F is For Fake

Probably one of the best movies of all time. It talked about forgeries and the artists who made those forgeries. The main one boasting that they could create something that even the artist would think was their own, and, that their works were the ones in the museums. Turns out it's true that many works in museums are forgeries. 

So to that end, reading about AI art sounds vaguely familiar whereby the AI itself is churning out tons of art. [1] IOW the Ai art creator is the forger and that's the worry here. Especially since it might take away from those who are currently earning their living. In fact, the hate against artists seems to be an odd part of this current wave (and I've seen similar discussions online, calling artists idiots, or similar to someone whining that their calculator took away their ability to make money from adding numbers) of forgeries that forgers of old didn't have (as in F for Fake, which made it seem like they were adding to the art world). 

"People are selling prints made by AI that have my name in the title," he said. "Something like — 'Rusty Robot in a field in the style of Simon Stålenhag' — which is a super aggressive way of using this technology."

He's seen people be hostile when they share an AI image in his style on social media. "People have tagged me and said that they're gonna make me lose my job or something like that, they're really harsh and aggressive," he said.

Certainly this is part of the iniquities of our society simply making it harsher, but that such views are prevalent is pretty sad, tbf [2]. That being said, it does visit the idea of what is copying, what is human imagination (many times it's copying and slightly diverging from what's out there) and what is art, then. Original art especially. Is the black box just mimicking humanity's creativity patterns? [3]

After all, how original is much of what AI Art comes up? Don't know and can't say, tbf. We're going to have to see more. I also think a large part of this is the "hard work" school of what is art. You can't say you rolled out of bed and made some art. Instead, you have to say something like I worked hard on this (that's why even ai art creators or word prompters say "I worked hard on this". 

Whatever that social signaling means (quite possibly an aspect of our meritocracy and hustle culture that we've been fed, as well as what the algo pushes), it's also a part of what art is considered good (note the lack of abstract art in much of AiArt creations). 

Meanwhile, if my AIArt collabs get big I'll let you know. 

[1] not actually going to get into the kinds of art that is both most popular in AI circles and on the internet in general. Tbf, I don't care for it, but it is art that someone is making a living off and, tbf yet again, that's all that matters. F for fake, was less in this vein, that is, the vein of robbing from people livelihoods and more in the vein off adding to their works (only so much a certain artist could produce and many of the artists were dead). 

[2] (a similar attitude was had by the winner of a small art prize, the person wanted their prompting to be equal to an artist's labor and there was this "they thought I was nothing" attitude that I do see in the tech world... what would one call it? some odd misanthropic or anti social view of life in general, tbf. 

[3] Again, much of what is popular both in the article and on the internet and on AiArt scenes doesn't strike me as wholly original, even if I see why it's popular. Mall art for the masses, I'd say, and yeah I'm not trying to be derisive, I do see AiArt simply flooding the internet with more algo perfected visual porn, rather than actual art. 

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