There has been a lot of discussion going on lately in tech circles discussing the quality and significance of “art” produced with Al models. I have been following it with interest, and many of my own thoughts.
I get the impression in particular that there is a fair amount of fear and uncertainty within the artistic community about what this technology means for their future, and their livelihoods; as discussed for example in this video on Jake Parker’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/wqxLY9qekGY
I think a lot of this fear and uncertainly comes from a misunderstanding of what art is.
An image, or a video, or a piece of audio has no intrinsic value of itself. It only has value insofar as it is able to elicit an emotional response in the people who experience it. If an AI model is able to produce an artwork which is able to create an emotional reaction in me, that is the criteria by which I will judge whether it has utility.
An Al can’t judge whether something it produces has value; only a person can make that judgement. An Al can generate output, but it can’t determine value. My expectation is that Al models will start to factor, heavily, into art production workflows and toolchains, but people will need to decide what fair compensation is for the end product, and how this is allocated - how much should go to the artist curating the output of the Al; how much should go to the company who created the Al model.
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