This AI-Generated Artwork Won 1st Place At Fine Arts Contest And Enraged Artists
In May 1997, the chess supercomputer Deep Blue sensationally won a full-fledged match against world champion Garry Kasparov, who was almost in his prime. “Okay,” said many experts at the time. “Chess is cool, but there are also much more tactically sophisticated games where a person can show their imagination, inaccessible to a computer. For example, Go.”
Almost twenty years later, in March 2016, the AlphaGo program defeated one of the best Go masters on the planet, Lee Sedol, with a score of 4: 1 in games. Three years later, he left the sport, admitting that computer algorithms had become so superior to humans that competition with people simply lost its meaning.
“Well,” said then the participants in the discussions about the possibilities of artificial intelligence. “After all, it’s just a game where there is a given set of rules and conditions, within which the computer surpasses the human mind. But there are also some areas of activity where unbridled fantasy is needed, accessible only to people. For example, in fine art…” You are here for now…
More info: Twitter
A Colorado-based designer wins a fine art contest with his AI-generated digital artwork
Image credits: GenelJumalon
Or rather, you were here. On August 26, the Colorado State Fair started in Pueblo, which also included a fine arts competition. The Digital Arts award was won by local designer Jason Allen’s “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial”, one of three entries he submitted to the contest. Really beautiful and impressive painting, for sure.
Image credits: discord
Image credits: discord
Several days later, designer confirms that the artwork was generated by a neuro network
Thunder struck a few days later when Allen tweeted that the picture was actually generated using Midjourney, a commercial neural network for generating images from a given text description, which runs on the basis of the Discord messenger and is available to literally everyone.
Image credits: discord
Allen, with the help of Midjourney, generated several hundred images, choosing three of them that he liked the most. Then the man slightly processed each of the paintings using Adobe Photoshop, enlarged it in size using another neural network – Gigapixel AI, and then printed it on canvas and sent to the competition.
Image credits: eldritch48
Of course, Allen did a lot of preparatory work, because in order to get a really effective and beautiful artwork, you need to experiment with the choice of prompts for Midjourney. In the end – try it yourself – we guarantee that on the first attempt, you will not get a masterpiece. Yes, and with the tenth, twentieth and more as well.
Image credits: macrubs
Judges of the contest reported that they weren’t warned about the use of an AI in creating the artwork
Allen states that he noted that AI was used while creating the artwork, labelling it as “Jayson Allen via Midjourney”. However, according to Cal Duran and Dagny McKinley, the judges of the fine arts competition, they were not warned that they were evaluating the work of a neural network, and not a human being, and were judging, first of all, how the art tells a story. And the official list of winners doesn’t say anything about Midjourney either. In any case, out of twenty-one entries submitted to the contest, they chose the one that was generated by artificial intelligence.
Image credits: l_unchtime
And here the question really arises – how far can AI be considered the author of the work, because, in Allen’s own words, he really spent a lot of time to find the right description for the neural network. And anyone who has ever worked with something like Midjourney will agree. Of course, if you write the famous “Draw me a sheep” from “The Little Prince” in the prompt, the result will not be as primitive as in the famous book, but it will not win the fine art contest either.
Image credits: arvalis
Two points of view on using AI in fine art may arise in this particular situation
In any case, there are two points of view here. One of them calls to consider AI just a tool for the human creator – the way the camera became almost two hundred years ago. And indeed, then, at the beginning of the 19th century, many critics said that technology would bring death to art – after all, no artist reproduces reality the way a photo camera does.
Image credits: The_Galactabee
But years have passed – and we see that photography, on the contrary, gave art a new impetus in the form of impressionism, surrealism, suprematism, and many other trends that arose, as if by coincidence, just after photography began its triumphant march around the world. As for photographers, aren’t Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton or Henri Cartier-Bresson considered great artists?
Image credits: JanbluTheDerg
Image credits: fluxophile
On the other hand, who can be considered, for example, the author of the great fresco “The Last Judgment”? Michelangelo, who painted it, or the Pope, who told the artist in detail his own vision of the painting? From this point of view, of course, the author is AI – and the discussion about its capabilities is entering a new round.
Image credits: CityofStPete (not the actual photo)
People on Twitter discuss Allen’s win and their points of view split
We must say that the participants of this discussion on Twitter also shared their opinions. For example, artist Genel Jumalon believes that AI is just a useful tool for the creator, but in this case, you should simply inform the judges of the competition about the use of the neural network. Going forward, Genel believes AI-created work should be separated into a special competitive category.
Image credits: GenelJumalon
Image credits: SaphireShear
Image credits: JohnM5991
Image credits: aetheredgefilm
Image credits: ichibanhomo
Other people think it’s just like winning a footrace using a car, and human and computer art should not be confused anyway. In any case, with the development of artificial intelligence, more and more questions will arise, and humanity will sooner or later have to create a new paradigm of its co-existence.
Image credits: Gunzales76
Image credits: Lofren
Image credits: OmniMorpho
Image credits: RemmingThe
Image credits: shortnocturnal
Image credits: ChrisShehanArt
We’re pretty sure you’ve got something to say on this topic as well, so please feel free to express your point of view in the comments. Be that as it may, one thing you can be absolutely sure of is that this very post was 100 percent written by a human!
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There are categories for a reason. AI art should have its own, but it shouldn't be pitched against hand drawn/painted/maded art.
From my Point of View as an Artist, It is indeed an interesting Tool to use AI. The Problem for me is that the AI does Not really "create" the Art. It Relies on the Works and Imagination of artists that created Images which were Fed into this algorithm. So it's more or less a Collage of existing Images. The Problem are the Image rights. Those algorithms are Programmed to remove watermarks and signatures. So there is a Copyright infringement i think. What i See Happening in the Future is that Sites Like artstation will be flooded with AI generated Images. That Look nice and all, but have No "artistic value" because it's a reshash of already existing ideas. "Real" artists will probably Not Put there creative stuff on the net anymore so It wont get Stolen by some algorithm. I think it's a nice Tool that i would suggest to my clients to establish a general mood or Idea that i can start working from. Most clients are non artistic and even struggle to Put their ideas into words.
while AI art is interesting to look at & i'm not against its entire existence, as an artist i find it insulting & extremely sad that there are people defending this. while i think the AI art is beautiful & don't doubt that it was fun for him to "refine his prompts," entering it into a competition amongst artists who actually spent years learning, practicing, honing their craft, pouring their heart & soul into creating art... that's absolutely vile. it's no different than taking a photo, slapping a filter over it to make it look like a realistic graphite drawing, & entering it into a contest to prove how good the filter is. that's cheating. so is using an AI so you don't have to draw for an art contest. the pride & joy he expresses after spitting in the faces of the artists he competed against is sickening. AI is a tool. use it wisely & understand its impact on the people it's looking to replace.
While I don't disagree with your point, I do raise issue with your characterization of this specific situation. What they did requires some amount of skill, with knowledge of algorithms and computer science to accomplish. It's basically a fledgling discipline, without its own established pantheon. The piece was entered into the digital art category, probably right next to a photo with a filter, because there isn't a dedicated "AI" art category. As techniques improve and competition intensifies, rules and regulations will refine how these pieces are judged. Hopefully, the fact that it was AI generated was disclosed and should be in competition settings. I didn't see any information here that specifically said the submission was done without disclosing it was produced with AI. (Aside from one tweet that supposed it wasn't known to the judges) The artist said they set out to make a statement about midJourney.
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. Stop calling it AI. True AI isn't here yet. We may get human-like AI (AGI) in another century, but I honestly think all AI will be just what it is now: Really advanced programming/technology. Which, of course, remains as flawed as its human creators. Someone(s) wrote a great program. OK. Yay. They programmed a computer to make this. Congrats, programmers. I will be hated for this, but oh well.
I think a better name is neural machine learning or algorithmic art instead of AI. I work in the linguistics field and know that some translators feel threatened by the numerous machine translation engine that can be "taught" by linguists/programmers entering databases of previously translated text and term-bases in order to improve output. Many of the art generation programs work the same way. They rely on both creative users and programmers to enter creative prompts to help improve algorithms. American Scientist magazine has a wonderful article about this: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/ai-is-blurring-the-definition-of-artist
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Here's the thing, Personally, I love the aesthetic of AI art and I do think it is important. But that doesn't mean I think it's better than art made by people. It's just a new unique style. So while I don't think it should have been in the contest, I don't think we should get rid of something that makes things that are unique.
As a fine art photographer, I see the MidJourney AI software as a tool, but it's not the same as a camera being a tool. I operate the camera when I shoot, it's not a random process and not a fully automated one either. As long as it is realized that the software did all the heavy lifting and the "artist" merely supplied some keywords then it is fine by me. In this aspect I say congrats to MidJourney.
Are you using a film or digital camera? If it's digital, the similarities between MidJourney and the camera are much more, than if it was a film one (you still need to do a lot of stuff to get a good photo, but I hope you get my point). I see AI art as "lazy" art - especially, if you just try, try, and try, until a good enough result comes out. But at the end of the day, it was still a human, who was behind the process.
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if i entered in a digital art competition and got second place to ai i would be pissed too. i mean use it as inspo not the whole things. also i am sure he didn't do hundreds of modifications
I feel like I'm going to get downvoted here but if you read the text the piece was entered into the Digital Arts category so I'm not sure why there is a problem. I even went down the rabbit hole of exploring the definition of 'digital art' and imho, I feel like this qualifies.
Digital art still requires people to learn perspective, composition, colour layouts, anatomy and much more. AI art doesn't need any of that. Sure it does need some skill and patience, but it's definitely not the same. I think it should be a separate category, at least.
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Using the example of a car in a footrace is very much 'apples and oranges.' The problem should be framed as 'Is the AI used as a tool for the artist, or is this a case of "work for hire" where the person just throws money/resources over the fence and an image is thrown back in response." Consider that a shoe produced by Nike (the Alpha/Vaporfly) was banned from sports because they were considered doping with technology.
Unfortunately, artists have been using that technique for ages. Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Dave Chihuly, and so many others going back to the renaissance have used other artists to produce their ideas and then take credit for it. The artist gives their assistants a sketch or description, and the assistant produces most of the work. The artist often (but not always) refines it and signs it. Not much different than using an AI as your assistant.
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I went to Midjourney after reading this and created a very stunning picutre on my 2nd try but I'm sight challenged and it was impossible for me to learn how to use the site as instructions were nonexistant to vague. I'd have to disagree that there's "creation" to it. You type out any string of desriptive words and can add or change. The AI works with it. Talking or typing or reading adjectives or nouns or embellished snips of words isn't a rare talent. In fact you can read exactly what people input to create what they posted and it gets to be a word salad of words 4 lines long. I see this as a help or interesting thing but many were making full "hand drawn" comic books, "inked" anime panels with water coloring. Some very stunning, beautiful fantasy things. But they, by their own hands and sweat didn't create it so I personally don't consider it "art". Reading that it will replace human soul and heart and passion...no.
About the line "this is why we don't let robots participate at olympics"... Can we have bot-lympics? I want to see this.
Regardless of whether one thinks this is "right" or "wrong", the AI could never had made this image without humans creating art in the first place, as the AI would have to pull from images/art that already exist (which would have been created by a human artist). Also, the person comparing the AI to being the same as photography is wrong on so many levels - that comparison completely dismisses and invalidates the skill of photographers. Edit: spelling mistakes
I have to say the work is beautiful, but if it's AI generated then he's cheating by not staying so when entering the piece into a competition.
For me, I think it depends on the judging criteria. If an art competition is judged based on imagination and the likes, then this wonderful piece by A.I. should be eligible to win since there is a creative person behind the workings of the A.I. However, if the criteria involves artist skill, talent, perseverance of an artist which includes practice, training, and dedication, as most art competitions are judged by, then a piece of painting made by A.I. is not eligible unless the Creative person behind it is able to prove using all of these judging criteria more than the other competitors. It's only my own point of view though.
It would be completely different if the AI was built from scratch and trained on a dataset of your own artwork. Even if the artwork is creative commons, it can leave a sour taste, who amongst us feels they have the right to own and profit from a collective that has already said "you cannot own us, we are free, not your possession to take away from others". The way I see it, unless you've contributed to AI, it's not you property, at best you're saying "this is my personal journey with AI crafted by others, utilising another's property of visual artwork", and that's okay, but, I don't think you own a prompt, if you don't know if it used artwork illegally to make that derivative plagiarism. Share, but, don't claim you did 100% of the work. Otherwise they'll just train AI to make their own prompts, and people wont even have that as claim, that they can create alongside AI. Tyvm.
It's ok if the Artificially Intelligent art is competing against other AI art. If it's competing against digital art that the artist has made from scratch, then, no, it's definitely NOT ok.
AI used the creators' imagination to an extent, AI takes over and thereby eliminates the artist's hand. Alternatively, the brilliant digital artist is Simon Stålenhag (of Tales from the Loop fame), uses his own photographs and manipulates them on ZBrush and Maya programs and creates his own work, AI does not make it for him. Beeple does similar. As an artist myself, who has honed my craft for 20+ years, I am on the fence with AI art, it is new and admittedly makes me uncomfortable, as do NFTs, but then again, I watch too much sci-fi and go right to Terminator/Black Mirror conclusions haha!
I'm don't understand the level of work or skill that goes into this sort of thing. But it frustrates me that many people don't regard the breathtaking talent that goes into creating entire worlds in a computer game; or design theme park rides. There is artistic skill and merit in those creations that is beyond compare in some instances. Frankly, if it's something I couldn't do, I assume it requires skill and talent (neither or which i posses). But there's a huge amount of "modern" art out there that has nothing to with AI and could be recreated by tying a paintbrush to a donkeys tail or accidentally spilling something. Utter c**p, that sells for a fortune...
He printed his work on canvas, submitted it and judges didn’t recognize that this is not a real painting? What kind of judges are they?
I think most of the concerns I'm seeing in the original post are more about the nature of work and our economy, rather than artistic integrity ("this tool will take jobs away from human artists"). As automation technology continues to improve, less and less human labor will be required. At what point do we eliminate the "work or starve" model that has been the basis for our economy for thousands of years? What kind of value-added work can people do if machines can provide for all of our needs? Things like cooking, art, music can also be automated, but some people will still want to do those things for themselves for their own enjoyment, rather than to survive.
It was gross for this person to steal an opportunity from someone and turn it into a cheap publicity stunt.
As an artist and former "old school" art teacher, I was taught that budding artists should master their tools, techniques, compositional strategies and color theories. We were taught to "learn the rules", then break as many as we could in order to find our own creative voice. As artists, we embrace and/or reject passionately what we personally value in art as well as the culture and society in which we live until we too return to dust. For one brief moment, we are the visual philosophers and chroniclers of our time here on earth. Times change and others are waiting to take our place. We can establish rules and precedents to stem the tide for now, but Pandora's Box has already been opened. There's no going back. As for me. I'll continue to paint the things I love with my oils, acrylics and watercolors, until they pry the paintbrush from my cold, lifeless hand. My best to all.
you say it takes weeks? real art takes years to refine and improve upon. does the meaning of art mean nothing anymore? art is something you put your heart and soul into. ai have neither
I'll bet every one of the responders that was pro-AI art is not an artist and wouldn't even think about art were they not asked in this pole. I.e. They don't get it and won't.
Bigger picture, anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Advance_of_the_Broken_Arm At the time, the term "ready-made" referred to manufactured goods as opposed to handmade goods, but Duchamp used the term to describe "an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist".
As far as comparing AI art to photography...no. I am not a photographer , by any means, but I do know that a good/professional requires knowledge of film speed, lighting, shadows, types of film, lenes etc. and the equipment is extremely expensive. Also, the artistic photographer should have some kind of passion for their subject. AI art really requires none of this.
It's brilliant. All these people moaning sound like the ones who protested that trains were too fast and women's uteruses would fly out of their bodies. There's no stopping progress. There's also no match for human creativity, so why are they so afraid of it? Is it because it painfully shows the mediocrity of some?
If you're using AI and since the I in AI stands for Intelligence, if you claim anything that AI creates under your command (demand?) as your creation, this is tantamount Slave labor. If we are going to allow AI to enter into the world mankind and impact our society as part of humanity, we must grant them the same human rights that we all have. This means you should not be allowed to personally profit from anything created by AI. Sell the software. But the artwork has to go into the public domain.
The use of light is exquisite but the subject seems vapid. The symmetry and lack of meaningful detail ... should be hanging in a hotel. I do think ai can produce and has produced much more interesting pieces. This just isn't it
Wow, a lot of butthurt in this article. Be that as it may, there is a third point of view. That this doesn't matter in the long run.
There's this old rock that has a vaguely human face on it that is controversially accepted as the first piece of art ever appreciated by humans. It is believed that the face is a natural feature of the rock. So someone just found it. They brought it to their living site, and left it there mixed in with the other artifacts. It had clearly been moved, as it was different than the other kinds of rocks at the site. Someone valued it. The reason it's considered art is not because it was created by humans, but rather that some humans considered it to be 'art', aka it has no function other than an object of beauty. I'm not sure that ai is really that different than nature. https://klimtlover.wordpress.com/art-before-history/paleolithic-art/
I don’t necessarily think it’s all bad; an aI must be fed art that humans made to learn what art is, and then guided/prompted to produce its composition. If the “artist” has a hand in the input then I don’t mind. If they are using a web app someone else made and is only fed other artists’ work, I think it’s a copyright issue.
Welcome to the future folks, its art sorry but its art anyway you look at it. Would you penalise someone for making the most amazing finger painting because the person only used their fingers? Is poetry not a form of art as well? How about collages? i mean its simply a grouping of pictures that form another picture, the artist did not produce the original pieces of art they simply cut and placed them into a shape that was the most aesthetically pleasing for them. Art is not defined as art by effort and medium. I will also say it belonged in the contest as it is definitely a piece of digital art, don't like it then the organizers should have been more stringent with their categories. Is it better than human art? probably not, why? well in my opinion human art has a story behind it or an inspiration and the effort and levels of detail will always be a major draw to it.
I have no idea why in the world you are getting down-voted for having an opinion. As someone who started as an art historian major I firmly believe that there will never be a true answer to what we consider artwork as I feel that the answer differs from one person to another and there are so many factors to be taken into account. Some people can argue that AI art is indeed a form artwork as they are still active participants in the art creation process since they are entering creative prompts and essentially helping the AI learn and improve its output. Whereas other artists can argue that it is AI doing all of the work and that their is no creativity since the person is just entering a string of words. AI art also leads us down the road of murky copyright laws--who owns the art? It is definitely a new area that will need to be explored.
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Here's my thought, how many people reading this post can do the same thing this guy did...create art using AI? I certainly can't. Art is created using many different mediums. Paint, paper, clay, computers, scrap metal, and photography to name a few. Saying that what this guy did was unfair...the same thing occurred when digital photography was introduced. People that used traditional photography saw it as unfair...that it was "too easy." I can snap pictures with a camera...I don't have the patience and timing to catch the perfect shot. Talent is talent. Who cares how it's done.
But it is not him doing it is it? It is the computer program that made it.
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I think that is a question that is as old as time itself and people will never come to a collective answer. I started off as an art historian major in Uni and one of our classes focused on the philosophy behind the creation of artwork and what makes art "art". I remember when Photoshop came out and many people in the photography community were bemoaning the loss of traditional artwork while others saw Photoshop as just another tool to enhance their photos and argued why using Photoshop was any different than using glass filters and playing around with dodgin techniques in the darkroom. I believe that AI can be a fascinating area to explore, but can see how many artists do feel angered by it due to the murky subject of copyright laws and who is actually doing the work. Is feeding AI a creative prompt still art if you are actively helping the AI learn? The same can be said by the field I work in, linguistics, with the use of neural machine translation engines that can be "taught".
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This is a new medium. It may not be other artists' medium of choice, but it is a tool to turn ideas into images and, yes, ultimately, art. Everyone can take a paint brush and splash paint on a canvas like Pollock did - or in a way that resembles his work. Why is his work considered art and mine most likely wouldn't be? Did he control every single random splash to get the exact outcome he intended? Where do you draw the line between randomness and intent when it comes to art? Is reproducibility an issue? Warhol used screen printing to mass produce his art. It was part of his process.
This seems like real art. after all, the aritst did spend weeks creating it. However, it should be a separate segment.
i disagree, AI images are made by putting a prompt into the website /ex:Purple Pink Summer Sky/ and it usually combines images to make the picture. All they did was choose the best picture the AI made.
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Artist entered the piece into the "Digital Arts" category. Isn't this the definition of digital art?? I don't understand the issue.
hi, digital artist here! digital art is more than pressing a few buttons or writing a few prompts to get a finished product. i still have to sketch, line, color, shade, etc to make my art exist. i have to apply all the rules & principles of traditional art, the only difference is that my canvas is a screen & my pen works with a drawing tablet to connect to a drawing program. i still draw my art by hand, i just use a different medium. this person didn't create anything, an AI did, yet he's still entering it into a contest as if he made it himself, which is unfair to the people who spend hours in front of a computer putting in effort, applying the skills they've learned, & actually drawing. here's one of my digital pieces. every line you see was drawn by my own hand & took approximately 3 weeks to complete. it took me 6 years of constant drawing to develop my art style & get a proper grasp on anatomy. https://media.discor...mega_attack.png
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It says the person entered it into the digital art category. Is it still not fair? I'm missing something
hi, digital artist here! digital art is more than pressing a few buttons or writing a few prompts to get a finished product. i still have to sketch, line, color, shade, etc to make my art exist. i have to apply all the rules & principles of traditional art, the only difference is that my canvas is a screen & my pen works with a drawing tablet to connect to a drawing program. i still draw my art by hand, i just use a different medium. this person didn't create anything, an AI did, yet he's still entering it into a contest as if he made it himself, which is unfair to the people who spend hours in front of a computer putting in effort, applying the skills they've learned, & actually drawing. here's one of my digital pieces. every line you see was drawn by my own hand & took approximately 3 weeks to complete. it took me 6 years of constant drawing to develop my art style & get a proper grasp on anatomy. https://media.discor...mega_attack.png
Load More Replies... There are categories for a reason. AI art should have its own, but it shouldn't be pitched against hand drawn/painted/maded art.
From my Point of View as an Artist, It is indeed an interesting Tool to use AI. The Problem for me is that the AI does Not really "create" the Art. It Relies on the Works and Imagination of artists that created Images which were Fed into this algorithm. So it's more or less a Collage of existing Images. The Problem are the Image rights. Those algorithms are Programmed to remove watermarks and signatures. So there is a Copyright infringement i think. What i See Happening in the Future is that Sites Like artstation will be flooded with AI generated Images. That Look nice and all, but have No "artistic value" because it's a reshash of already existing ideas. "Real" artists will probably Not Put there creative stuff on the net anymore so It wont get Stolen by some algorithm. I think it's a nice Tool that i would suggest to my clients to establish a general mood or Idea that i can start working from. Most clients are non artistic and even struggle to Put their ideas into words.
while AI art is interesting to look at & i'm not against its entire existence, as an artist i find it insulting & extremely sad that there are people defending this. while i think the AI art is beautiful & don't doubt that it was fun for him to "refine his prompts," entering it into a competition amongst artists who actually spent years learning, practicing, honing their craft, pouring their heart & soul into creating art... that's absolutely vile. it's no different than taking a photo, slapping a filter over it to make it look like a realistic graphite drawing, & entering it into a contest to prove how good the filter is. that's cheating. so is using an AI so you don't have to draw for an art contest. the pride & joy he expresses after spitting in the faces of the artists he competed against is sickening. AI is a tool. use it wisely & understand its impact on the people it's looking to replace.
While I don't disagree with your point, I do raise issue with your characterization of this specific situation. What they did requires some amount of skill, with knowledge of algorithms and computer science to accomplish. It's basically a fledgling discipline, without its own established pantheon. The piece was entered into the digital art category, probably right next to a photo with a filter, because there isn't a dedicated "AI" art category. As techniques improve and competition intensifies, rules and regulations will refine how these pieces are judged. Hopefully, the fact that it was AI generated was disclosed and should be in competition settings. I didn't see any information here that specifically said the submission was done without disclosing it was produced with AI. (Aside from one tweet that supposed it wasn't known to the judges) The artist said they set out to make a statement about midJourney.
Load More Replies... . Stop calling it AI. True AI isn't here yet. We may get human-like AI (AGI) in another century, but I honestly think all AI will be just what it is now: Really advanced programming/technology. Which, of course, remains as flawed as its human creators. Someone(s) wrote a great program. OK. Yay. They programmed a computer to make this. Congrats, programmers. I will be hated for this, but oh well.
I think a better name is neural machine learning or algorithmic art instead of AI. I work in the linguistics field and know that some translators feel threatened by the numerous machine translation engine that can be "taught" by linguists/programmers entering databases of previously translated text and term-bases in order to improve output. Many of the art generation programs work the same way. They rely on both creative users and programmers to enter creative prompts to help improve algorithms. American Scientist magazine has a wonderful article about this: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/ai-is-blurring-the-definition-of-artist
Load More Replies... Here's the thing, Personally, I love the aesthetic of AI art and I do think it is important. But that doesn't mean I think it's better than art made by people. It's just a new unique style. So while I don't think it should have been in the contest, I don't think we should get rid of something that makes things that are unique.
As a fine art photographer, I see the MidJourney AI software as a tool, but it's not the same as a camera being a tool. I operate the camera when I shoot, it's not a random process and not a fully automated one either. As long as it is realized that the software did all the heavy lifting and the "artist" merely supplied some keywords then it is fine by me. In this aspect I say congrats to MidJourney.
Are you using a film or digital camera? If it's digital, the similarities between MidJourney and the camera are much more, than if it was a film one (you still need to do a lot of stuff to get a good photo, but I hope you get my point). I see AI art as "lazy" art - especially, if you just try, try, and try, until a good enough result comes out. But at the end of the day, it was still a human, who was behind the process.
Load More Replies... if i entered in a digital art competition and got second place to ai i would be pissed too. i mean use it as inspo not the whole things. also i am sure he didn't do hundreds of modifications
I feel like I'm going to get downvoted here but if you read the text the piece was entered into the Digital Arts category so I'm not sure why there is a problem. I even went down the rabbit hole of exploring the definition of 'digital art' and imho, I feel like this qualifies.
Digital art still requires people to learn perspective, composition, colour layouts, anatomy and much more. AI art doesn't need any of that. Sure it does need some skill and patience, but it's definitely not the same. I think it should be a separate category, at least.
Load More Replies... Using the example of a car in a footrace is very much 'apples and oranges.' The problem should be framed as 'Is the AI used as a tool for the artist, or is this a case of "work for hire" where the person just throws money/resources over the fence and an image is thrown back in response." Consider that a shoe produced by Nike (the Alpha/Vaporfly) was banned from sports because they were considered doping with technology.
Unfortunately, artists have been using that technique for ages. Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Dave Chihuly, and so many others going back to the renaissance have used other artists to produce their ideas and then take credit for it. The artist gives their assistants a sketch or description, and the assistant produces most of the work. The artist often (but not always) refines it and signs it. Not much different than using an AI as your assistant.
Load More Replies... I went to Midjourney after reading this and created a very stunning picutre on my 2nd try but I'm sight challenged and it was impossible for me to learn how to use the site as instructions were nonexistant to vague. I'd have to disagree that there's "creation" to it. You type out any string of desriptive words and can add or change. The AI works with it. Talking or typing or reading adjectives or nouns or embellished snips of words isn't a rare talent. In fact you can read exactly what people input to create what they posted and it gets to be a word salad of words 4 lines long. I see this as a help or interesting thing but many were making full "hand drawn" comic books, "inked" anime panels with water coloring. Some very stunning, beautiful fantasy things. But they, by their own hands and sweat didn't create it so I personally don't consider it "art". Reading that it will replace human soul and heart and passion...no.
About the line "this is why we don't let robots participate at olympics"... Can we have bot-lympics? I want to see this.
Regardless of whether one thinks this is "right" or "wrong", the AI could never had made this image without humans creating art in the first place, as the AI would have to pull from images/art that already exist (which would have been created by a human artist). Also, the person comparing the AI to being the same as photography is wrong on so many levels - that comparison completely dismisses and invalidates the skill of photographers. Edit: spelling mistakes
I have to say the work is beautiful, but if it's AI generated then he's cheating by not staying so when entering the piece into a competition.
For me, I think it depends on the judging criteria. If an art competition is judged based on imagination and the likes, then this wonderful piece by A.I. should be eligible to win since there is a creative person behind the workings of the A.I. However, if the criteria involves artist skill, talent, perseverance of an artist which includes practice, training, and dedication, as most art competitions are judged by, then a piece of painting made by A.I. is not eligible unless the Creative person behind it is able to prove using all of these judging criteria more than the other competitors. It's only my own point of view though.
It would be completely different if the AI was built from scratch and trained on a dataset of your own artwork. Even if the artwork is creative commons, it can leave a sour taste, who amongst us feels they have the right to own and profit from a collective that has already said "you cannot own us, we are free, not your possession to take away from others". The way I see it, unless you've contributed to AI, it's not you property, at best you're saying "this is my personal journey with AI crafted by others, utilising another's property of visual artwork", and that's okay, but, I don't think you own a prompt, if you don't know if it used artwork illegally to make that derivative plagiarism. Share, but, don't claim you did 100% of the work. Otherwise they'll just train AI to make their own prompts, and people wont even have that as claim, that they can create alongside AI. Tyvm.
It's ok if the Artificially Intelligent art is competing against other AI art. If it's competing against digital art that the artist has made from scratch, then, no, it's definitely NOT ok.
AI used the creators' imagination to an extent, AI takes over and thereby eliminates the artist's hand. Alternatively, the brilliant digital artist is Simon Stålenhag (of Tales from the Loop fame), uses his own photographs and manipulates them on ZBrush and Maya programs and creates his own work, AI does not make it for him. Beeple does similar. As an artist myself, who has honed my craft for 20+ years, I am on the fence with AI art, it is new and admittedly makes me uncomfortable, as do NFTs, but then again, I watch too much sci-fi and go right to Terminator/Black Mirror conclusions haha!
I'm don't understand the level of work or skill that goes into this sort of thing. But it frustrates me that many people don't regard the breathtaking talent that goes into creating entire worlds in a computer game; or design theme park rides. There is artistic skill and merit in those creations that is beyond compare in some instances. Frankly, if it's something I couldn't do, I assume it requires skill and talent (neither or which i posses). But there's a huge amount of "modern" art out there that has nothing to with AI and could be recreated by tying a paintbrush to a donkeys tail or accidentally spilling something. Utter c**p, that sells for a fortune...
He printed his work on canvas, submitted it and judges didn’t recognize that this is not a real painting? What kind of judges are they?
I think most of the concerns I'm seeing in the original post are more about the nature of work and our economy, rather than artistic integrity ("this tool will take jobs away from human artists"). As automation technology continues to improve, less and less human labor will be required. At what point do we eliminate the "work or starve" model that has been the basis for our economy for thousands of years? What kind of value-added work can people do if machines can provide for all of our needs? Things like cooking, art, music can also be automated, but some people will still want to do those things for themselves for their own enjoyment, rather than to survive.
It was gross for this person to steal an opportunity from someone and turn it into a cheap publicity stunt.
As an artist and former "old school" art teacher, I was taught that budding artists should master their tools, techniques, compositional strategies and color theories. We were taught to "learn the rules", then break as many as we could in order to find our own creative voice. As artists, we embrace and/or reject passionately what we personally value in art as well as the culture and society in which we live until we too return to dust. For one brief moment, we are the visual philosophers and chroniclers of our time here on earth. Times change and others are waiting to take our place. We can establish rules and precedents to stem the tide for now, but Pandora's Box has already been opened. There's no going back. As for me. I'll continue to paint the things I love with my oils, acrylics and watercolors, until they pry the paintbrush from my cold, lifeless hand. My best to all.
you say it takes weeks? real art takes years to refine and improve upon. does the meaning of art mean nothing anymore? art is something you put your heart and soul into. ai have neither
I'll bet every one of the responders that was pro-AI art is not an artist and wouldn't even think about art were they not asked in this pole. I.e. They don't get it and won't.
Bigger picture, anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Advance_of_the_Broken_Arm At the time, the term "ready-made" referred to manufactured goods as opposed to handmade goods, but Duchamp used the term to describe "an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist".
As far as comparing AI art to photography...no. I am not a photographer , by any means, but I do know that a good/professional requires knowledge of film speed, lighting, shadows, types of film, lenes etc. and the equipment is extremely expensive. Also, the artistic photographer should have some kind of passion for their subject. AI art really requires none of this.
It's brilliant. All these people moaning sound like the ones who protested that trains were too fast and women's uteruses would fly out of their bodies. There's no stopping progress. There's also no match for human creativity, so why are they so afraid of it? Is it because it painfully shows the mediocrity of some?
If you're using AI and since the I in AI stands for Intelligence, if you claim anything that AI creates under your command (demand?) as your creation, this is tantamount Slave labor. If we are going to allow AI to enter into the world mankind and impact our society as part of humanity, we must grant them the same human rights that we all have. This means you should not be allowed to personally profit from anything created by AI. Sell the software. But the artwork has to go into the public domain.
The use of light is exquisite but the subject seems vapid. The symmetry and lack of meaningful detail ... should be hanging in a hotel. I do think ai can produce and has produced much more interesting pieces. This just isn't it
Wow, a lot of butthurt in this article. Be that as it may, there is a third point of view. That this doesn't matter in the long run.
There's this old rock that has a vaguely human face on it that is controversially accepted as the first piece of art ever appreciated by humans. It is believed that the face is a natural feature of the rock. So someone just found it. They brought it to their living site, and left it there mixed in with the other artifacts. It had clearly been moved, as it was different than the other kinds of rocks at the site. Someone valued it. The reason it's considered art is not because it was created by humans, but rather that some humans considered it to be 'art', aka it has no function other than an object of beauty. I'm not sure that ai is really that different than nature. https://klimtlover.wordpress.com/art-before-history/paleolithic-art/
I don’t necessarily think it’s all bad; an aI must be fed art that humans made to learn what art is, and then guided/prompted to produce its composition. If the “artist” has a hand in the input then I don’t mind. If they are using a web app someone else made and is only fed other artists’ work, I think it’s a copyright issue.
Welcome to the future folks, its art sorry but its art anyway you look at it. Would you penalise someone for making the most amazing finger painting because the person only used their fingers? Is poetry not a form of art as well? How about collages? i mean its simply a grouping of pictures that form another picture, the artist did not produce the original pieces of art they simply cut and placed them into a shape that was the most aesthetically pleasing for them. Art is not defined as art by effort and medium. I will also say it belonged in the contest as it is definitely a piece of digital art, don't like it then the organizers should have been more stringent with their categories. Is it better than human art? probably not, why? well in my opinion human art has a story behind it or an inspiration and the effort and levels of detail will always be a major draw to it.
I have no idea why in the world you are getting down-voted for having an opinion. As someone who started as an art historian major I firmly believe that there will never be a true answer to what we consider artwork as I feel that the answer differs from one person to another and there are so many factors to be taken into account. Some people can argue that AI art is indeed a form artwork as they are still active participants in the art creation process since they are entering creative prompts and essentially helping the AI learn and improve its output. Whereas other artists can argue that it is AI doing all of the work and that their is no creativity since the person is just entering a string of words. AI art also leads us down the road of murky copyright laws--who owns the art? It is definitely a new area that will need to be explored.
Load More Replies... Here's my thought, how many people reading this post can do the same thing this guy did...create art using AI? I certainly can't. Art is created using many different mediums. Paint, paper, clay, computers, scrap metal, and photography to name a few. Saying that what this guy did was unfair...the same thing occurred when digital photography was introduced. People that used traditional photography saw it as unfair...that it was "too easy." I can snap pictures with a camera...I don't have the patience and timing to catch the perfect shot. Talent is talent. Who cares how it's done.
But it is not him doing it is it? It is the computer program that made it.
Load More Replies... I think that is a question that is as old as time itself and people will never come to a collective answer. I started off as an art historian major in Uni and one of our classes focused on the philosophy behind the creation of artwork and what makes art "art". I remember when Photoshop came out and many people in the photography community were bemoaning the loss of traditional artwork while others saw Photoshop as just another tool to enhance their photos and argued why using Photoshop was any different than using glass filters and playing around with dodgin techniques in the darkroom. I believe that AI can be a fascinating area to explore, but can see how many artists do feel angered by it due to the murky subject of copyright laws and who is actually doing the work. Is feeding AI a creative prompt still art if you are actively helping the AI learn? The same can be said by the field I work in, linguistics, with the use of neural machine translation engines that can be "taught".
Load More Replies... This is a new medium. It may not be other artists' medium of choice, but it is a tool to turn ideas into images and, yes, ultimately, art. Everyone can take a paint brush and splash paint on a canvas like Pollock did - or in a way that resembles his work. Why is his work considered art and mine most likely wouldn't be? Did he control every single random splash to get the exact outcome he intended? Where do you draw the line between randomness and intent when it comes to art? Is reproducibility an issue? Warhol used screen printing to mass produce his art. It was part of his process.
This seems like real art. after all, the aritst did spend weeks creating it. However, it should be a separate segment.
i disagree, AI images are made by putting a prompt into the website /ex:Purple Pink Summer Sky/ and it usually combines images to make the picture. All they did was choose the best picture the AI made.
Load More Replies... Artist entered the piece into the "Digital Arts" category. Isn't this the definition of digital art?? I don't understand the issue.
hi, digital artist here! digital art is more than pressing a few buttons or writing a few prompts to get a finished product. i still have to sketch, line, color, shade, etc to make my art exist. i have to apply all the rules & principles of traditional art, the only difference is that my canvas is a screen & my pen works with a drawing tablet to connect to a drawing program. i still draw my art by hand, i just use a different medium. this person didn't create anything, an AI did, yet he's still entering it into a contest as if he made it himself, which is unfair to the people who spend hours in front of a computer putting in effort, applying the skills they've learned, & actually drawing. here's one of my digital pieces. every line you see was drawn by my own hand & took approximately 3 weeks to complete. it took me 6 years of constant drawing to develop my art style & get a proper grasp on anatomy. https://media.discor...mega_attack.png
Load More Replies... It says the person entered it into the digital art category. Is it still not fair? I'm missing something
hi, digital artist here! digital art is more than pressing a few buttons or writing a few prompts to get a finished product. i still have to sketch, line, color, shade, etc to make my art exist. i have to apply all the rules & principles of traditional art, the only difference is that my canvas is a screen & my pen works with a drawing tablet to connect to a drawing program. i still draw my art by hand, i just use a different medium. this person didn't create anything, an AI did, yet he's still entering it into a contest as if he made it himself, which is unfair to the people who spend hours in front of a computer putting in effort, applying the skills they've learned, & actually drawing. here's one of my digital pieces. every line you see was drawn by my own hand & took approximately 3 weeks to complete. it took me 6 years of constant drawing to develop my art style & get a proper grasp on anatomy. https://media.discor...mega_attack.png
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