#挑战30天在头条写日记 #
Image source: IFLScience
"It's a simple question with a complex answer"
Since the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), this technology has become an inevitable part of our daily lives. It powers predictive text, Face ID, and digital voice assistants – it could even one day represent you in court. It has permeated every aspect of 21st century life, and hardly any industry has gone untouched. The art world is no exception.
The likes of Matisse and Picasso use brushes, pens, clay, and other more familiar (and tangible) mediums, while AI uses code to create masterpieces of machine learning. It caused quite a stir. Last year, AI-generated art made headlines: for example, the exhibition showcased the work of AI artists whose work won the competition.
Award-winning photo of Boris Eldagsen
German artist Boris Eldagsen, who used AI-generated photographs, won the Creative Disclosure Award at Sony World Photography.
But the rise of AI "artists" has not been well received. The idea of machine-made art, often considered "human," is a controversial idea, especially in the art world. Some worry that AI will put human artists out of work and need to consider copyright issues, while others argue that technology lacks the emotion or ingenuity to create true art.
All of this begs the question: Is art created by AI still art?
As always, there are strong feelings on both sides of the argument, but on many platforms, as it stands, anti-AI sentiment prevails:
For example, AI art has been banned by Getty Images, and it is also banned on Art subreddit. Recently, a human artist was banned from forums for trying to post his own work, which the platform's moderators believe looks like they were created by AI.
Still, AI continues to create works of art – if we can call them that – so where do they fit in the changing art landscape of the 21st century?
Artificial Intelligence "Artist"
No matter what you think, AI-generated art is by no means new.
AI has been around for more than 60 years, and people have been using AI in art for about the same amount of time.
But in recent years, more and more image generation algorithms, or AI "artists", have emerged. Many of these use deep learning techniques to generate images based on prompts provided by the user.
In 2021, the developers of OpenAI released DALL-E, a system trained on billions of images and descriptions to create their own images. Last year, they released a new and improved version, DALL-E 2, which was made available to the public in September.
After DALL-E 2, several other AI-powered image generators appeared. These include Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and Google Research's Imagen, but not all of them are available to the public.
In just a few words, these techniques can produce some pretty amazing images. However, they are trained on pre-existing images and artworks, which has led some to question whether AI is creative and ingenious, or simply imitated. There's also a potential legal debate here: If the technology is heavily influenced or borrowed from the work of other artists, without consent or compensation, would this be considered copyright infringement?
An astronaut generated by OpenAI rides a horse in realistic style
Then there is the debate about who created the work in the first place, and therefore, who should be honored: the machine or its users?
At this stage of the development of artificial intelligence, I would say that humans create art, and artificial intelligence as a tool can help people create art.
Some machine learning systems can generate things like images, videos, music, etc., so in a limited sense, this software is the creator of images, for example. But just being able to create something doesn't have to be art.
What is art?
When we hear the word art, some of our thoughts jump to museums or framed paintings. In this case, some people think that I am not really a fan of art. I just don't understand. Or maybe they think that art is just the stuff of intellectuals or people with an artistic touch.
But in reality, art is for anyone who wants to experience it, and it often appears in more places than we think. Songs you love, movies you watch, poems, plays, even quilts made by your grandmother: all of these, and more, are art.
So you might be wondering, well, what exactly is art? This can be hard. Art has been around for thousands of years, and it has evolved in many ways over time. The reasons for creating it vary from person to person and also depend on many factors, so defining art is tricky and has been controversial throughout history. There is simply no agreed definition.
Many people think of art as anything that stirs emotions in your heart. These emotions depend entirely on your history, your story, basically everything that makes you up. Because of this, three different people can experience the same artwork and react very differently to it. One person may think it's the most beautiful thing they've ever seen, the second person may hate it, and the third person may not feel anything at all. They can't be wrong!
Take photography, for example. "A century ago, photography (when it was a new technology) was not considered fine art. It took decades for it to be accepted and recognized as an artistic medium.
Marcel Duchamp Fountain, 1917 / Image source: Wikipedia
Or Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. The signed porcelain urinal, arguably the most controversial work of art of the 20th century, was rejected by the Independent Artists Society in 1917 because it was not true art, sparking a debate around "What makes something a work of art?" "Large-scale debate.
Everyone has the right to have their own preferences and feelings. You may feel the same way someone else feels about their favorite sculptures than they do about their favorite sculptures. Even though you may not like that sculpture, it's valuable to think about why that person liked it so much. You may get to know them, or even yourself.
The word art is really just a label. Over the years, a lot of people have tried to categorize what it is or isn't. But it's not really art. It's about your personal experience and what you mean from it. Everyone reacts differently to art and has the potential to grow and learn from it. It gives us the opportunity to tell stories, record history, and tap into our emotions in a way that no other thing can.
Art is a way of expressing an opinion or feeling, or a way of creating a different worldview, whether inspired by someone else's work or a completely new invention.
Beauty is any or any other aspect that makes an individual feel positive or grateful. Beauty alone is not art, but art can be composed of, about, or created for beautiful things. Beauty can be found in snowy mountain scenes: art is a photograph to show to your family, an oil painting to hang in a gallery, or a musical score that recreates a scene with quarter and eighth notes.
However, art doesn't have to be positive: it can be intentionally hurtful or unpleasant: it can make you think or think about things you don't want to do. But if it evokes your emotions, then it's art.
Is AI-created art still art?
If animals can create art to some extent, what about AI? Does a machine have the intent, autonomy and creativity necessary to make something truly authentic?
There's no doubt that AI-created art has the power to make us feel something: the frenzy that led us to even ask the question testifies to it. But while it may be able to convey ideas and provoke feelings in listeners, it lacks the awareness needed to do so intentionally or autonomously, meaning it doesn't fit Merriam-Webster's and McCormack's definitions.
We value art and creativity because it has qualities that make it unique – it requires authenticity, originality, often requires great skill and virtuosity, deep human insight, and potentially deep meaning. Current AI/[machine learning] systems don't have these qualities, they're just good statistical imitations, parasitic on human culture.
"I don't think they're artists. But of course, humans may use them to create art. ”
As we know, humans have the ability to do all these things and therefore the ability to create art. We're also responsible for creating and running the image-generating AI in the first place. McCormack says it's fair to say that the human input behind prompt-based software like DALL-E 2 is "relatively high and minimal," but humans still need a lot of effort to get to his point.
"Human artists provide training data, human engineers write and design software, humans run the software and control it so that it generates something. One chooses which images to display and which images to discard," McCormack explains. "In addition, humans have mined rare earth minerals (and other materials) that are used to make the computers that run the software and all the other infrastructure that supports its use."
Therefore, creating AI-generated art can be seen as human endeavor, while algorithms simply serve as vehicles for human creativity. If artwork is purposefully created by humans, why shouldn't it be considered art?
Current tools enable creative access and empowerment, which is a huge appeal for those looking to experiment with AI art. "Creating your own impressive and good-looking digital 'art' is quick, easy, and inexpensive," says McCormack. "But when you see that anyone can do the same thing and a lot of 'art' looks similar and derivative, that sense of empowerment quickly disappears."
Some artists have successfully used AI to create innovative and original works. There is no doubt that as technology advances and our ability to use it increases, the number of artists and their works will only increase.
As we have established, art is subjective and its definition is malleable:
What is considered "art" has changed before, and will almost certainly change again. So, who's to say that one day AI won't be encapsulated in our collective perception of it?