AI Art and being imperfect
Heya! Imperfect just released a blogpost, and while I've already indirectly answered most of the questions he mentions here in other posts, there is one question that he poses that I feel like is interesting to talk about:
If "there is just no point in using GenAI to tell your story", why do people continue telling stories through it?
I think that's fairly interesting, so I wanted to talk about it.
So, why do people keep generating AI content? Why is there a whole AI-Art ecosystem out there? I think the main reason is the commodification of art in our culture.
In the minds of many people, art is no longer seen as... well, art. It's seen as a product, as content. That's why there are people that think highly of GenAI, that's why it got any traction in the first place. Because the idea is, that we can now somehow produce art more "efficiently". That the entire process can now be condensed to a button press. The process isn't important, it is a means to an end.
The corpotorization of social media and the web at large, the insane amount of amazing art that we have access to nowadays, means that, at some point, people started seeing art as disposable. Most people only see the "good" stuff, the stuff thats really polished, made by people with years and years of experience.
So, at some point, people got used to it. Being "bad" at art has gotten stigmatized. Combine that with the rise of cringe culture, and we're at a point where truly expressing yourself is seen as embarrassing, for the most part. If your work isn't professional, if it isn't polished, then that's looked down upon. You're not allowed to be vulnerable anymore.
And that's, really, the weakness that GenAI exploits. With a press of a button you can "make" something, and you still sort of get that feeling of satisfaction of creating stuff. It'll be "polished". It won't really say anything, you won't have to put yourself out there. You can hide behind the tool, it absolves you of responsibility, it removes the need to be vulnerable.
And that's the main reason people use it, I think. It's fear. The fear of putting yourself out there, of making art that is genuinely vulnerable. The fear of not being professional, not being good enough.
Because, ask yourself. When you use genAI to make something - why?
How does it improve what you made?
Are you using it as a crutch, a wall to hide behind?
I personally think that GenAI can never actually improve your art. Because art is essentially communication. It's a way to share a part of you with the world.
You cannot have someone communicate for you. GenAI isn't adding anything to your art. Because it can't.
The prompt you write will always be more interesting than the image it generates.
The text you tell it to rephrase will always be more interesting than the output it gives you.
The story it writes will always be less interesting than the instructions you gave it for writing said story.
It is a lossy way of communicating. It takes the information you input and dilutes it with machine generated noise.
It gets rid of intent, that is why it makes bad art, and that is also why it is popular.
Because having intent shows that you care, and showing that you care makes you vulnerable, and being vulnerable means getting hurt. Because art is a product now. And anything that isn't polished, isn't perfectly acceptable, is derided.
That stops some people - it shouldn't, but it does. And that's the reason why people use GenAI.
Well, that, and some people use it to automate the process and try to make money that way. But this post isn't about that. It's about why people might try to use it to actually make art.