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Some people say that images generated in AI models like Midjourney is not art, cause you are not an artist, you just push some buttons. Others claim that AI is a tool like any other tool and can generate art if we can convey ideas and emotions through it. I have several questions about it.

  1. What are pros and cons arguments about AI art being a new form of art from philosophical point of view?

  2. Is it a similar situation that first photographers faced? Or it's very different, cause in photo art when it appeared the tool was very simple and you still did most of the job and now it's conceptually different?

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I think there are 2 questions here that are important to untangle. One question is "is it art?" and the other question is "If it is art, who is the artist?"

It's my stance that the second question is the more important one. AI is already capable of producing things people find beautiful, sometimes meaningful, and occassionally even passes as human-made art. So, if it's capable of being experienced as art, there's in my mind not much of a difference between being indistinguishable from art and being art. So, just for a second, let's take it for granted that AI art IS (or can occassionally be) art.

Once we take that for granted, we can still ask "So who is the artist?" Some people liken AI to a tool, and when they say that, they're implicitly (sometimes explicitly) making the claim that The Prompt Writer is the artist. I think that claim is very, very contentious, and should be questioned.

In a pre-AI world, in the world we lived in just a few years ago, before Midjourney started turning heads, people still made prompts for other intelligences to interpret and make art out of. Those other intelligences, taking the prompts and making art, were other human beings. We call this a "commission". When you give a prompt to another human being and they make a picture for you, most people DO NOT consider the Prompt Writer to also be The Artist - they consider the person who actually produced the imagery The Artist.

If I paid an Artist to depict a prompt, and then later presented the finished piece as my creative work, and called myself The Artist, people would generally consider that dishonest. That's basically plagiarism or creative theft.

I believe AI art should, in 99% of cases, be considered analogous to this. Instead of paying a person and giving them a prompt, you're now giving the prompt to an AI -- but it's still effectively the same as the Commission scenario. You're giving a prompt to someone (or something) else - some other intelligence - and they are taking your prompt and turning it into an image. If you shouldn't be considered the artist when another Human makes the image, why should you be considered the artist when an artificial intelligence does so? In my opinion, you should not.

Now, I would like to carve out a little exception here for some people who use AI art as part of an artistic work flow, and don't just take what the AI produces and calls that their finished work. There are ways to use the output of the AI fairly - but most AI images are not using the output to produce their own art, the output of the AI is in 99% of cases the finished piece, and in those cases, it's essentially a commission.

So if the prompt maker in 99% of cases isn't rightfully The Artist, then who is? Perhaps the AI itself? Perhaps the programmers and designers of the AI software? Perhaps the thousands and thousands of artists whose work was used to train the AI? Perhaps all of the above have a stake. I'm not sure about the answer to that.

AI is not "just a tool" in these 99% of cases. No tool previously made so many creative decisions as AI does. AI is a commission artist, not just a tool, in most cases.

TKoL
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    The difference is that you often spend many hours working with prompts, angles, wording etc etc to achieve a good result. It's very different than just paying for your portrait, it's real job if dome professionally. It looks you didn't have this experience. Of course we can call is a variant of digital craftsmanship, still not an art, but that's a more nuanced difference, than just paying someone and getting a ready result. –  Jan 26 '24 at 15:29
  • @Growing_strong if you hire an artist to work for you, you can also ask that artist to try changing this or that, try changing the mood - you can change your prompt as you're working with a human artist as well. AI only makes this process cheaper and the iterations faster. – TKoL Jan 26 '24 at 15:42
  • I'm certainly not saying that there's no skill at all in promp craftsmanship, but I don't believe that skill is the kind of skill that warrants the label 'artist'. – TKoL Jan 26 '24 at 15:43
  • I could say that the will behind creation is also important. An artist has some motivation and inspiration even if you pay. AI model is totally a tool, you create things with it by your will and desire and skill. It's closer to a sophisticated camera that you control, than to ordering from artist. You move camera, you choose filters, you choose settings, zooms. Is photo art also commision then? –  Jan 26 '24 at 16:05
  • *** I don't believe that skill is the kind of skill that warrants the label 'artist -- this is very debatable. Looking at some results and skills they need I as a hobbyist ( not an artist) will disagree –  Jan 26 '24 at 16:06
  • @Growing_strong AI model is totally a tool, you create things with it by your will and desire and skill. It's closer to a sophisticated camera that you control, than to ordering from artist. I disagree entirely. When you ask an artist for a picture, and you're vague about your request, that artist will make a lot of creative decisions. If you say 'draw me a pretty girl', the artist will choose a pose, what hair style she has, what clothing she wears, what colours, etc. So many creative choices. You ask ai to draw you a pretty girl, the AI makes those same sorts of choices. A camera doesn't. – TKoL Jan 26 '24 at 16:16
  • +1 To your two questions, I'd add, "What does it mean for art to be new?" – J D Jan 26 '24 at 18:41
  • *** You ask ai to draw you a pretty girl, the AI makes those same sorts of choices.*** This answer shows me you have a very vague understanding of the subject. Because you do not differentiate between prompting "a cute girl" and really controlling the AI model giving it practically very few choices. I guess your personal usage of complicated models is zero or very limited so you practically don;t understand what I am saying. sorry, but this is very easy to see. ;) –  Jan 27 '24 at 02:58
  • @Growing_strong if you have a link to a YouTube video showing the kind of control you're talking about, I'm happy to watch and learn – TKoL Jan 27 '24 at 15:18
  • So you basically admit you are answering a question without understanding the subject. Good. As for control, you can control basically everything - colour, setting, size, style, angle, light, material, time etc etc. You don't need a specific video, just search for any basic tutorial for SD or Midjourney. But do you need it? If you were very interested you could learn it for more than a year already. –  Jan 28 '24 at 12:08
  • @Growing_strong I'm very familiar with midjourney, and I know exactly how LITTLE control people really have over it. Write me a midjourney prompt that reliably creates two Asian adults in the center with one white male child on the left and one dog with a bow tie on the right. I'll test it out once you give it to me and let you know how well it went – TKoL Jan 28 '24 at 12:21
  • Even if there is some difficult theme, you can use photoshop generative fill on top of the SD or MJ pic. It';s also AI btw. Have you heard of it? You can also use faceswap if all people will be Сhinese - AI as well. 2. When I talked about control, I meant AI in general of course and not that you do all with one prompt. 3. In classical ART the final picture is also a product of thousands of steps with different tools and not one brush stroke. Also my personal skills are irrelevant to the discussion of a subject.
    • –  Jan 28 '24 at 15:06
  • But I know what can be done, and what tools are available. 4. By trying to "test me" you are in fact losing and not winning. "Show me or else" ad hominem fallacy. :) I think it's enough of my time, you can't say anything on the matter. Time is money. –  Jan 28 '24 at 15:07
  • Still, I wanna thank you, cause you made me think how to do this challenge. Jokes and trolling apart, here is the result - https://ibb.co/0V7MRZq. And it's not a random lucky roll –  Jan 28 '24 at 22:25
  • You seem very sensitive about my challenge. I would have totally changed my mind if you had just done it instead of crying. @Growing_strong – TKoL Jan 29 '24 at 12:28
  • having one's opinion not because of factual stuff but because of the temperament of a person you argue with - it seems like a pretty faulty logic. I also liked how you ignored all factual arguments about tools and instead just said "I am crying". Have a nice day, it seems nothing interesting for me in this dialogue anymore. ^) –  Jan 29 '24 at 21:36