Malle_Yeno

We had that taight in our high school too!

(And as a totally unrelated fact I’m sure, our biology teacher was a major figure in our local church and was pro abstinence. Completely unrelated, of course)

I don’t think their point was just that it’s impossible to reproduce, more that there is skill, knowledge and choice put into getting close to the intended idea when working with AI output.

That’s interesting cuz I took their point as “you can put the exact same prompt into the stable diffusion and not get the same image each time, thus good luck trying to recreate the picture.” Which seemed to me to suggest the opposite point: That intentionality has a diminished role in creating ai images, so it serves even less of a role as art. You wouldn’t say someone sitting in front of a slot machine “intended” to get a cherry, bell, and bar on a specific pull, after all.

Often you aren’t ‘making’ the images that you capture,

But… you are though. Images would not exist without the photographer choosing to make them. Not to mention that many forms of photography (albiet older forms) have very real physical elements to them like dodge, burn, and film development. Even without those elements though, those images would not exist without the effort, intention, and presence of the photographer. The photographer also makes the conscious decision about what photos not to take, because they don’t align to their message. Intention is at every step of the process and that invites us to explore the meaning of their work.

Contrast that with AI art. The only intention you have is your prompt and choice of model. I would argue the fact that ai prompters need to “get close to” what they want their piece to say, rather than making the piece say what they want it to say, shows how starved for meaning the products are.

but there is skill and artistry in the choices that capture the moment or picture you want.

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. But I will say that skill is not what makes art art. Skill can make you a better artist, but someone without skills can make art.

I don’t really get how this is a counter point. I don’t think anyone is contending that the pictures produced are reproducible by the same means. They’re contending that the method of production isn’t “making” art and they aren’t an artist for starting the production process.

It’s sort of like when rich people go to space and call themselves an astronaut. People have an idea of what an astronaut does and it isn’t just “space tourist.” If you fired back with “you try spending that much money and see how easy it is” then that wouldn’t answer the point of why people don’t want to call space tourists “astronauts.”