this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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First I thought "Oh jeez, what a wall of text" but now you gave me my own thoughts that I want to share.
I don't think callling genAI output "not art" is a very defendable statement. I believe art is ultimately a type of activity, and one that is very hard to draw a strict line around. If I find a cool piece of driftwood and frame it, did I do art? That's kind of what that artist did when he picked his album cover.
But I also share your sentiment about "AI artists" pretending to work in a medium of which they understand 0% of the nuance. I think it makes more sense to call those people hacks instead of "not artists", because that's what you call people who use shallow, formulaic methods to dabble in a medium of which they are wholly incompetent.
And finally, AI as toolset does of course uniquely pander to hacks.
Kinda? I "found" a defective injection molding part, where the color of previous batch seeped in in a pattern that looks like a flower. It's really pretty. That there is no intention behind it makes it more interesting to me. It wasn't trivial to put it on a wall. I had to use nails and iron wire and then balance it. I am fine with not calling it art. On a scale 1-10 it definitely is not more than 2.
I agree. There is intent going into the prompt fondler's efforts to prompt the genAI, it's just not very well developed intent and it is using the laziest shallowest method possible to express itself.
I'm an "is it art?" maximalist. But I think it's the wrong question about generative AI. The right question is the corporate incentives.