One cheer for “‘AI’ art”?

I am generally skeptical of breathless “AI” boosterism. LLMs have given us some astonishing surprises in the last few years, and we can expect more surprises over the next few years at least, but it is preposterous to see artificial superintelligence is on the horizon. LLMs have differently-shaped strengths and limitations from familiar proceedural computing systems, but the contrasts with what we see from human cognition make it obvious that there are a lot of things humans do which they simply cannot.

I am generally disgusted by the disdain both for the arts and for artists in how “AI” boosters imagine replacing artists with robots. Surprising and weirdly impressive as developments in “‘AI’ art” art have been in the last few years, I cannot imagine thinking that “AI” is on a trajectory toward replacing novelists, painters, filmmakers, et cetera. I join those who refer to “‘AI’ art” as “slop” because of its deeply schlocky quality.

But I don’t want to be a one-dimensional “AI” hater, and have been challenging myself to think about ways these tools can be useful. So here’s an idea I’m not sure is right, offered as a provocation to my thinking and others’.

Maybe “AI” illustrations are not a big problem because their distinctive janky quality signals what they are, meta-communicating I am using this as an ephemeral little instrument to communicate a simple intent, rather than as a subtle work.

When generative “AI” image tools were new, I experimented a bit. I made this little meme image quoting a Lou Reed song by asking “AI” to give me a “sneering Statue Of Liberty”. I am satisfied with it delivering a little something I could neither draw nor afford to pay an artist to do.

I think that plays because it is not a subtle work. A picture is worth a thousand words and I wouldn’t ask “‘AI’ art” to do that … but sometimes you just need an illustration worth less than a dozen words. There are plenty of bland corporate filler illustrations which express no profound human intent. I know using “AI” deprives illustrators of jobs making this stuff, but isn’t that the kind of elimination of toil we should embrace as enabling Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism?

Maybe the right regulatory solution to “AI” images is to lean into their janky soullessness. Might we force them into a few house styles so we always recognize that they were not created by an artist?

Over on the Bluesky thread where I first articulated this idea, someone countered …

“Fully automated luxury gay space communism” should have a higher aspiration than to feed money to the VIC collective to torch miles of rainforest and fresh water to generate an image of partying seniors with 9 fingers per hand for a failing rural elder care program.

Put a tick more precisely I think a use case for LLMs of artists doing drafts and preliminary scaffolding for their sincere work is orders of magnitude more socially beneficial than for making corporate PowerPoint sloptent even more repellent & sloppier.

Indeed. Even my dumb little meme only seems useful to me as an instrument for a small purposeful comment.

The more substantive uses of “AI” I find interesting are artists using these tools as one among many instruments in composing something with intention and meaning, whether it is James Curico weaving “AI” elements into complex mixed-media artworks or Damien Walter using “AI” illustrations just to liven up a videoessay so it’s not just him being a talking head. Curico says:

I’ve had very good results in this direction, personally. Though it’s kind of a lose-lose talking about the process since on the one hand it’s “doesn’t matter if you spent 90 hours on it you still deserve the electric chair” and “what's the point if can’t do it with one prompt?”