Shroomstep🍄

@Shroomstep

Human Psychedelic Artist+AI - Musician, DJ, Builder, Innovator & Full-time Carer 🍄 Creator of @HopiumTown - Link coming soon

Interdimensional

Joined April 2021

5.7K Following

9.7K Followers

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Shroomstep🍄

@Shroomstep

13 days ago

Luckily, we're entitled to an opinion. Read it if you want to know mine. The Argument for AI is a bit dumbfounded. Any artist can generate an image using AI, transfer that composition onto canvas, paint it, and present it as traditional art. But the original AI-generated composition? Apparently, that's not art. So at what point did it become art? When the brush touched the canvas? When the image was printed? Or when a human decided the idea was worth creating Perhaps it was all of those things +effort? On the other hand you have decades of relatively consistent artistic output, and then generative AI becomes accessible to everyone and suddenly there's an explosion of extraordinary compositions, intricate surrealism, impossible perspectives, cinematic lighting and wildly elaborate concepts on canvas. And we're supposed to believe the timing is entirely coincidental. Of course, that doesn't establish that any particular artist is using AI. But it raises an interesting question about how much of what we're now calling artistic vision is actually AI-assisted visual exploration. Because an artist can generate 200 compositions, select one, reproduce it on canvas and receive praise for their extraordinary imagination. Meanwhile, someone who openly presents the original AI composition is told they lack imagination. The irony isn't that artists use AI. It's that some may be using it to expand their own creative capabilities while denying that same legitimacy to everyone else. Meanwhile, people are increasingly demanding to know how the image was produced before deciding whether they're allowed to appreciate it. In 1972, the Tate Gallery bought Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII, a stack of 120 fucking firebricks! By 1976, it had sparked a public controversy about what actually qualifies as art. The Tate called it a boring Masterpiece. Thousands of years ago, Plato's Phaedrus raised the concern that writing would cause people to rely on written words rather than their own memories. Photography was going to destroy painting. Synthesizers were going to destroy musicianship. Digital art wasn't real art. AI is now supposedly going to destroy creativity. Its a little ridiculous And then you have people who buy a piece because they love it. People who buy a piece because they want to support the artist. People who buy a piece because it really fits the space on the wall behind their bed. People who buy a piece because of what other people will say about the piece. People buy a piece because everyone else wants it or will want it. And People buy a piece because they were doing a tax writeoff. Every single one of those people can purchase the exact same artwork, for completely different reasons, and none of them needs to agree on what makes it valuable. The very same person might buy a piece for several of those reasons simultaneously. Which creates a rather interesting problem for the anti-AI-art argument. If art can be valued for emotional connection, aesthetics, social status, scarcity, speculation, interior decoration, cultural significance or personal association, why does the method of production suddenly become the deciding factor in whether something qualifies as art at all? And it gets stranger. An AI-generated composition could be printed on canvas, hung above someone's bed, admired by visitors and treasured for 30+ years. That person might genuinely love it more than anything in a prestigious gallery. Are we seriously going to tell them their emotional connection is invalid because of how the image was produced? And the reverse is equally true. Someone could spend six months painstakingly painting a canvas that nobody particularly likes. The effort deserves recognition, but it doesn't oblige anyone to appreciate the result. There's also a distinction worth making between the value of an artwork, the value of an artist's labour, and the value of an artist's reputation. Those are three different things, even if the art market frequently bundles them together. The conversation about AI training, consent and copyright is legitimate, but it's not the same conversation as whether the resulting image can be art. And that's perhaps the most absurd part of all this: What is Art? We accept that absolutely anything can inspire someone to purchase art, but apparently only certain methods are acceptable for creating it. An art market that can assign enormous value to 120 stacked firebricks, or a shark suspended in formaldehyde, ought to have enough philosophical flexibility to accommodate an AI-generated image. What is art, if not something that inspires thought, emotion and conversation? If an AI-generated image can provoke this much debate about the very definition of art, then surely it's already doing something art has always done. We don't generally spend our time debating whether a loaf of bread is art. Yet here we are, debating images and arguing over an entirely subjective concept. It doesn't require universal approval to qualify as art. And you're not expected to like it. Art is Art is Art. Ironically, as history has proven - the more people argue about whether something is art, the harder it becomes to argue that it has no artistic significance. (Art by Damien Hirst) 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' (1991)

Shroomstep's tweet photo. Luckily, we're entitled to an opinion.
Read it if you want to know mine.

The Argument for AI is a bit dumbfounded.
Any artist can generate an image using AI, transfer that composition onto canvas, paint it, and present it as traditional art.

But the original AI-generated composition? Apparently, that's not art.

So at what point did it become art? When the brush touched the canvas? When the image was printed? Or when a human decided the idea was worth creating Perhaps it was all of those things +effort?

On the other hand you have decades of relatively consistent artistic output, and then generative AI becomes accessible to everyone and suddenly there's an explosion of extraordinary compositions, intricate surrealism, impossible perspectives, cinematic lighting and wildly elaborate concepts on canvas.

And we're supposed to believe the timing is entirely coincidental.

Of course, that doesn't establish that any particular artist is using AI. But it raises an interesting question about how much of what we're now calling artistic vision is actually AI-assisted visual exploration.
Because an artist can generate 200 compositions, select one, reproduce it on canvas and receive praise for their extraordinary imagination.

Meanwhile, someone who openly presents the original AI composition is told they lack imagination.

The irony isn't that artists use AI. It's that some may be using it to expand their own creative capabilities while denying that same legitimacy to everyone else.

Meanwhile, people are increasingly demanding to know how the image was produced before deciding whether they're allowed to appreciate it.

In 1972, the Tate Gallery bought Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII, a stack of 120 fucking firebricks! By 1976, it had sparked a public controversy about what actually qualifies as art. The Tate called it a boring Masterpiece.

Thousands of years ago, Plato's Phaedrus raised the concern that writing would cause people to rely on written words rather than their own memories.

Photography was going to destroy painting.

Synthesizers were going to destroy musicianship.

Digital art wasn't real art.

AI is now supposedly going to destroy creativity.

Its a little ridiculous

And then you have people who buy a piece because they love it.

People who buy a piece because they want to support the artist.

People who buy a piece because it really fits the space on the wall behind their bed.

People who buy a piece because of what other people will say about the piece.

People buy a piece because everyone else wants it or will want it.

And People buy a piece because they were doing a tax writeoff.

Every single one of those people can purchase the exact same artwork, for completely different reasons, and none of them needs to agree on what makes it valuable.

The very same person might buy a piece for several of those reasons simultaneously.

Which creates a rather interesting problem for the anti-AI-art argument.

If art can be valued for emotional connection, aesthetics, social status, scarcity, speculation, interior decoration, cultural significance or personal association, why does the method of production suddenly become the deciding factor in whether something qualifies as art at all?

And it gets stranger.

An AI-generated composition could be printed on canvas, hung above someone's bed, admired by visitors and treasured for 30+ years.

That person might genuinely love it more than anything in a prestigious gallery.

Are we seriously going to tell them their emotional connection is invalid because of how the image was produced?

And the reverse is equally true. Someone could spend six months painstakingly painting a canvas that nobody particularly likes. The effort deserves recognition, but it doesn't oblige anyone to appreciate the result.

There's also a distinction worth making between the value of an artwork, the value of an artist's labour, and the value of an artist's reputation. Those are three different things, even if the art market frequently bundles them together.

The conversation about AI training, consent and copyright is legitimate, but it's not the same conversation as whether the resulting image can be art.

And that's perhaps the most absurd part of all this:

What is Art?

We accept that absolutely anything can inspire someone to purchase art, but apparently only certain methods are acceptable for creating it.

An art market that can assign enormous value to 120 stacked firebricks, or a shark suspended in formaldehyde, ought to have enough philosophical flexibility to accommodate an AI-generated image.

What is art, if not something that inspires thought, emotion and conversation?

If an AI-generated image can provoke this much debate about the very definition of art, then surely it's already doing something art has always done.

We don't generally spend our time debating whether a loaf of bread is art.

Yet here we are, debating images and arguing over an entirely subjective concept.

It doesn't require universal approval to qualify as art.

And you're not expected to like it.

Art is Art is Art.

Ironically, as history has proven - the more people argue about whether something is art, the harder it becomes to argue that it has no artistic significance.

(Art by Damien Hirst)
'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' (1991)

979

Shroomstep🍄

@Shroomstep

32 minutes ago

@LisaLisa I've said that my whole life 💚

Shroomstep🍄

@Shroomstep

33 minutes ago

@Havenlust 💚💚💚

Shroomstep retweeted

Scott

@Havenlust

about 3 hours ago

Sunset One Minute Ago 🌞☀️

185

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Shroomstep🍄

@Shroomstep

about 1 hour ago

@TheStevenWarner The ultimate question to ask a Billionaire. What is stopping you from becoming a trillionaire? It turns a day of questions into a 2-way conversation about possibility.

Shroomstep retweeted

Warner

@TheStevenWarner

1 day ago

If you keep telling yourself you’re poor, you’ll start believing it. I see so many people in this space speak their circumstances into reality without realizing how much that mindset holds them back from changing their situation. No one is coming to save you, but I promise you’re capable of changing your own life.