from Hacker News

“Generative Art” is Not Art: Consciousness is a pre-requisite

by georgex7 on 12/11/22, 11:20 PM with 8 comments

• by jacknobody on 12/11/22, 11:38 PM

  ... but what if the audience is not aware that the work is computer generated? Don't they get the same experience they would get from a human made work?

  Art is good in 2 synergetic ways: the artist gain satisfaction from his work, and the audience gains satisfaction from the product of the work.

  All questions about whether AI generated art is real art need to be asked and answered within the context of this, or some like, understanding.

• by smoldesu on 12/11/22, 11:26 PM

  I'd argue that context is more of a prerequisite than consciousness. Nature is art, but rocks aren't conscious. They're beautiful because they exist in a grounded reality that we can contextualize. AI-generated imagery can still be beautiful, just in a different way. Refusing to acknowledge that feels like a denial of inherent beauty and awe, which a lot of AI imagery can evoke (albeit in a dilapidated, naive way).

  Nobody needs to justify their reason for hating AI art. The game is changed now, though, and nobody is putting the cat back into the bag. Artists will either learn to work with AI or they won't, as long as their personal satisfaction is the same then I don't see why it matters.

• by qualudeheart on 12/11/22, 11:27 PM

  I find your idea that consciousness is for us- and not for AI- to be somewhat of a dubious one.

  If there is one thing that is universal in nature, it is the way that life, even if it is not conscious, always tries to maximize its entropy. Entropy here meaning information about the system.

  A computer, especially a very powerful computer, will try to minimize prediciton error. To achieve this, it will use as much information as possible to describe the environment, and make decisions as fast as possible. Consciousness isn't needed for that. Just silicon.

  Art is just gpt-3 prediction applied to pixels. Quot erat demonstrandum.