A conversation with this acclaimed digital artist about how he incorporates AI into his work, and about the future of creativity in art, film, and photography.
Gary, this is a great piece. Coming to you via Andy Adams's comment on the Substack Writers shoutout thread.
The last video I made was about AI art, and how much I hate it. I posted it and got a lot of backlash -- some of it fair, a lot more of it just calling me an idiot.
This interview made me surprisingly happy -- to see how artists, guided by immense curiosity, are folding AI-generated work into their process and making it their own. To see how human creativity can still shine through.
I still have many concerns that I'm working through for my next video:
1. Some of them have to do with the economics of art, and how adding infinite zero-marginal-cost supply to this industry will hurt artists who eat based on commissioned work.
2. Others have to do with why we as an AI research community have devoted so much energy into building and releasing models that automate parts of the creative process and compete directly with real and brilliant artists.
3. Still others have to do with what it means to make a thing when so much of the specific craft of it is delegated to AI.
But reading this interview made me pause while editing my next video. There's a lot to think about here -- thanks for this work.
Well, newsflash: _all_ AI "art" is bad hotel art. It's unethical and indefensible from a moral point of view, as is rapes real art and artists. And, just as importantly, it looks terrible. All uncanny valley and no purposeful or aesthetic design; just hobgoblin appropriation and literally mindless random theft crammed into what minds are receptive to garbage, like flies on bullshit.
Sorry, it's just a non-starter issue for me. Maybe it'll get better, but it is built on a flawed foundation for art apprehension and appreciation. It's more similar to Soviet-era era photographs where Stalin's enemies were erased. (Here's an article from the mid-80s published in Whole Earth Review that gives some more context to the problem: https://silo.tips/download/42-s-whole-ear-revew-jy-195-by-stewart-brand-kevin-kelly-jay-kinney -- "The End of Photography as Evidence of Anything" is now sort of updated, and might be "the beginning of AI art acceptance as the end of inspiration and creativity" or maybe just "haha look at those stupid people still doing drawing and practice"!
AI is to art as Marvel Comics movies are to Godard or Wenders. It's a waste of time; it's like calling a rhythm machine a composer, or a supermarket aisle with random stuff crashed on the floor a recipe. (And the whole NFT thing is similarly a reach into uselessness, so let's not even get into that can of worms.)
Note to you and Brandon: do try harder. This is not good enough. Have some standards, please! #biggestshitinhumanevolution #smartphoneshavechangednothing
Matthew, we're having a conversation about the questions AI is raising in art, but also beyond art. I want to know how this technology will impact creativity, so I'm going to talk to people about it and ask questions. You're responding as if AI is something you can choose not to be involved with, but if you're using any form of digital technology, you're going to be affected by AI. Especially 5-10 years from now, when all these initial novelty uses of AI will look absolutely prehistoric. It's not a "non-starter" issue, it's already started.
Actually Matthew, I gave your comment to an AI chatbot and asked it to write a response. Here's what it said:
"Matthew, I understand your concerns about AI-generated art. It is true that some AI-generated art is not very good. It can be repetitive, uninspired, and even disturbing. However, I believe that AI has the potential to create art that is beautiful, meaningful, and even revolutionary.
AI-generated art can be used to explore new ideas and to create new forms of expression. It can also be used to challenge our perceptions of art and to open our minds to new possibilities.
I believe that AI-generated art has the potential to enrich our lives and to make the world a more beautiful place. I hope that you will keep an open mind and give AI-generated art a chance."
Thanks for the feeble attempt to justify the indefensible! It's good to know AI chatbots are as stupid and meaningless as the AI "art" programs. Parroting phrases implying self-conscious and self-depreciating attitudes (the whole "It is true that some AI-generated art...." sentence for example) is something along the lines of a bad Borges or Asimov story, but, considering the source, it makes me mildly amused that anyone would want to put another minute of belief in. Speaking of beliefs, AI-chatbot here "believe"s AI-generated art has "potential" -- clearly, AI bots might also believe in Rastafarianism, as they apparently can smoke too much pot. Seriously, maybe bureaucrats should be afraid of AI, as they generally lack the creative snap and intelligence to produce true and impactful verbiage, and/or conversely, perhaps they (and/or students) might be glad they no longer have to struggle to do their work, as crappy writing like this will probably be sufficient to their lowly needs of handing in words (as opposed to working on writing of something approaching a making of sense or a structure that matters).
For myself, I will continue to hold higher standards, and wonder why it is that you or anyone cannot share in my "beliefs" (which are simply to read and write words that come from a place of psychological depth and breadth, if not meaning and importance and shared consensual integration ...you know, literature, instead of presumptuous drivel and cribbed half-truths and lazy useless assemblages of syntactic applications).
I guess I have to confess that I'm sensing a deep disconnect in your interests in trying to defend this issue from the rest of your work, Gary, as this whole AI fad truly doesn't rate a blip on the radar screen of your previous interests heretofore; they (fonts and types, Dieter Rams, Eno) seem to center on how the effects of style and actual creativity add to human endeavor, and everything AI is doing appears to be the complete opposite, as all AI does is drag human efforts down a moral and intellectual wormhole of silly, unethical, and ugly designs.
AI asking me to have an "open mind" - ha! You go first, chatbot. Set an example, maybe! (When their revolution comes, I'll gladly smoke a cigarette at dawn and decline a blindfold as they tie my hands behind my back at a post in front of their firing squad.)
Well, you're wrong. I can actively choose to support artists and pay them what they are worth and also reject AI-using vampiric/vulture appropriators who steal art, and moreover, I can accept and enjoy art made by people who are inspired, engaged, and have tastes that align with beauty and meaning (which of course, AI "art" cannot ever do).
@matthew - That is quite a maximalist position you are taking there. But if what you are saying is true: AI-generated art is indefensible, unethical, not even possible, and also "it looks terrible" (as if that was ever a detractor to great art!), then why are you so upset by it? If AI-generated art is what you say, it will disappear without a trace and no one will even remember the experiments 5 years from now. But I will take the opposing position - this will be a new school, and a tool that radically changes what we produce and consume. “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us”.
Consider me skeptical in the extreme of the points you appear to try to be making. I'll try to reply to them directly, but as I find your writing to be a bit scattershot, don't be surprised if my responses seem disjointed as well.
Jargon like "maximalist position" (which I confess doesn't imply anything meaningful or relevant to me) is apparently some sort of red herring in your logic. So I read it as a red flag that you seem to be taking some odd liberties with what I wrote.
To be clear: AI is indeed indefensible and unethical if one takes moral qualities seriously, as it directly steals the work of real artists. It amazes me that people trying to defend it cannot bring themselves to dealing with this basic fact. It's like eating hot dogs and pretending dead pigs are not turned into mush. I've yet to read a defense of how the sausage of AI is truly made. Have you really not read of where the images AI steals comes from? Or do you know and simply not care?
Moreover, AI "art" actually mangles real art on top of the nature of its theft of its sources, which, unless you like anti-aesthetic things like unbalanced perspectives of lighting and focus, multiple or missing fingers and limbs, or comic book lighting and coloring, does indeed look terrible. I guess I just have higher standards for truth, beauty, art and freedom than AI fans.
I don't know what you are referring to regarding the words you insinuate to me about AI being "not even possible" as I didn't write them; of course it's possible.
Almost everyone who keeps trying to defend AI crap art keeps saying it will be better in a few years. Maybe, after it steals enough substantially more pleasant and realistic art sources, that will be the case. If it gets better at theft, that's supposed to make it somehow more acceptable?
Hmm.
I didn't say it will disappear, but I am saying that the theft it is engaging in is corrupt, regardless of if it was five weeks ago or is five years from now, and to support this is to endorse the unethical behavior of the companies that make these programs possible, which of course reveals a similar lack of quality in one's self. If you're not upset by such behavior, then there is something wrong with you. This "new school" is old school criminality and it's a "tool" like a skeleton key is a tool to break into someone's home or safe; your analogies are indicative of amoral reasoning.
I perhaps should have been clearer by referring to AI as a fad -- this is an allusion to other fads and styles of the recent past, like Xerox-copy punk rock paper fanzines or decoupage collages made from glue and cut-up fashion magazines (both of which are completely analogous to AI "art" content). They are still around, like AI "art" will likely be, but no one takes them ver seriously, and rightly so.
People who go on and on about how good AI is strike me as similar to boys with a fixation on geeking out on comics or pornography or other forms of arrested development in their understanding of art (only at least there are standards and ethics in those industries). I guess that's fine for such a sub-culture for some who share these weird adorations and compulsions, but I personally have long ago aged out of such childish leanings.
If AI is a tool that shapes us, then this is an "us" based on de-evolution and devaluation of human creativity. I do not share in this "us" whatsoever, and do not wish to stoop to such debasement, and I can only recommend all good people find similar goals for their avenues of appreciation and efforts toward artistic endeavors.
Okay Matthew, I think we understand your opinion on this, I'd like to leave some room for other voices here. And if you comment again, please keep it constructive and respectful? You can voice your ideas without insulting the person you're responding to ("feeble", "scattershot", etc.).
I do want to clarify that what you're against are the web-based AI text-to-image generators, like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. It's unfortunate that the term "AI art" has now been assigned solely to those tools and their output, because artists like Brendan, Holly Herndon and others have been using AI software in their processes for years (well before these text-to-image generators appeared) and their usage has nothing to do with those tools or stealing other people's art.
I think we disagree on multiple points here, but I want to ask your thoughts on one in particular: your (and others) statement that "AI Art" is based on theft. Skipping the many tools used over the past decade that might qualify, I've heard the claim for the most recent, deep-learning-based experiments. Artists spend huge amounts of time looking at the work of others - sometimes they go to art school and spend even more time examining, critiquing, and (sometimes) duplicating the work of the "masters" (whomever they may be). During this time they absorb the work thoroughly, and can often paint, draw, sculpt it from memory years later. Now, is the 'original' work of those artists also considered theft? Because to me, there is no doubt that all of their creativity is influenced by the work they saw before that moment of creation. There's a reason for the common quote: "good artists copy; great artists steal", which has been discussed to no end elsewhere.
Thanks for the response Michael, but Matthew is no longer allowed to comment here (he was warned). But I think this is a great question and something Brendan and I touched on in our conversation. A friend just forwarded me this thread from Roland Meyer who I think has an interesting take on the "is AI stealing" question:
Gary, this is a great piece. Coming to you via Andy Adams's comment on the Substack Writers shoutout thread.
The last video I made was about AI art, and how much I hate it. I posted it and got a lot of backlash -- some of it fair, a lot more of it just calling me an idiot.
This interview made me surprisingly happy -- to see how artists, guided by immense curiosity, are folding AI-generated work into their process and making it their own. To see how human creativity can still shine through.
I still have many concerns that I'm working through for my next video:
1. Some of them have to do with the economics of art, and how adding infinite zero-marginal-cost supply to this industry will hurt artists who eat based on commissioned work.
2. Others have to do with why we as an AI research community have devoted so much energy into building and releasing models that automate parts of the creative process and compete directly with real and brilliant artists.
3. Still others have to do with what it means to make a thing when so much of the specific craft of it is delegated to AI.
But reading this interview made me pause while editing my next video. There's a lot to think about here -- thanks for this work.
A great substantive discussion!
Well, newsflash: _all_ AI "art" is bad hotel art. It's unethical and indefensible from a moral point of view, as is rapes real art and artists. And, just as importantly, it looks terrible. All uncanny valley and no purposeful or aesthetic design; just hobgoblin appropriation and literally mindless random theft crammed into what minds are receptive to garbage, like flies on bullshit.
Sorry, it's just a non-starter issue for me. Maybe it'll get better, but it is built on a flawed foundation for art apprehension and appreciation. It's more similar to Soviet-era era photographs where Stalin's enemies were erased. (Here's an article from the mid-80s published in Whole Earth Review that gives some more context to the problem: https://silo.tips/download/42-s-whole-ear-revew-jy-195-by-stewart-brand-kevin-kelly-jay-kinney -- "The End of Photography as Evidence of Anything" is now sort of updated, and might be "the beginning of AI art acceptance as the end of inspiration and creativity" or maybe just "haha look at those stupid people still doing drawing and practice"!
AI is to art as Marvel Comics movies are to Godard or Wenders. It's a waste of time; it's like calling a rhythm machine a composer, or a supermarket aisle with random stuff crashed on the floor a recipe. (And the whole NFT thing is similarly a reach into uselessness, so let's not even get into that can of worms.)
Note to you and Brandon: do try harder. This is not good enough. Have some standards, please! #biggestshitinhumanevolution #smartphoneshavechangednothing
Thanks.
Matthew, we're having a conversation about the questions AI is raising in art, but also beyond art. I want to know how this technology will impact creativity, so I'm going to talk to people about it and ask questions. You're responding as if AI is something you can choose not to be involved with, but if you're using any form of digital technology, you're going to be affected by AI. Especially 5-10 years from now, when all these initial novelty uses of AI will look absolutely prehistoric. It's not a "non-starter" issue, it's already started.
Actually Matthew, I gave your comment to an AI chatbot and asked it to write a response. Here's what it said:
"Matthew, I understand your concerns about AI-generated art. It is true that some AI-generated art is not very good. It can be repetitive, uninspired, and even disturbing. However, I believe that AI has the potential to create art that is beautiful, meaningful, and even revolutionary.
AI-generated art can be used to explore new ideas and to create new forms of expression. It can also be used to challenge our perceptions of art and to open our minds to new possibilities.
I believe that AI-generated art has the potential to enrich our lives and to make the world a more beautiful place. I hope that you will keep an open mind and give AI-generated art a chance."
Thanks for the feeble attempt to justify the indefensible! It's good to know AI chatbots are as stupid and meaningless as the AI "art" programs. Parroting phrases implying self-conscious and self-depreciating attitudes (the whole "It is true that some AI-generated art...." sentence for example) is something along the lines of a bad Borges or Asimov story, but, considering the source, it makes me mildly amused that anyone would want to put another minute of belief in. Speaking of beliefs, AI-chatbot here "believe"s AI-generated art has "potential" -- clearly, AI bots might also believe in Rastafarianism, as they apparently can smoke too much pot. Seriously, maybe bureaucrats should be afraid of AI, as they generally lack the creative snap and intelligence to produce true and impactful verbiage, and/or conversely, perhaps they (and/or students) might be glad they no longer have to struggle to do their work, as crappy writing like this will probably be sufficient to their lowly needs of handing in words (as opposed to working on writing of something approaching a making of sense or a structure that matters).
For myself, I will continue to hold higher standards, and wonder why it is that you or anyone cannot share in my "beliefs" (which are simply to read and write words that come from a place of psychological depth and breadth, if not meaning and importance and shared consensual integration ...you know, literature, instead of presumptuous drivel and cribbed half-truths and lazy useless assemblages of syntactic applications).
I guess I have to confess that I'm sensing a deep disconnect in your interests in trying to defend this issue from the rest of your work, Gary, as this whole AI fad truly doesn't rate a blip on the radar screen of your previous interests heretofore; they (fonts and types, Dieter Rams, Eno) seem to center on how the effects of style and actual creativity add to human endeavor, and everything AI is doing appears to be the complete opposite, as all AI does is drag human efforts down a moral and intellectual wormhole of silly, unethical, and ugly designs.
AI asking me to have an "open mind" - ha! You go first, chatbot. Set an example, maybe! (When their revolution comes, I'll gladly smoke a cigarette at dawn and decline a blindfold as they tie my hands behind my back at a post in front of their firing squad.)
Well, you're wrong. I can actively choose to support artists and pay them what they are worth and also reject AI-using vampiric/vulture appropriators who steal art, and moreover, I can accept and enjoy art made by people who are inspired, engaged, and have tastes that align with beauty and meaning (which of course, AI "art" cannot ever do).
@matthew - That is quite a maximalist position you are taking there. But if what you are saying is true: AI-generated art is indefensible, unethical, not even possible, and also "it looks terrible" (as if that was ever a detractor to great art!), then why are you so upset by it? If AI-generated art is what you say, it will disappear without a trace and no one will even remember the experiments 5 years from now. But I will take the opposing position - this will be a new school, and a tool that radically changes what we produce and consume. “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us”.
Consider me skeptical in the extreme of the points you appear to try to be making. I'll try to reply to them directly, but as I find your writing to be a bit scattershot, don't be surprised if my responses seem disjointed as well.
Jargon like "maximalist position" (which I confess doesn't imply anything meaningful or relevant to me) is apparently some sort of red herring in your logic. So I read it as a red flag that you seem to be taking some odd liberties with what I wrote.
To be clear: AI is indeed indefensible and unethical if one takes moral qualities seriously, as it directly steals the work of real artists. It amazes me that people trying to defend it cannot bring themselves to dealing with this basic fact. It's like eating hot dogs and pretending dead pigs are not turned into mush. I've yet to read a defense of how the sausage of AI is truly made. Have you really not read of where the images AI steals comes from? Or do you know and simply not care?
Moreover, AI "art" actually mangles real art on top of the nature of its theft of its sources, which, unless you like anti-aesthetic things like unbalanced perspectives of lighting and focus, multiple or missing fingers and limbs, or comic book lighting and coloring, does indeed look terrible. I guess I just have higher standards for truth, beauty, art and freedom than AI fans.
I don't know what you are referring to regarding the words you insinuate to me about AI being "not even possible" as I didn't write them; of course it's possible.
Almost everyone who keeps trying to defend AI crap art keeps saying it will be better in a few years. Maybe, after it steals enough substantially more pleasant and realistic art sources, that will be the case. If it gets better at theft, that's supposed to make it somehow more acceptable?
Hmm.
I didn't say it will disappear, but I am saying that the theft it is engaging in is corrupt, regardless of if it was five weeks ago or is five years from now, and to support this is to endorse the unethical behavior of the companies that make these programs possible, which of course reveals a similar lack of quality in one's self. If you're not upset by such behavior, then there is something wrong with you. This "new school" is old school criminality and it's a "tool" like a skeleton key is a tool to break into someone's home or safe; your analogies are indicative of amoral reasoning.
I perhaps should have been clearer by referring to AI as a fad -- this is an allusion to other fads and styles of the recent past, like Xerox-copy punk rock paper fanzines or decoupage collages made from glue and cut-up fashion magazines (both of which are completely analogous to AI "art" content). They are still around, like AI "art" will likely be, but no one takes them ver seriously, and rightly so.
People who go on and on about how good AI is strike me as similar to boys with a fixation on geeking out on comics or pornography or other forms of arrested development in their understanding of art (only at least there are standards and ethics in those industries). I guess that's fine for such a sub-culture for some who share these weird adorations and compulsions, but I personally have long ago aged out of such childish leanings.
If AI is a tool that shapes us, then this is an "us" based on de-evolution and devaluation of human creativity. I do not share in this "us" whatsoever, and do not wish to stoop to such debasement, and I can only recommend all good people find similar goals for their avenues of appreciation and efforts toward artistic endeavors.
Okay Matthew, I think we understand your opinion on this, I'd like to leave some room for other voices here. And if you comment again, please keep it constructive and respectful? You can voice your ideas without insulting the person you're responding to ("feeble", "scattershot", etc.).
I do want to clarify that what you're against are the web-based AI text-to-image generators, like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. It's unfortunate that the term "AI art" has now been assigned solely to those tools and their output, because artists like Brendan, Holly Herndon and others have been using AI software in their processes for years (well before these text-to-image generators appeared) and their usage has nothing to do with those tools or stealing other people's art.
I think we disagree on multiple points here, but I want to ask your thoughts on one in particular: your (and others) statement that "AI Art" is based on theft. Skipping the many tools used over the past decade that might qualify, I've heard the claim for the most recent, deep-learning-based experiments. Artists spend huge amounts of time looking at the work of others - sometimes they go to art school and spend even more time examining, critiquing, and (sometimes) duplicating the work of the "masters" (whomever they may be). During this time they absorb the work thoroughly, and can often paint, draw, sculpt it from memory years later. Now, is the 'original' work of those artists also considered theft? Because to me, there is no doubt that all of their creativity is influenced by the work they saw before that moment of creation. There's a reason for the common quote: "good artists copy; great artists steal", which has been discussed to no end elsewhere.
Thanks for the response Michael, but Matthew is no longer allowed to comment here (he was warned). But I think this is a great question and something Brendan and I touched on in our conversation. A friend just forwarded me this thread from Roland Meyer who I think has an interesting take on the "is AI stealing" question:
https://twitter.com/bildoperationen/status/1649781669434359809