should we care about the herds or their farmers? Their music is awful, and I’ve stopped listening.
After reading this I'm reminded of the old statistics story that if 1,000 monkeys were given 1,000 typewriters and allowed to bang away for 1,000 years they'd produce all of the works of William Shakespeare. That was the foreshadowing of AI art.
It's Searle's Chinese Room with a somewhat more sophisticated set of rules for fetching replies. True understanding and creativity come from taking something outside of yourself and incorporating it into your own being, becoming more than what you were before. It requires interface with reality, as opposed to rehashing established conceptual structures. It's no coincidence that LLMs have difficulty telling the difference between truth and confabulation.
Taken to the extreme, AI would be so prolific that it would flood the internet with more AI works than human creations. At some point it would be incestuously seeding itself.
I doubt that AI will be much more than a passing fad, similar to Y2K.
Well now I've done it: "Write a short poem about DALL-E art written in the style of the author Walter Kirn"In the digital realm where pixels collide,
DALL-E's art takes me on quite a ride.
Walter Kirn, I'll spin you a tale,
Of AI's prowess in a creative travail.
From ones and zeros, it conjures dreams,
A kaleidoscope of imaginative schemes.
With algorithms and a touch of grace,
DALL-E crafts a visual embrace.
A canvas of code, a symphony of light,
In the virtual realm, it takes its flight.
In surreal landscapes and abstract streams,
DALL-E's art transcends our wildest dreams.
So let us marvel at this AI's might,
As it paints the world in a different light.
In the style of Walter Kirn, I say,
DALL-E's art is here to stay.
Salsa was the best choice, wasn’t it? A passionless computer playing bongos and maracas was just a little more fun. Love the last line of this one. Merry Christmas.
As an artist who has “messed around” with AI image creation, I can perhaps (certainly not in the most excellent style of Walter Kirn) explain what I think is the potential of AI image generators as related to art and photography. I agree with the idea that words and phrases creating an image that is then viewed as art falls short of true art and indeed lacks the vitality of human life. What it does offer visual artists and photographers is the ability to try out ideas, scenes, points of view. It can provide images to be used in collage, photoshop artistry, and as the basis for study in various ways. I see it as another way of rolling around ideas, sparking inspiration and a jumping off point for further human exploration. I’m using AI in these ways in my own art; taking results and modifying them, manipulating them or simply using them to spark more of my own ideas.
Exactly the smart path! Embrace the technology to improve your work - you will leave the naysayers in the dust 😉
I meant to mention you in my note but got distracted on my way to making dinner; another activity that’s almost gone the way of AI...the Jetsons anyway 🪐🌌
🤣
By the way, another poignant essay Walter, thank you 🙏🏽 😌
Beautiful piece, Walter. It reminds me of McD's and its ilk. In the '70s my family thought they were a wonderful sign of progress. Reliable! Predictable! The same everywhere! Maybe it was true for a while; maybe a disturbing proportion local diners had unsafe food. But now we have mass outbreaks of e coli or whatever, and unsafe obesity food at scale.
Money can’t buy love, but it can purchase a reasonable facsimile. AI can’t make art, but it can make a digital simulacrum.
I suspect this will all get sorted out and everything will take its place. A Bach cello sonata played by YoYo Ma experienced in person versus a digital sampler spun by a DJ at a rave. Both have their audiences.
The problem with AI isn’t fake art or fake fashion or fake copywriting. It’s wars and drugs and fraud.
Have a Merry Christmas. Illegitimus non carborundum, as I like to say in fake, non-AI Latin.
It strikes me that evaluating AI creative work at this time is like evaluating Da Vinci’s work as a three year old. Crude, unformed, and juvenile. The technology is only in its infancy and will continue to get better and more refined as it matures. My advice to any young creative - ignore the dystopian and apocalyptic predictions like this one, and instead learn how it can make your work even better. Technology relentlessly (and sometimes ruthlessly) marches on. The future belongs to those who will embrace it, and not to the pearl clutching resisters.
I don’t think he was”pearl clutching” at all. I think he made a reasonable argument of what art is and what it takes to make it and is doubtful that machines can replace the essence of that. I embrace technology but will not allow it to take away what I feel makes me human and allows me to lead the kind of life I want to. Simple.