The slow, heroic process of saving ART as we know it.
The barren land of Artists' reactions -- and how this will eventually benefit you.
It’s been a long time.
Around 2/3 years ago, the world of art was shaken by the first machine to ever break the turing test.
Listening to people’s reactions to this event, it felt like we were either all doomed to find manual jobs within the next year, or we were going to be fine forever.
As with all such extreme predictions, reality turned out to be somewhere in the middle. We haven’t been replaced, but the nature of our work has changed — and is about to change even more. We aren’t going to be fine forever, and attempts to stop the AI train have all failed.
The reality of AI art turns out to be one of slow, undercover undermining, and loss of faith in humanity. As the AI bulldozer destroys village after village of human artists, people either move a little further down the bulldozer’s path, or into the new skyscrapers that are built in their place.
Gone is the veneration that people used to feel for artists. And we are to blame for it. Our reactions have been so standard and unoriginal, we should be ashamed of ourselves.
The types of reactions to AI art :
the adopter
These people argue that the world of art has known a number of waves of protestation against new tools, but always adapts and absorbs these tools.
While things change on the surface, they argue, art remains art, no matter the tool.
They are partially right.
But they ignore the fundamentally different nature of AI art tools, as well as the fact that some artists don’t want to sit in front of a screen all day.
the traditionalist
These people argue that AI art is shallow and soulless. While it may eat up some of the market, traditional art will remain alive and they will keep their livelihoods.
While a new form of art has emerged, they argue, it doesn’t quite do the same thing as them.
They are partially right.
But they ignore that art is meant to be disruptive, more than a mere job, as well as the fact that they will be alive for decades, and AI will keep growing.
the dabbler (the majority)
The majority of those who have stakes in the AI debate aren’t actually artists. They’re people who are working on their skills and looking for a way into the creative world.
For most of these people, AI represents a neutral force that crushes their dreams while creating new ones. Most of the AI bashers and AI worshippers also belong to this category. Having no skin in the game, they are disconnected from the ground truth, and can afford to have unrealistic opinions.
Frustration
You can look as hard as you want, in all the pamphlets, blog posts, petitions and manifestos that have been written about AI art, and you fill find nothing more than variations of these three things.
But this is all so obvious — one could have predicted these opinions from the start. An AI might have guessed it all back then as well.
How come nothing new has arisen in the past 3 years ? How come the AI art debate is so stale, split between uninteresting cliché extremists and empty so-called realists ? Is this the only response our so-called human creativity allows us ? Are we no more than the machines ?
How actual innovation happens
The adopter is partly wrong. The traditionalist is partly wrong. The dabbler doesn’t put in enough effort. But there are historical examples of people being right.
After the bloodshed of World War I, with machines turned machine-guns, and rationalism into disrespect for life, trust in “civilization” collapsed.
With this unexpected, sudden, and devastating change in the nature of reality, previous forms of art no longer cut it. Beautiful rendering and marvelous aesthetics no longer made people dream about the achievements of mankind. Instead, they reminded us of our scary potential.
In 1924, André Breton published the Surrealist Manifesto, calling reason what it had become: a prison.
He wrote:
Under the pretense of civilization and progress, we have managed to banish from the mind everything that might be labeled superstition or fancy... We must thank the discoveries of Freud. The imagination is perhaps about to reclaim its rights. If the depths of our mind contain strange forces capable of battling the surface… it is urgent to seize them.
Just like our crisis is AI, the crisis of the day was civilization itself: too orderly, too rational, too cold to contain human truth. The solution? Let the irrational speak. Dalí, Magritte, Ernst, found a CREATIVE WAY OUT OF THE PIT ART HAD BEEN TRAPPED INTO.
It’s our mission to do the same.
The lessons to draw from this historical examples are many. A few I’m actively working on applying are :
action : you don’t get anywhere by being a dabbler. You need to produce, meet people, think hard and try as many solutions as possible.
unearthing : if the outside and the surface world of language are overtaken, our task must involve some kind of unearthing of inner truths, just like it did for Breton. I’ve been experimenting with a method for such depth digging.
patience : nothing will happen within the next 10 years. We have to remain loyal to the cause, even if the signals of victory don’t show up.
See you in the next one,
ArtPostAI
Neat. Made me think about my own art. What would it look like to find a paradigmatically different approach to art, like cubism or dadaism or surrealism, in the age of generative AI?
And, now that I think about it, why has there scarcely been an art movement? There have been social movements lately - I can track that, especially in the US where I live - but why the lack of art movements? We're not stagnating, but there's, like, a lack of defining waves of thought among artists, y'know? We're fragmented, and instead of movements we have short-lived trends. I'm not necessarily saying this is an issue, but I am curious. What do you think?