This is about Duane Keiser and his recent writing about AI and Painting - and provides the first real insight I've read into the issues and problems with reproducing art using AI.
Two recent innovations in the realm of art are NFTs and AI - except that neither are art: Put simplistically:
- NFTs are digital tokens (akin to currency NOT art!) - see my blog post last year about What is art? (legally speaking)
- AI stands for Artificial Intelligence which is a machine learning way of creating "more of the same" using machine algorithms. (An algorithm is a procedure used for solving a problem or performing a computation).
Duane Keiser on AI
Duane Keiser has been writing recently on his blog about the advent of AI and whether it is a serious rival to painting 'for real'.
It's the result of doing some serious research.
Over the last few months, I've been researching and experimenting with AI to better understand it (I gained early access to the more well-known AIs). In my next few articles, I'll be writing about what I've learned about AI as it relates to art and painting, and where it might be going.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND a read of his blog posts if you want to grasp what AI and art is and what problems it encounters. It's a well structured series which introduces the notions of AI and where it comes from and then presents a series of experiments he has conducted in AI.
I've extracted short quotes from each to demonstrate what they are about as I know the whole concept of AI will be very new to most of you.
To read his blog posts just right click the titles and open in a new tab.
As I read some of the reactions to AI, I'm reminded of what the French painter Paul Delaroche said in the 1800s upon seeing one of the first photographs: "From today, painting is dead."
It feels like AI developers have gone from pen and ink, to the Gutenberg Press, to the internet in a matter of weeks. The advancements are hard to keep up with, much less fully understand. In terms of tech revolutions, I’ve never seen anything like it. Not even close.
Before I get to my experiences with image-based AI, I thought it would be helpful to start with an introduction to text-based AI, specifically ChatGPT.
- The Woman in the White Dress - in which Duane reveals his experiments with AI and the images and results he (and AI) generated. I was absolutely riveted by this read and recommended it on FB straight away - and found that others were also very interested in what he had to say
The AI is not just a craftsman who dutifully follows orders. It is a collaborator in the true sense of the word— it makes conceptual contributions to your project (whether you like them or not.) The output always comes with surprises. In other words, the AI cannot be corralled into recreating the exact image you have in your head. This, as you may have already discovered, can feel like herding cats.
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| Duane Keiser on AI - The Woman in the White Dress |
Then it got really interesting....
