Images, text, music and other products from various so-called AI models will never be the artistic output it mimics because it’s not about creating; it’s just consumption.
In terms of process, there is little difference between putting on a movie or song that already exists and prompting what in reality are large language models (LLM) for something of the same completeness.
Without process, without value #
Both artists and LLM can produce something from any prompt.
- A piece by Wagner in the style of Metallica.
- Gollum as Mona Lisa in the style of Ted Nasmith.
- A poem about a desolate carwash in the style of Elton John with a hint of Aretha Franklin.
There’s no chance the output will be the same, and nothing stops one from being preferred over the other. But none of that matters; only the artist has created something and done any work. The prompter has done no work or craft; the output is their only motivation. Which is in line with the point of many of the "AI" programs, to remove work.
There’s nothing wrong in wanting to see or hear something, but it’s widely agreed that the audience or people who commission artists are not the artists. As long as we don’t make it ourselves, we are consumers. Prompters too.
Artistry lies not in what we want to consume but in what we want to say and especially the process that gets us there. Even in highly commercial work, there is value in the craft. When the motivation is not the output itself, and if we ignore the need to make a living for a second, there is often a drive through increasing experience and learning.
Artists understand their value beyond their output, as do those who continue to pay them. The rest think making art is payment in itself, and they ruthlessly take advantage of people or try replacing them with poor machine output. The same goes in all fields, if you’re not an artist, you only need to switch out the words to match your own job.
Superficiality and craft #
LLM-generated output always seems like something we’ve encountered before. It’s what we get when people with a superficial understanding of the world make advanced copy machines. Like the LLM, the people behind it don’t understand what they see, hear or read. The general ignorance about how communication works is evident in the huge, but always limited, amount of stolen source material.
The lack of originality comes from the inability to combine experiences with experience, two factors that make humans unique and what we use to make something. Machines can perform limited acts of randomness but not chance and realistic layered intentional human action. "AI" doesn’t know us and never will. It cannot synthesise even the most famous artist because it can only copy their output, not the factors that made that output.
Imitate me today; I’ll change tomorrow #
Ironically, the self-proclaimed people of tomorrow can only give the machine learning algorithm yesterday’s work and, by that, only produce yesterday’s news.
Imitation, inspiration, or whatever you call it, isn’t primarily about copying someone else’s style. Bits of others’ output influence humans directly; imitation is part of learning, part of the process. But at least just as significant are the indirect effects that evoke feelings and generate new ideas.
A machine learning model cannot self-motivated add a secondary medium as indirect input and let emotional and cognitive effects affect the process and work. It cannot process the impact of an artist’s surroundings, temperature, light, setting, view, weather, hours of sleep, mood and other variables that fuel the art and continuous evolution of the artist.
Ripoff exists in human-made art but has more dignity than machine-generated output because it involves actual work with the possibility of shaping the person. Saying what’s a ripoff or not can be tricky – which is what the people behind the models are covering behind while revealing their ignorance once more. But in terms of "AI", it’s clearly a ripoff because no other factors beyond other people’s work are involved. There is no mixing of styles, abilities, and unique thought processes.
Sixty years on a napkin #
Prompting for a product removes the process essential to originality and invention – or innovation, if you like.
The artist’s eye, ear or brain doesn’t turn off. An artist continues to evolve and change, even after hours. Every piece is a result of their experience, even a scribble on a napkin. The process of making the current piece didn’t start when they started working today; it began when they started to make their very first piece.
The machine prompter gains no experience because they, like their machine, have no cognitive process. In sixty years, they have no skills to show. They have submitted entirely to the machine learning algorithms; if taken away from them, they are left empty-handed. Hopefully, also economically.
True grift #
This isn’t about artists, it’s about any thinking human being that has a drive to do something and make something. Whether they paint with their feet, write books on old computers, write code or develop tax systems.
"AI" is not a shortcut for people seemingly without skills to express themselves. It’s a shortcut to grift and consumption.
Go watch a movie. Or make one.