I find the AI Art debate very interesting. Should it be praised as art? Is it a cheap ripoff that cheapens the “real deal”?
I don’t know. All I know is I’ve seen AI art so beautiful and unique that I can’t bring myself to condemn it. I like what I’m seeing. I still respect the commitment to “real” art. I like both. Is it wrong to like both?
In my opinion the discussion is (or should be) less about the quality, because it is continuously getting better. While that trend will almost certainly not continue indefinitely, i believe the bigger issue is ethics.
Pretty much all popular image generating models are based on countless artworks by real artists, which were used without the artists consent.
Additionally, training and using such models requires enormous amounts of electricity, which is in direct opposition to our attempts to reduce carbon emissions.
Finally, the goal of artistry is usually not the artwork itself but rather the process of creating it. To an artist painting on a canvas is infinitely more enjoyable than typing something in a textbox.
My art is also based on countless works of real artists, and I didn’t need their consent to put pen to paper (or tablet, rather). Media like Courage the Cowardly Dog, Goodnight Punpun and Majora’s Mask taught me how to incorporate surrealism into my work, and I don’t need permission from those creators to use what I learned in my game.
If I tried putting Courage, Punpun or Link in my game, that’d be a different story. And when generative AI companies do that, that’s also a different story… But I have to give credit where it’s due, as much as I don’t like OpenAI they have done a better job at complying with copyright law better than YouTube. I’ve even had ChatGPT refuse my prompts when I’m not trying to get it to generate copyrighted material.
I do agree with your other points though, and I think we’d both agree that machine learning is a net negative for the world. I’m not on the side of big corporations, I just don’t think this argument is really good for anything except getting people emotionally charged.