I said it was interesting. I didn't say it was better or that I even liked it. It's mildly interesting in how it kind of lost the plot and confused the 3d impasto technique with the still-life elements.

Should I have expressed fear and loathing to be more in the cool kid camp? :snicker: — praxis

Sorry, it was intended as a smart-ass remark. I've edited the post to clarify.

the following is interesting. — praxis

[smart-ass remark]Yes, it's clearly a much better version than all those slapdash ones Van Gogh did. He just didn't seem to be able to get it right. [/smart-ass remark]

True, but this is not a conventional definition in philosophy: it is an adequate colloquial rundown. — Bob Ross

For me, metaphysics it's the most important part of philosophy. My objection to your OP is that you attempt to discredit metaphysics using a definition that I, and most philosophers, don't believe is correct.

No need to take this any farther.

Art has been created by nonhuman intelligence for decades (if not centuries). Our local zoo has sold art created by elephants for quite some time. In this scenario, the elephant acts as a "tool" of the "artist", who is the human who set up the scenario. No different from the "artist" who sets up the 3D printer or the AI. — LuckyR

I don't think visual artists are worried much about elephants stealing their jobs or taking over their niche in the aesthetic ecology.

You wait until AI and VR hook up, allowing you to virtually visit any mind- or machine-created realityscape that can be dreamed of. (Why am I inclined to doubt that the 'no pornography' firewall will break down pretty quickly. Glad I'm old. :wink: — Wayfarer

Pornography or not, I wouldn't mind hanging around long enough to take a look. They'd better get cracking though.

Is there a difference between ordinary communication and art ? By some criteria a well articulated piece of writing done so with flare can be artistic in a sense it all depends on how touched or moved the person receiving such a communication is by it that makes it art rather than just another informative blurb of text. — simplyG

I've thought about that. I think there is a difference, at least by convention. On the other hand, it seems like communicating ideas is conveying experience, an intellectual one.

I'm glad we adopted ours when we were in our thirties, not our sixties. — Vera Mont

Yes. My brother had his children when he was in his late 50s. I love my nieces, but the idea of raising kids at this time of my life is daunting. He always really wanted kids. I certainly can understand that.

Substitute "convey something" for communicate. — Vera Mont

I have no objection to saying it that way.

Ok, but then you are saying getting something from art not intended (communicated) by the artist is essentially incorrect.
“Your doing it wrong! Its a happy painting not a calm one you fool!”
This is a very restrictive way to define art isn't it? Im not saying thats bad, just clarifying. — DingoJones

If I were the artist, I guess I would say I had failed to get my point across to that particular person. Again, that happens all the time with communication. If I write a post here on the forum and you don't understand what I'm trying to say, I'll go back and look to see if I could have been clearer. If no one seems to understand, I've probably done a bad job.

I replied in that manner to avoid someone asking "what do you mean by metaphysics?", if I say that sense-data is what remains if you deny metaphysics, then they know I'm talking about the world. — Manuel

Not sure I can agree with that. Wouldnt that mean that getting a different experience from what the artist is communicating is impossible? That is, if art is only communicating experience of the artist then when someone gets a different experience (a different emotion for example) then we couldn't call it art. — DingoJones

No, it would mean that art is subject to misjudgment and misunderstanding just like all other type of human communication.

Also, “communication” might not be the right word. That implies a two way exchange in my mind. Isnt art more provoking a response than communicating something? — DingoJones

Communication can be and often is a back and forth between people, but it doesn't have to be and often isn't. The user's manual for my new CO meter is a one way communication unless I have questions and contact the customer service line.

Either we hold onto some kind of metaphysics or we do not. If we deny that metaphysics is legitimate, then we are left with the view that all there is, is sense data, for us. — Manuel

I agree, although maybe a clearer way of saying this is that we do have a metaphysics, whether or not we recognize it.

Now of course I'm not saying that some significant advancement will certainly not come soon. — Mr Bee

We live in interesting times, for better or worse.

That's a whole other issue. Since retirement, I have had time for creative endeavours that I only dreamed of while I had a family and a full time job. We might all be much happier, tinkering and inventing, exploring and foraging, painting and composing, volunteering and teaching, if it didn't have to be done either on top of a job or as a job. — Vera Mont

Yes, retirement is wonderful. I'm as happy as I've ever been. Yesterday I was talking to a friend with his two children, 4 and 2, standing there. I suggested he retire too, but he felt he should continue to feed his kids.

until there is some work to do clearing up and fixing things. — unenlightened

Robots can do that too.

One person viewing a pretty sunset is like :starstruck: — praxis

You're right. I should have said "artistic experience."

What do you mean by it then? — Bob Ross

I have my own ideas about how to think about metaphysics, but for now, I'll just provide a conventional definition:

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility. — Wikipedia - Metphysics

That is not at all the same as:

metaphysics is, in fact, indistinguishable from human imagination — Bob Ross

I wonder if aesthetic experience is taken for granted or if it's practically an afterthought in our materialistic society and it is not enough. — praxis

For me, "aesthetic experience" is an act of communication between two people. What happens when there is only one person there?

Reading through this topic you might think there was no such thing as cheap mass produced art before AI came along. :lol: — praxis

But think about all those poor guys who make motel room and doctor's office art. They need to work too.

The issue is art is meant to evoke emotion to the observer by changing the way we look at the world. — simplyG

Yes, this is at the heart of what I have been thinking.

Try telling AI to start a new 'school of art'. What is happening is industrial plagiarism, and industrial forgery. It has an empty feel because it is clever copying and there is nothing creative happening. That does not mean it is possible to tell the difference, though. Plagiarism and forgery have long traditions too and can already be hard to impossible to detect. So it goes. Art has survived printing and photography, it will probably survive this. — unenlightened

Forgive me for going off on a tangent, but this makes me think about political issues like the 32 hour work week and universal basic income. At what point are humans just along for the ride while machines do all the real stuff? Would that be a bad thing? I'm retired and I'm as happy as I've ever been. What would human life be like if we never had to work?

Looks like AI has a Kitch sensibility. It all seems like tasteless crap to me. — Janus

There is truth in that, but I'm not sure I would say much different about most of the human-produced graphics I've seen.

it doesn't really seem like AI art has advanced all that much since this year began compared to 2022 — Mr Bee

That seems like a pretty short-sighted view. I can't imagine there won't be significant advancements in the near future. AI as a real thing has only really been out in public for a year or so.

I feel the same way about all things digital. Maybe it’s the medium, or that all of it is largely a string of ones and zeroes, and a portrait of the artist as a person who moves a contraption around on his desk, clicking it every once in a while. Of course artificial intelligence could do that better than a human being, when you think about it. — NOS4A2

I'm still not sure about that.

No. But a lot of artists have day jobs to pay for paints or clay, rent and catfood, and the computers can certainly take that away. — Vera Mont

Yes, I guess there are two sides - the aesthetic one and labor rights one.

I think sufficiently advanced paint by numbers will be indistinguishable from any art humans can create. Human art will change, my guess is it will blend with science and scientists will be the new artists. Once we can do anything, there will be artistry in the choices in how to do it. — DingoJones

I agree with what @Angelo Cannata wrote - "The essence of art is human inner experience that is communicated." It's communication from one person to another. What happens when there is no actual experience being communicated?

I wonder if it primarily appeals to a certain type of male taste. — Tom Storm

If Midjourney allowed it, I'm pretty sure most of the images created would be pornographic.

Mind you, there's a lot of art painted by highly skilled human beings for the market that I experience as empty and device ridden. — Tom Storm

That is what I was thinking about when I wrote "this makes me question my responses to human-created art."

If I sense a vitality and a distinctive point of view in a work, I tend to like it. But this is entirely personal. — Tom Storm

We've talked about what art is and what good art is before. I don't think your standards are unreasonable. In reading fiction or poetry, I judge written works first by whether or not I am moved. With visual art it's harder. I am very easily moved intellectually, so I'm a sucker for something interesting and clever, unexpected and unconventional.

If anyone thinks of metaphysics (in the sense of gaining knowledge of that which is beyond the possibility of all experience) as a legitimate practice, then, I would ask, how can one distinguish it from the human imagination (irregardless of how plausible it may sound)? — Bob Ross

People have lots of ideas about what "metaphysics" is. Our discussions of the subject are always tangled up in disagreements about the meaning of the word. Your definition is certainly not what I mean when I talk about metaphysics. More importantly, I don't think it's consistent with what most other people think it is either.

I think posters, rather than artwork. Of course, I have the same reaction to quite a lot of human-produced graphic art. I see a great deal of overlap between CAD and AI. They are all pretty and very neat; spontaneous human art usually isn't. I quite like some of them. The fantastic houses, I like very much. Also the balloon heads and the deer/camo wallpaper.
But I like Chimpanzee art more. — Vera Mont

I think it's fun and I also like some of what is produced. What bothers me is that the act of creating is very important to me. In my particular case, it deals more with words than with images. When I am creating, putting my thoughts on paper, I feel as close as I ever do to the real me, if you'll allow me that. I assume visual artists feel the same. Can that be taken away?

To an extent yes. I can see it replacing low level artist jobs involving stock photography and simple generic book covers, but nothing on the level of full on comic books just yet. With regards to depicting complicated scenes, scenes with context, and subjects consistently, those are areas where the AI seems to struggle, and given how it's been advancing over these past 2 years I'm doubtful that those issues will be solved in the short to medium term, at least barring the possibility of a sudden technological breakthrough. — Mr Bee

I would like to think you're right.

The essence of art is human inner experience that is communicated. There are many other important aspects, but the essence is the event of communication of an artist’s soul, the artist’s intimate emotions, feelings. — Angelo Cannata

This is an explanation of what makes art art that I find convincing and consistent with my own experience.

The authenticity of art is not in the objective truth about it. The authenticiy of art is the sincere research for the deepest and richest things that we can achieve; even better if we can add truth as much as possible. But truth is not the condition for art to be authentic. I will look for truth with all of my energies and abilities, but what is important is not reaching it or not; what is important is having cultivated a research for the best that we can achieve; so much the better if we can add truth as much as possible, but this is not the essential condition; truth is not the most valuable thing in art. — Angelo Cannata

I don't think I buy this. I have no problem with putting some effort into understanding the visual language, references, symbols, metaphors, history of a work, but at the end, it needs to speak for itself.

These AI art and writing programs are nowhere close to the kind of AI that would represent a threat to humanity, if thats what you mean. — DingoJones

Sure, but the whole process is brand new and seems to be changing very fast. What comes next?

Something else to consider is a human artist using AI like any other tool (pencil, straight edges, paint brush, various canvas types etc) to create works of art they could only imagine doing before. The scope and scale of a project skyrockets with a good AI to handle key components of an overall greater work of art, for example adding a microscopic or very small perspective image so that the paintings primary object has less of that hollowness you mentioned. The observer of the art will be experiencing a richness they cannot even detect with their naked eye. — DingoJones

This brings up a question that has been discussed previously here on the forum - How important is technical mastery in the production of art. I've gone back and forth about it, but at some level it seems clear to me that the technical limits imposed by the form of art are the framework, the superstructure, that artists work with to communicate with their audience. What happens when technical mastery of any sort is no longer needed? It seems to me we're left with little more than paint-by-numbers.

There will still be a need to sift through all the Ai-generated images looking for the best ones. That doesn't require a lot of skill though. If I was a professional artist, I'd be worried. Or I'd sell my paintings with a video of me making the painting included, so there's proof a human did it. — RogueAI

Yes. Your thinking parallels my own, but your solutions seem pretty unsatisfying. I'm sure you feel the same way.

Yes it puts another dent in the industry, but we're accustomed to taking hits. Outsourcing, online templates, crowdsourcing... the devaluation is endless, or rather it's getting much closer to the end. I adopted it right away and it's a useful tool for GD, also for generating subject matter to paint. I prefer to paint from life but having any image that you can instantly generate and view from a monitor is very very handy. It takes time and effort to set up a still-life or find a good landscape or seascape. — praxis

I appreciate the input from an actual visual artist. The closest I come to such expression is in writing, so I often have a hard time imagining how it would be for painters or musicians. I'm really glad I've finished my career so I don't have to figure out how to make it work.

Human or AI? — praxis

For what it's worth, it looks like a lot of the stuff on Midjourney.

First test would be to see if you can tell the difference between AI art and human art. If you cannot, that would imply the “hollowness” exists in your mind and not the artwork. — DingoJones

I'm not sure that's true, although that question is what led me to question the value of some human-created art.

The reason it ignores portions of the prompt used is usually because the latter portions of the prompt are pre-empted by the random generation of previous portions of the prompt. — DingoJones

That makes sense.

Lastly, it is only a matter of time (short time) before most commercial art is AI generated. Book covers and the like are getting easier and easier for AI to get right. — DingoJones

I wonder where there will be room for humanity when it's all over.

At Home in the Universe — Patterner

I've been reading a lot of science lately - switching from my usual fiction. I'll add this to my list. It was written in 1996, do you think it's out of date? Do you know any good, more recent books.

Good, thorough post. Extra point for using "sui generis."

You could create a plethora of equations and none would have any bearing on our existence. — chiknsld

I agree with you, but it has always amazed me how often some obscure phantasmagoric math ends up being useful in the real world.

And if so does it point to a creator ?

Is maths embedded in the universe ?
And if so does it point to a creator ? — simplyG

No and no. As @L'éléphant notes, it is a language made up by humans, although there is evidence that the capacity for numerical thinking is hereditary in humans and perhaps other animals.

Concrete evidence does exist, and when questioning a God why wouldn't you be able to fight for that God with that book. In order to prove science, we don't stop people from using data. — Isaiasb

Actually, I agree with you. I consider the Bible to be evidence for the existence of God. If I were interested, we could discuss whether it is good evidence for God. But that wasn't my point. Whether or not it's fair, using the Bible or other similar religious text as evidence is not considered philosophy here.