A Mind to Create: AI Art, and What it Can Teach Us About Ourselves
It’s no secret… American culture values physical fitness — in spite of a greatly abundant lack of it.
By most accounts we value sports highly, and the impacts they can have on a developing mind and body. From minor leagues to featherweights, we ensure that everyone, no matter their size, age, or physical ability, has access to the feelings of accomplishment and personal satisfaction that can come from taking control of one’s own body, and from competing with others. We value them so much that when someone can’t participate in them due to purely physical limitations, we build special machines in order to facilitate their inclusion. We create these machines because we acknowledge that all human life deserves to strive for its full physical potential.
This of course is wonderful and necessary, but my point is this…
When someone is half the size of a “normal” wrestler, we don’t tell them to just suck it up and deal with the hand fate has dealt them, we create new leagues for them so that they can compete fairly. We do this so that everyone can feel empowered by their physical accomplishments on their own merits, without having to be judged against another, arbitrary standard of excellence. Nobody has the exact same physical strengths and weaknesses, after all.
…But what about when someone can’t draw a person …or anything else, really? What if, when they try to exercise their creative muscles, they find that they have none?
We tell them they are on their own — they can either pass the requirement, or they can’t. There are no art coaches, to say “you can do it!” when they struggle, or say “That kid’s got a lotta heart” when they’ve clearly done their best, but their canvas is ripped. there are no “beginner art leagues” to support those just getting their artistic feet wet, or for those who struggle with creative projects for whatever reason. There is no kind, gentle understanding when people are doing their best, and no appreciation of that just for its own sake.
That once was called “the Art teacher”.
You are either a natural talent these days, or you should probably just go and do something else.
We’ve seen it all the time over the years, from ableist Art competitions to “draw Tippy”, we see a system designed to isolate “rare talents”, rather than one designed to foster and nurture as many of them as possible.
Now let’s compare that to how we breed athletes in our society…
In the arena of physical education, we are trained in multiple physical disciplines from an early age, to develop into the strongest, fastest, and most agile competitors that we can be.
We do this because we know the value of that investment in our youth. If we ensure that all have access to this upbringing, we can ensure America has the best athletes. We start with the best, to bring out the very best. We encourage young athletes with stories of their successful celebrity heroes that they cannot escape, by showing them how much society will reward their success. They wear those stories — drink them — see them everywhere.
Physical education is considered inclusionary, but when it comes to art, we starve the lot, and hand pick whatever is left. What if we told paraplegics that they should try to play something else besides basketball, because they’re “just not built for it”?
Why should Art be only about the greatest talents, and the most capable?
While it’s clear that the roots of this impulse to favor physical competition go back even before the ancient Greek games, it’s important to remember a distinction between the modern view of those games — replete with bronzed athletes slinging javelins— and the knowledge that those competitions also featured poetry, singing, and other arts.
These creative competitions were sometimes not only “included”, they were considered an integral part of the competition’s inner design and workings, as a whole. Heralds trumpeted the festivals’ major events, and musical performances became merged with the physical ones. Not only were the competitions “not separated”, they were “integrated” — the performance of the musicians was said to enhance the performance of the athletes, in a way that marching bands continue to do today.
This sprang from a consummately Greek concept of “interdisciplinarity”, or the belief that the physical, spiritual, creative, and psychological aspects of humanity were all important, all inter-related, and that developing all of them in harmony led to a balanced, “complete self”, or a “whole person”.
So where, and how, did we lose this interdisciplinary approach? The answer might be in the most famous of all the ancient Greek games — the Olympic games — which lasted the longest, arguably leading to the longest-lasting legacy, and which also featured only physical competitions (with very few exceptions). It is unclear exactly when the emphasis shifted, but what is fairly clear is the effect that shift has had on our collective concepts of art and creativity since then, if one knows where to look for it.
But why did we make such grave divisions between what is essentially the body and soul of mankind, to begin with?
One major reason is likely the perception of creative people, that has been accepted for decades as a general consensus without regard to its inaccuracy — that we are some kind of a special, elite group that possesses an innate power that others are not privileged with.
…But what if that’s not even remotely true? What if creative expression is simply a basic, fundamental function of being human, rather than something only an elite few are entitled to carry, as beacons of creative expression for everyone else?
Artists have historically been characterized by wealthy, aristocratic upbringing, but if you look at the cave paintings at Lascaux, France, completed in a highly refined and sophisticated style — at a time before modern social conventions, education, and class hierarchies, that characterization starts to fail under close scrutiny.
The level of refinement they achieved was not the result of “good, proper upbringing” or “upper-class education”, it was the result of something else — some basic human impulse to render — but most importantly there emerged a surprisingly refined style of rendering. IT was refined, even by modern standards, even though the primitive humans who rendered it wore the skins of slain animals.
These were not an animal’s scratches, or a child’s scribbles. They were the clear result of hearts that felt, minds that thought, and fingers that knew how to bring them together.
In spite of these ancient connections and references to ancient Greek interdisciplinary approaches, there remains an enduring legacy of perceived academic elitism in the arts, and with that comes an inevitable level of resentment and alienation …Of “otherness”.
But even when compared to other academic disciplines, the creative ones are still often regarded unrealistically, and treated unfairly.
Here is one example:
Occasionally, just as in art, a Math prodigy emerges that does not need to figure out problems on paper, let alone using a machine — but can simply work them out in their head. Most people cannot duplicate this, and here’s the important part — we don’t expect them to. In most advanced Mathematics courses calculators are not only allowed, they are required. But when someone doesn’t need those “training wheels” on their bike, we don’t hold that in some kind of religious significance. They can just use a calculator or not, and it’s fine. Nobody says “you cheated”, and really means it. What’s important is that the Mathematician shows their understanding and mastery of the concepts involved, to achieve the desired, correct result.
…But not so with art. If you’re an artist and you use a machine to help you think about the problem in front of you, you’re cheating. You are expected to have some kind of super-human ability to achieve any and all aesthetic goal set before you, without using any cheats …“cheats” like tracing with stencils & overhead projectors to gauge proper spatial relationships, using assistants and interns — things that have been a staple of art production since they were invented. If you aren’t a complete prodigy in every way then why are you even bothering?
And now, in light of trained AI models like DALL-E2 and Stable Diffusion, we are in the midst of a whole new, bitter debate — whether AI generated or assisted Art is even “Art”.
“If all you did was push a button, then you can’t say that’s Art!”
This is why photography was not considered a true art form for decades, and only achieved that status after years of hard-fought battles. And after the smoke cleared we could all agree: “The photographer is not responsible for building the Statue of Liberty, just producing an image of it.”
The debate about what is art and what isn’t — or shouldn’t be — has literally been raging for centuries, from photography to digital Art. The AI Art debate is certainly nothing new, however there is one small twist: None of those previous tools were ever making aesthetic decisions for the artist.
…Or were they?
The DADA movement near the beginning of the 20th century introduced the concept of “auto art”, or the “accidental” application of random aesthetic decisions by methods like throwing pieces of paper onto another piece of paper on the ground, and gluing them down wherever they fall (among other methods).
In that way you are foregoing conscious input as the artist, and allowing “chance” to intervene in the production of that composition.
Because of that, a huge debate emerged, as one could well imagine. Every work of art is a series of decisions — up to and including the decision whether to make it or not. If the artist was simply recording a process, and not making the major aesthetic decisions, was that art?
And was that an entirely different question from what we’re seeing today with AI Art? My personal answer would be “No.” For one thing, most in the field will actually tell you that the word “intelligence” in “artificial intelligence” should not be there at all right now, because it’s not creating by the same process that humans do, it’s much more akin to pure Mathematics. What you’re seeing is a creatively remixed sampling of what’s in its dataset — and that’s it.
But here’s where it gets interesting… This actually IS very similar to the way we create as humans, in spite of its Mathematical nature, and why things like “style transfers” in AI Art are so problematic — it’s a problem of attribution. And THAT, is the major crux of the problem for many — the major sticking point for them with AI Art:
“If you can just create something in the style of another artist, then that shouldn’t be allowed.”
1) When we perceive the world around us, it’s rarely an itemized list — it seems more to be an amalgamation of everything that makes up our reality — our “dataset”, if you will. Everything finds its way into our work, on some level, in some way. We share that reality, though our eyes are different.
When we make art and make it public, we are, in essence, adding to that amalgamation of things. Our influence will find its way in, as well. I think a lot of this is normal, and inevitable.
2) It’s already allowed in traditional Art. If you create a work of Art in a famous, easily recognizable style, you might be mocked for stealing it, if you don’t give proper attribution. Simply tell people that the work was done “In the style of X” and be done with it, in order to avoid these allegations.
This attribution should not end there however, if you are using AI to produce your artwork. If you are, and you are not telling people that, you are lying by omission.
We have a rare opportunity with AI art to not only pinpoint its inspirations, but influence them. We also, as a result, have a choice about whether or not to be honest about them, so that others know where that influence is coming from.
People are reluctant to do that today though, because they want credibility for their work on its own — plus many have a very elitist, proprietary approach to art-making, so they keep their prompts a secret. In my opinion you should at LEAST properly attribute every single artist whose work you’re using.
But these are just a couple of reasons why proper attribution is so important. Here’s another great big one: If you enter an Art competition, and don’t tell people that your submission was generated by an AI, then the tool that you were using to “level the playing field” could suddenly, actually be used to sway it drastically in your own favor.
But why even have this debate at all? Why can’t people just accept that they are not likely ever going to be virtuosos, or gourmets, or artists, put down the AI, and get on with their lives?
…Because the creative process, in and of itself, is both vital and integral to proper human functioning, and for far too long it has been gate-kept behind the heavy stone doors of skill and talent. The fact is, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Picasso or not, or anybody else. All that matters is that you grow as a person, share, and are empowered to achieve a certain level of personal fulfillment and satisfaction through your various expressions during your lifetime.
While the value in this may seem purely of a personal nature, I would ask that you kindly consider the implications of this shift in thinking, in regard to one of the biggest problems facing us as a global society right now: The addiction to ever-increasing profit above all else. These people clearly have something missing in their lives, that no amount of money will ever replace.
Perhaps the Greeks were onto something, in their insistence that we need creativity in order to feel “balanced”, and “complete” in our lives.
And once people begin to acknowledge the artist within themselves, they may find they have muscles they never knew they had. Art therapy, like physical therapy, can help people develop the use of their creative muscles, or regain it after long periods of disuse. And as a person who has trained his own models based on his own artwork, I can say, emphatically, that the use of AI can produce a mutually-beneficial feedback loop. I, as an artist, learn just as much from its perspective as it learns from mine, and that makes it invaluable.
We talk about ALL of this because there is such a difference between how we handle physical education and development, and how we handle artistic education and development, and because of that difference there is a huge gulf between the way we understand and treat creative people, versus how we treat athletes.
Now imagine if we had treated Art education with the same care and commitment that we had treated physical education, or any other academic education all this time. Perhaps we would have learned the value of proper attribution, along with a respect for Art, and the people who endeavor to make it.
In lieu of that world, we have one in which artists are ripped off, scammed, impersonated, isolated, demoralized, and impoverished rather than empowered.
I’m actually a traditional artist and an AI artist, but I always label my work with the tags #AIart or #GANart. And even though I train my models based on my own artwork, I still always make sure their output images are attributed correctly.
But more and more we’re seeing this “let’s just call it art” sentiment echoed everywhere — which is its own argument, but people are inevitably taking that a step further, calling AI art “their paintings”. I’m seeing it increasingly online. People are blatantly lying to people, telling them that they “painted” an image when they just hit “refresh” in their browser. They are building an entire online presence around this lie, and it’s no wonder we’re seeing such a vigilant, virulent reaction against it.
The end result is that Art, on the whole, suffers.
Then there are AI art websites like artbreeder that literally let you directly swipe other people’s images, and tells you your paid subscription allows you to make everything you create private — which is a lie.
Then you have NFT vigilantes, people ripping off other people’s styles and content, and the more traditional forms of fraud — up to and including identity theft.
…All within a neoliberal corporate environment that relegates art to a past-time of the elite, and charges you $125 for a gallon of gesso, after decades of people like Jesse Helms killing the NEA, and vilifying creative people.
If you want to know what a society fears the most, look at what it spits on with the greatest velocity and regularity.
2022 is an absolutely crazy time to be alive. Being any kind of artist right now just makes it crazier — But this much is clear — At a time when even gardening is considered a revolutionary act, carrying out a simple Human creative process might be tantamount to our own survival.
