A Thought on AI Versus the Artist
I have more learning and thinking to do, but given the way artificial intelligence extrapolates from a data set, we need to recognize that AI-generated art, be it writing, painting, film, etc, is——in a very tangible sense——the opposite of human art.
Rather than an artist taking an idea, filtering it through herself, and then presenting it to the world in the hopes that it connects with one or many, AI takes a prompt and filters it through the world——and not even all of the world, but a small portion, weighted towards the chronically online, the modern, and the digitally available——before presenting it to the artist in the hopes that she will be mostly pleased with the output.
Either the artist communicates to the world, or the world communicates to the artist.
And to repeat myself: it's not even the whole world, but the internet has a way of convincing you that it is.
Give me stories shaped by your dad's made up fairy tales. Give me music that beats to the sound of your particular pueblo in Chile. Don't give me paintings "in the style of" GhibliDaliMonet, but give me paintings that reveal what only you see everyday in the streets of Hanoi.
I am aware that the artist can continue to refine the output with the hopes of putting more and more of himself into it, but it is still running in the opposite direction of art created solely by a human. It's the "net-world's" creation with the artist's influence, rather than the artist's creation influenced by the world.