It's important to remember that there are many Monet paintings that critics don't like, or that aren't 'monet enough'. He painted fast to sell and make money and many think some paintings aren't as finished as they could be. He himself destroyed a number of water lily paintings before an exhibition [1], and again a lot of the work he did when he was partly blind due to cataracts.
It’s not a physical painting made by a well known artist.
It’s trying to hard to be a late Monet.
How much of our opinions are driven by context, rather than the actual subject? If Monet’s work is not so great without the context, is it still great? Or is context a critical piece of the art itself? Do we need to view a Monet piece within the scope of other Monet pieces, other artists, time periods, blindness, etc?
I’d say for art, a lot? There’s a ton of art that a halfway decent painter could do now, the art of it was being the one to do it originally. At least that’s how I, as an absolute philistine in that regard, understand it ;)
Yeah I agree, in art a lot is driven by context: there's so many paintings or songs that are not outstanding in itself, but the full human context around it makes it significant.
That brings up the idea that art can be "outstanding in itself", aesthetic in a vacuum, disconnected from what people are caring about. That's dubious, but anyway the AI art doesn't attempt that. Instead it has access to a lot of freeze-dried human context which it rehydrates and presents like a fresh meal, so it partially succeeds at providing that significance.
For an edge case: people will be impressed and interested if you tell them that a piece was painted by an elephant, and then suddenly unimpressed if you tell them you were lying about that. So one function of art is as a sort of experiment, like the art is experimental data, where authenticity matters, because the interest is in the demonstration of a perspective, the reactions of an artist in the situation. Consider noir: a movie is much more plausibly authentic noir if it was made before about 1963, that is, if it was made by actors and directors who actually wore those hats (and lived through other tropes). Later on, it's imitation, regardless of how accurate: the experimental data is invalidated, it doesn't (seem to) mean so much.
This is like asking people to rate this plate of bugs while serving them chicken. Even if tastes great, of course some people who will have a visceral reaction against it.
I think this HN commenter is also being fooled by the AI. It's likely that a lot of comments on HN are bots, so here you got an AI to comment about AI criticizing AI.
I think it shows that art and how people relate to it is more complicated than you think. If the existence of a bunch of handpicked comments can lead you to your conclusion, then you will struggle to find any "good" art at all. Which may be an entirely correct interpretation of the state of things; just not a very interesting one.
Not GP, but I think that's exactly the kind of bias that needs exposing. People are prone to holding a few experts/artists/objects/products in high regarding, defending/denying any flaws, while pushing down on those with less heritage.
If we learn anything from all studies in this field, that is barely possible if not impossible at all, to change people’s mind. Even when they face clear evidence of their own mistake.
AI art enjoyers and missing the point of art: name a better duo.
No one has ever claimed AI cannot imitate a Monet, but however good the imitation, it still isn't art any more than a Xerox of a painting is art. This is the exact reason why most people feel bad after discovering that what they felt was work of human ingenuity, is just a fake, a simulacrum of it. The creation of art, arguably the most human of instincts, cannot be separated from the emotions and effort that went into it.
All this proves is that most people cannot tell if that picture is a Monet or not.
> All this proves is that most people cannot tell if that picture is a Monet or not.
It proves that people don't actually know what they like about "art" or even why they think some art is good, and some is bad.
These people criticized and trashed a widely regarded, famous painting because they were told that it was a cheap imitation.
If the AI generated a real imitation and the Met hung it on their walls I guarantee these same people would celebrate it just the same because they are told that it is real.
> All this proves is that most people cannot tell if that picture is a Monet or not.
It goes beyond that. It proves that many people have an inherent bias against AI itself that's unrelated to whatever it generates. "This was made by AI, therefore it's bad in every way".
Good points, but consider what this post does prove: people’s arguments against AI art are shallow; they often attack the artifacts themselves instead of making your deeper argument.
I remember this old episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor scoffs at a postcard with the Mona Lisa on it and derides souless "art made by computers."
As a digital artist, of course I rolled my eyes at the time, but these days I just keep thinking about that storyline more and more.
We've basically transitioned to a world where digital art is almost the default, but I think the world is going to value physical art much more highly in the coming years.
Let this be an example of when you present your own work in real life. Context and framing is everything and does influence its interpretation and how people perceive your work. This has material effects on your life despite nothing objectively changing about the quality of your work.
Shows nothing about AI, shows a lot about how low the bar has fallen for not taking everything you see on social media at face value.
Enticing an easy and predictable knee jerk reaction from a couple dozen users also hardly proves anything.
Another sign that the context and the human factor will always play a huge role in how we experience art. For example, AI generated music can sound perfect, but still we value it less if we don't know anything about the musician's life.
Many artists have a distinct, original style. Originality is the ability to create novelty in a way which is aesthetically pleasing. I've yet to see AI create a single distinct style which is beautiful.
I know, but it could be AI-generated as well, because people can't tell them apart. The point was that even if AI could imitate Monet perfectly, it's not Monet. It's a worthless test.
Well, there's the Einstein test: can AI figure out general relativity if it's trained only on knowledge up to 1915 or so, before it was discovered. Similarly, you could do a Monet test: train AI on everything before Monet and try to get it to create paintings similar to Monet.
Original is something that is out of the data distribution. AI can't do anything original, because it's job is to imitate the data distribution.
Originality in itself is not hard, because pure noise is original. It should be original and beautiful.
[1] https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28...
2: some of the (albeit mislead) answers basically say "it's nice but it's not something a person willingly outlined and drew" and they are not wrong
3: some answers complain on the lack of depth and detail, color blurbs, and we have to agree the tested version is of very low resolution
so in the end we are left with: "some people who were told it was AI knee-jerked negatively" and i can't even start to see what's surprising about it
It’s not a physical painting made by a well known artist.
It’s trying to hard to be a late Monet.
How much of our opinions are driven by context, rather than the actual subject? If Monet’s work is not so great without the context, is it still great? Or is context a critical piece of the art itself? Do we need to view a Monet piece within the scope of other Monet pieces, other artists, time periods, blindness, etc?
I’d say for art, a lot? There’s a ton of art that a halfway decent painter could do now, the art of it was being the one to do it originally. At least that’s how I, as an absolute philistine in that regard, understand it ;)
It’s like the sommeliers who can’t detect red vs. white wine when blindfolded.
As for your red vs. white wine comparison, it'd only make sense if one of those was doing its best to pretend to be the other one.
I think this HN commenter is also being fooled by the AI. It's likely that a lot of comments on HN are bots, so here you got an AI to comment about AI criticizing AI.
bzzz, clank
I think Monet just wasn't as good as his renown purports.
EDIT: I doubt this experiment would go similarly for a Caravaggio or a Michelangelo.
No one has ever claimed AI cannot imitate a Monet, but however good the imitation, it still isn't art any more than a Xerox of a painting is art. This is the exact reason why most people feel bad after discovering that what they felt was work of human ingenuity, is just a fake, a simulacrum of it. The creation of art, arguably the most human of instincts, cannot be separated from the emotions and effort that went into it.
All this proves is that most people cannot tell if that picture is a Monet or not.
It proves that people don't actually know what they like about "art" or even why they think some art is good, and some is bad.
These people criticized and trashed a widely regarded, famous painting because they were told that it was a cheap imitation.
If the AI generated a real imitation and the Met hung it on their walls I guarantee these same people would celebrate it just the same because they are told that it is real.
That's because those are famously difficult questions to answer.
It goes beyond that. It proves that many people have an inherent bias against AI itself that's unrelated to whatever it generates. "This was made by AI, therefore it's bad in every way".
As a digital artist, of course I rolled my eyes at the time, but these days I just keep thinking about that storyline more and more.
We've basically transitioned to a world where digital art is almost the default, but I think the world is going to value physical art much more highly in the coming years.
That’s just the art scene already ridiculed in the movie Interstate 60 with James Marsden and Gary Oldman and from 2002
https://youtu.be/HHwI37hkWfM?si=iFsWo3M5oSjLgE2F
> AI can't create anything original.
Can we? I mean, don't we base our output on experience and reprocess references + memories of things past to create what we deem as "new"?
Under many definitions, where novel composition of existing knowledge or techniques is counted, it certainly can.
Original is something that is out of the data distribution. AI can't do anything original, because it's job is to imitate the data distribution.
Originality in itself is not hard, because pure noise is original. It should be original and beautiful.