I’ve been spending some time on Reddit, mostly following stuff about puzzle video games and game dev. I also see stuff from a couple subreddits that argue about AI art, namely r/aiwars and r/defendingaiart. I have found these subreddits just barely tolerable that I haven’t blocked them (yet). But they contain a lot of viewpoints that annoy me, so I’m going to talk about them.
Sorry, I’m not going to cite examples, because the purpose isn’t to litigate these particular subreddits. I know the typical reader doesn’t really care about them, and indeed should not care about them. This is just my way to discuss a scattering of AI-related issues that I think people commonly get wrong.
Conflation of viewpoints
In these spaces, there are two sides, “pro-AI” and “anti-AI”. Each side is treated like a bundle of views that all go together. So anti-AI is supposed to believe that AI art is slop, that it steals from artists, replaces jobs, costs extreme amounts of natural resources, and is the subject of an economic bubble. Pro-AI is supposed to believe that AI art is great, AI should be unregulated, the environmental impact is overblown, and there is no bubble.
I take a relatively minimal “pro-AI” view. I think artists should have the freedom to use AI tools. I do not usually like the output, but that’s irrelevant, people should be able to make art I don’t like. I think AI should be regulated, although I am agnostic about the appropriate policies, and distrustful of the government’s ability to get it right. I do not care for the major AI companies. I think the environmental impact of AI is greatly exaggerated compared to other common activities, although maybe that means people should be more concerned about the other common activities instead of less concerned about AI. I don’t think AI really steals from artists, but I feel that artists should have stronger rights to restrict how their art is used, even if they desire restrictions I don’t personally agree with. And I think AI might be in a bubble, though I’m not placing any bets.
So in the subreddits, there’s a lot of conflation going on. For instance, a while ago, OpenAi announced they were shutting down Sora, their text to video app. Anti-AI folks declared a victory, while the pro-AI folks felt the need to argue that OpenAI is doing fine actually. But what does that have to do with anything? OpenAI is just a purveyor of a commercial product. It’s like if we were arguing about the right to eat hamburgers, and it got derailed into a conversation about MacDonald’s menus.
The anti/pro dichotomy hinders people’s ability to interpret larger events. For example, there was recently an attack on Sam Altman, by a man who came from a Rationalist background. He comes from a completely distinct and older faction of people who believe AI will be ultra powerful and literally kill everyone. Given that his concern is about literal extinction, I doubt he cares one way or another about art. He cannot be credited to or blamed on the anti-AI art folks, he just can’t.
The AI industry
We need to draw a distinction between the usage of AI for art, and the usage of AI for industry. In the industry, AI is not just used for art. It’s not even mostly used for art, not even close. I’m quite confident in this claim, though admittedly I cannot find any reliable research on the prevalence of different AI use cases.
Here are a few uses for AI, based on my professional experience: 1) Bots that handle simple customer queries to reduce call center volume. 2) Faster software development. 3) Easy access to analytics, so that leadership doesn’t have to constantly pepper data analysts with basic questions. 4) Searching through disorganized company documentation to find information. 5) Generating more consistent documentation.
Every single one of these use cases is LLMs only, with no image generation. None of these use cases is creative. There are some creative uses for AI in the industry, maybe for movies and video games. But I think that’s a minority of what AI is used for.
In the AI subreddits, discussion almost exclusively concerns art, especially the kind of art that people make individually, either for commission or to post on social media.
This is not an industrial use case for AI. Economically speaking, that stuff isn’t worth shit.
It’s fine to talk about stuff that doesn’t make a lot of money. This blog has never made any money, and I talk about it lots. However, there’s frequent concern about a) the economic bubble around AI, b) the environmental impact of AI, and c) the construction of data centers for AI. If that is your concern, then you ought think about how AI is used in the industry, not just how AI is used on your social media feed. When your boomer dad generates an AI image of Trump in a diaper, that is a separate thing that has practically nothing to do with the AI bubble.
Put it this way. If you believe that AI is in an economic bubble, this implies a belief that investors are mistaken about the economic value of AI. There are reasonable grounds to believe this. However, if you think the economic value of AI is concentrated in displacing artists, then you’re quite far off the mark, and I think maybe the investors know better than you.
The art is bad
These subreddits are not for posting AI art, they’re for arguing about AI art. But as you might expect, AI art is a common hazard, and I don’t like it. I know, the irony. I recognize that this is a me problem; it’s on me for not blocking the subreddits.
People commonly collapse “disliking AI art” with “being opposed to AI art”. I dislike a lot of television and movies; I am not opposed to television and movies. I dislike entire genres full of video games; I am not opposed to those genres.
People on AI wars talk about the aesthetic qualities of AI art like it’s an argument in favor or against. Even pro-AI people sometimes talk about how a particular artist’s handdrawn artwork looks bad. I hate that, because leave those artists alone. My main motivation for defending AI art is that I want people to leave artists alone. So when AI defenders attack hand-drawn artists, it 100% defeats the point.
My biggest issue with AI art, is that I’m just not into the kind of art that it’s imitating, i.e. standalone illustrations posted on social media. I prefer music, essays, long-form comics, origami, indie video games.
Some people are into standalone illustrations, that’s fine. But arguments about AI art aesthetics are overly focused on the ability or inability of AI art to live up to the artistic values and sensibilities of standalone illustrations. I create mathematical art. Mathematical art is discovered as much as it is created. It does not matter to me whether AI can display “creativity”. It does not matter to me how much agency the artist exercises, vs following a set procedure. Being readily distinguishable from hand-drawn illustrations is a plus, rather than a minus. It does not matter to me whether it can draw hands. It does not matter to me that a character’s hair blends into the trees. It does not matter to me if the art succeeds in looking like anything at all.
I will say, it does matter to me how the art is created. This is a common sticking point among AI art defenders. They’ll say, if you liked the art, then you liked the art, and it shouldn’t matter that it was AI generated. But I think it’s fair to judge art based on the context outside the art, and so it is fair to modulate one’s opinion of art after learning that it was or was not AI generated. I think AI artists should lean even more into discussing their own artistic methodologies, since it’s kind of the most interesting thing about AI art. I’m not their boss though, that’s just what would make it more interesting to me.
Final thoughts
I seem to return to the topic of AI art at least once a year, and I express a slightly different opinion each time. Dear readers, I hope it’s not annoying. Personally, I get kind of annoyed when creators I follow talk about AI art. It’s pretty repetitive and tends to expose a lot of ignorance. One does not like to be reminded that creators are ignorant, even though it’s frequently true on any given subject.
So when I put myself in the shoes of the reader, it makes me want to avoid blogging about AI art. And then when I do blog about AI art, it’s like my only chance, so I discuss a grab bag of issues instead of focusing on one thing at a time. They can’t all be the best essay ever.
Remember, if I’m right, then AI art is a sideshow compared to the main uses of AI in the industry. I believe that AI art is a frivolous topic. It’s interesting to talk about, but not nearly as important as people make it out to be. There are other topics more deserving of a culture war.
I know the typical reader doesn’t really care about them, and indeed should not care about them.
This is a verbal trick that I often see Sam Harris employ; it’s basically dishonest because it attempts to dismiss entire categories of arguments or thought because, you know, they’re just not worth it. Fortunately, philosophers learn that trick doesn’t work very well because the fact is that good ideas are everywhere, even if only in references. For example, I discovered Terry Sejnowski’s brilliant paper on AI sej through a pointer on a reddit.
Basically, when Harris (or you) pull that trick, you’re trying to imply certain ideas aren’t worth it because you don’t like them, therefore they bore you, therefore you can just bypass them. It’s poor tradecraft and is kind of a cockwomble move. Another way of looking at it is that basically you are saying “there is apparently a huge amount of people who disagree with me, but – I’m going to ignore that.” Then the next part of the maneuver is when someone like me calls you to account, you go, “see, now the haters are pursuing me into my home fortress, they are so ideologically crazed.” or something like that.
Your comment about conflation of viewpoints, for example, is flat out silliness. Perhaps there are a few, but most of the people I see discussing the topic do not paint it with such a broad brush – though I’ve seen a few sloppy descriptions of this or that being “pro-AI” or whatever. This is simply labeling. When one labels one side or the other, they then try to tag the opponent with the worst ideas supported by the label. This is another dishonest move of argumentation that Opinionated People On The Internet (like Sam Harris) lean on, if they find being wrong painful, or actually engaging with ideas to be a trial. I spend a lot of time in the AI trenches and I seldom see someone run up a “PRO AI” flag per se; usually the argument is actually interesting, in my opinion. There are questions of “what is creativity?” and some discussions of “what is art?” but generally it’s not naive or easily stereotyped. This is not an “Argument Clinic” post, so I won’t presume to educate you how not to write bad postings defending a position, but – always – detail, detail, detail.
The anti/pro dichotomy hinders people’s ability to interpret larger events.
Then don’t do it.
I think artists should have the freedom to use AI tools. I do not usually like the output, but that’s irrelevant, people should be able to make art I don’t like. I think AI should be regulated, although I am agnostic about the appropriate policies, and distrustful of the government’s ability to get it right. I do not care for the major AI companies. I think the environmental impact of AI is greatly exaggerated compared to other common activities, although maybe that means people should be more concerned about the other common activities instead of less concerned about AI.
Ah, then, now we have some topics worth discussing, except you just list off your opinion. It’s good of you to mention that others have the right to a different opinion, but – seriously- these are matters of importance. But, I see a lot of “WTF” – are we talking about AI, the technology, or AI companies, the various businesses with varying business models. I understand that’s a huge topic but it does eventually boil down to interesting questions such as the degree to which the venture capital landscape affects technology and whether or not that is in good service of humankind. Also, there are other important topics such as whether humankind at-large has any rights to restrict or even complain about what a private company chooses to do. Of course these are not simple problems, they take a lot of thought and wrangling, and are not to be waved away simply by telling us what your opinion is. I have an anus, too, as they say.
My biggest issue with AI art, is that I’m just not into the kind of art that it’s imitating,
A fascinating problem, misconstrued. Really, truly, deeply misconstrued. For one thing, if someone wants to synthesize a particular effect, they may have to work hard to get it, or even produce a checkpoint trained for that effect. That’s less of a problem now when the checkpoints are at about 9+billion datapoints, but if I prompt an AI to do me a version of Singer Sargent’s Madame X in an anime-influenced style, it’s not the AI’s fault that I committed a crime against good taste – it’s, urrr, just following orders. In literal fact, it is doing its best. All the badness and bad taste – even evil taste if you want to make it a moral issue – is mine. I’m trying desperately to see what this has to do with AI at all, other than that AI may be an enabling technology for a lot of bad taste you don’t like. But then that makes me want to scream “did you actually have a point?!” at the screen because you seem to be mistaking non-compliance with your tastes to be an AI problem.
That is a huge mistake, and makes me wonder if you’re even qualified to say “AI” let alone anything about it.
But arguments about AI art aesthetics are overly focused on the ability or inability of AI art to live up to the artistic values and sensibilities of standalone illustrations.
No, they are not. I just presented one that demonstrates how off-base you are. And, also, there are many fascinating discussions about the problem of creativity, never mind living up to artistic values. I know some of the folks over at my blog are fond of pointing out when an AI gets the finger-count wrong (but they are fine when Picasso does it) but that’s not a serious aesthetic critique. I assume you don’t follow my blog, and that’s fine, but I’d like to think I have asked deeper and more interesting questions than the artistic sensibilities of standalone illustrations. In fact, you’re completely ignoring the fact that the AI LLMs we converse with are doing a really different thing from the descendants of stable diffusion algorithms. They are not on the same page; you can’t be “pro-AI” without drawing that distinction because it disqualifies you from talking about aesthetics at all <- my opinion, since aesthetics are about taste and beauty and those pull in forms of meta-cognition that diffusion algorithms were never intended to implement. That’s like saying “nobody wants to argue over the fact that AI is a bad spaceship.” Uh, yeah, I can’t tell if you’re Captain Obvious or Colonel Clueless.
I think AI artists should lean even more into discussing their own artistic methodologies, since it’s kind of the most interesting thing about AI art. I’m not their boss though, that’s just what would make it more interesting to me.
I really hate to perturb your pose of endless ennui but there are lots of people doing that. And thinking about that. In fact, it almost becomes necessary when you want to get an AI to produce an image, if you’re using one of the image generators that is joined to an LLM. There, you can discuss not only your own desired vision, but learn what the AI is capable of representing of it, any how or why. I’ve done this – used GPT to deconstruct a particular stable diffusion engine’s compositions and try to see where they come from. It’s very interesting (to me) but obviously I am less prone to olympian boredom than you are. Did you know that GPT is capable of carrying on a pretty good back-and-forth about the relative dynamism of center-shot photographs versus the “rule of thirds”? You can even ask it how and Erwin Olaf and Irving Penn violated those rules and why, and how/if it made their images more compelling. I studied that stuff in art school and my opinion is that GPT has a better grasp on those questions than my Photo 2 teacher, but he was a bit of a washed-up hack. But it’s outright goofy to say that artists using AI are – basically – not putting thought into it.
They’ll say, if you liked the art, then you liked the art, and it shouldn’t matter that it was AI generated.
That’s almost calumny. Or it’s a broad enough stereotype that you could stretch it across the Volga and walk across on it. I know dozens of people who are having fun and producing serious work using AI, and I know none of them who would say it doesn’t matter. For me, in fact <- this is my opinion one of the nice things about image generation is that I no longer have to try to pressure a real live human artist into wasting some of their billable life-time producing some silly sketch for a blog. If you went far enough back in time on my writings, there are a few illustrated by Per Hennig Olsen, a charming Norwegian who makes a living illustrating things for a living. I've long felt it was uncool to ask him to illustrate my blog without paying him and we often wrangled over how many pints of beer who owed what, when. Perhaps it bores you, or there are too many fingers, but I enjoy being able to slap inexpensive illustrations into my postings, without wasting minutes of someone's life. Especially because humans get it wrong, too, and you can't just correct your prompt and hit "OK" like you can with an AI.
I'm going to stop here with one final caveat. In your piece you appear to freely conflate stable diffusion-evolved image generators and large language models/reasoning models under the casual rubric "AI." That's criminally sloppy. Rather an expressing a list of your bored opinions, why not try tackling one issue of the many and really try to understand it? For example, is the creativity that humans demonstrate somehow special? Is it impossible to emulate? Does that apply to human thought, now that AI LLMs have smashed the crap out of the Turing test and IQ tests? Maybe I'm just interested in the obscure. But your opinion is pretty ordinary, really.