How do you feel about AI Art?

While AI art can be really fun to test out, it is currently being unethically made with stolen artwork used as bases ie data laundering. It operates in a legal grey area similar to the napster era of music. As an artist I am not at all threatened by AI “art”, but because everybody is talking about it, I would like to quote some pieces I found interesting about this exploding phenomena. In it’s current state, I find it laughable. It can not create your concept, feeling, emotions or message in an accurate way, and I find it completely soulless. This should not be confused with digital art, which is still made by a real artist. Some digital artists use AI as a basis, and then develop the concept further from there, so it still has their artist stamp /style on it, and is only used as reference.

John Ramsey, an artist who creates cute animal illustrations, points out the lack of intentionality in AI images. “AI doesn’t have any experiential basis to understand what people are, what trees are, or what hands are,” he says. “All that stuff is just being thrown in, because it was able to associate the words of your prompt with data points within the latent space that corresponds to them. This was the closest stuff that it could bring. It doesn’t know why.” Savvy viewers might be able to spot the difference by identifying a clear, visual narrative.

James L Cook wrote the following: I was watching an interview with Noam Chomsky and he was asked about AI software, specifically ChatGPT and its impact on education. He replied that GhatGPT isn’t about learning, it’s about avoiding learning. And then the light went on. Recently I was in a discussion with a peer group about an article written by James Marriot for the Times. He’s basically an art school drop out that never spent any real time developing his skill to become an artist. And now he’s bitter that he’s not successful and that artists with real skill are “Gatekeepers” to his success. To be honest it was a very entitled rant that demonized people who have worked very hard to hone their craft as elitists and prestige squatters. In his article he welcomes AI image generators because he thinks it levels the playing field between his mediocre efforts and those snobby, gatekeeping artists. And that’s where the connection hit…. AI Image generating isn’t about making art. It’s about AVOIDING making art. Let the computer do it. I’m too lazy to log the long emotionally wearing hours. I’m too impatient and entitled to listen to masters. I’m too self-absorbed to spend my time labouring over a work that requires me to use sophisticated critical thinking. Let the machine do it.

AI Image generation isn’t about making art. It’s about AVOIDING MAKING art.

In an already fake society where anything is believed as “facts”, this is just a natural extension of the Zeitgeist. These tips can help you spot AI art and people who may be claiming that art as their own work:

• Look at their social media profile. The easiest way to tell, is if they have no process sketches, and seem to suddenly developed a high skill level with no history or paper trail.
• Weird mistakes like too many or no fingers. In animals extra legs and messy looking paws. Eyes, ears do not match each other or they just look unnatural (some creators do correct these things by editing though).
• Highly detailed hair or other patterns that look extremely unlikely to have been possible for a human artist to draw by hand.
• Expressionless faces. Dead eyes, no smiles.
• Messy patterns on clothing that have no cohesion or are very complicated so that you can’t possibly colour them in detail.
• Flowers that look messy, huge, or have no distinct pattern to the petal arrangement.
• Things in the wrong places, like a tiny eye on a cheek.
• Very plastic, inorganic overall look.
• Hiding or cropping out hands
• Inconsistent styles
• Unoriginal repetitive ideas
• Creatures that look like ugly, nightmarish genetic mistakes
• The price! If you are getting 30 images or more in a set for peanuts beware.
• The name of the creator. A real artist or anyone who is open about their AI is more likely to put their actual name on their store or product. They will also have a social media presence. Look for them on Instagram. If you can’t see a profile picture, and real name of a person, this is very telling.
• Message the artist and ask them, judge by how they reply, or not.
• Repetition. All the creators images look very similar, just slight variations on a theme. This is because a lot of images can be generated from one prompt phrase in a matter of minutes.
• How often they add new illustrations or release a book. AI takes no time at all to create. There will be untold mountains of it.

Disclaimer: Any piece with only one of these aspects does NOT necessarily mean that the art is fake. Consider all information, holistically and don’t jump to conclusions or attack anyone. Ai art looks high level (think magic the gathering/riot splash art level) but when observed closely has a bunch of flaws. Amateur art will look like amateur art. If you Like AI art, good for you. I am just putting out a few opinions here, you are free to decide for yourself.