The Whiff of AI Aesthetics: Dream Logic Episode 1

Five words for the algorithm

Awesome. Really looking forward to the unfolding of this series. Everything she says are issues I've been grappling with, as an artist and creator, for years now with these new "tools."

I found what Karin said very emotionally resonant with my perception of AI. I dabbled in a free trial of MidJourney a few years ago and did find inspiration while using it, but also felt that it, at the time, was kind of locked in and samey.

I'm intrigued by this series but I gotta say, if the broad concerns in pop art (mentioned at the end) are homogeneity and a deluge of low-quality stuff at your fingertips, generative AI seems like an absolute disaster

I'm sorry but this is nonsense. I've seen an absolute avalanche of amazing ai art with novel aesthetics from super creative people. all the examples shown here are from the very surface level of uncurated feeds of pieces generated by novice users. this is like looking at a wall full of drawings be kindergarten kids and assuming thats how all human art looks. artists need to fully explore this space before coming out with those generalizing statements.

The AI aesthetic is extremely kitsch and tacky to me. AI won't give you anything new, it only provides you with regurgitations of what's come before. Drivel and sludge in its purest form.

The better the ai generation gets the worse it looks in my opinion. Early ai images were crazy and i kinda dig that as a 3d artist. Now its just meh, too perfect

Pulls up a chair. Excellent - puts into words the thoughts I keep having about the potential of AI augmented creativity that's somehow elevated from the 'teenage boy' slop - bravo

Thinking of Scott Alexander's recent survey testing people's ability to distinguish AI generated images from man-made art, and also rating asthetics. The findings there are fascinating: we have already entered the stage where original human works can "look AI" and AI generations can look not only convincingly like human works, but consistently rate better on asthetics, even by artists. It's only about applications and limits.

She is fkn annoying and condescending!

Well articulated. I'm absolutely uninterested in using AI for art and cannot wait for this to be over. Whether that's in my lifetime or when I die.

whether it looks good or not is not the issue - it's that it's contributes to the deterioration of the planet, it's being weaponized by tech bros who don't care about consequences if it's profitable, it's created from 5+ billion images nonconsensually scraped from the internet, etc. etc. until that stuff is sorted out (lol), this is making the world a shittier place.

how does karin know my thoughts

AI art is where CGI was in 1992. It can do amazing things in the hands of creative, skilled artists but the tools are not at all refined yet.

We will someday miss the days when AI output was uncontrollable, wild, and deliciously grotesque. I know I will.

'We're at risk of art entirely being in the hands of engineers - artists need to be in this equation' - such a great point

It's just like with Photoshop or 3D stuff. At the beginning it feels like programming, and then as the tools get user friendly artists can also use them. Generally artists using 3D / Photoshop will make something better than a regular person. Probably we are on the same path. I mean making a single Midourney image or whatever is very easy, but an artist can use controlnets and essentially sketch out what they want the AI to do and also train the AI on their own work to create a style. Then it is collaborative......well can be anyway if you are more skilled.

:) kirby's back

As a motion designer I stepped into the AI space with the same mix of fear and disdain, but with my eyes open to 2 facts. 1. It's not going away and 2. it's going to change everything in the creative industries. So dipped my toe, figuring I should at least know how to use these tools if they're going to start affecting my livelihood. But have come around to enjoy playing with these tools and the different experience of 'creation' that it brings. Also, discovering some amazing people doing amazing work that absolutely has their unique imprint on the work, so it's not all regurgitation (well, as your previous series confirmed it kinda is ALL regurgitation! 😄). Part of the problem with all this is that it's such a huge paradigm shift in terms of how we evaluate and create artworks, we're bringing our olde worlde perceptions to the table and those perceptions are going to be turned on their head in the coming years. Despite having become somewhat of an enthusiast for it, I'm still scared and I still wish it hadn't happened. But it has.

Dope!

This is the first original cool take on ai I’ve heard in over a year. It’s so hard to engage in a discourse about it without it devolving into extremes. I think we have been around it enough that we can finally begin to reckon with it. Very cool

James Cameron has bad taste.

"I can't quite tell if I can claim the work as my own."

Ask this simple question: Would the work have existed without your initiative and prompting?