cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/46578520
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/prompt-3
Alt text
Back when I was in art school, we believed in this with all our hearts.
Bonus panel
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
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Prose: Art
Prose ran through a machine : NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THAT'S NOT HECKING ART!
Fuck the AI companies but come on man.
That's not the same thing at all though? When you provide a prompt to an AI, you're basically just feeding it instructions on what to make. I don't think anyone would ever refer to an instruction manual as art.
AI doesn't "make" anything. It steals. All you get when you prompt an AI, is a poor copy of an original piece that it was trained on. Otherwise, you're completely correct.
This represents such an entirely wrong idea of what's going on that it's almost hilarious. The model doesn't just have an internal database of all the training data that it, like, collages together. Holy fuck, if a model internally contained all of the training data in a form it could simply be retrieved from it would be far more valuable as data compression than anything else it might be or do.
What's much closer is that an image generation model has seen millions of pictures, each labeled with metadata about what it is a picture of, each of which causes tiny adjustments to the neural networks weights, because the model is being trained to be able to look at a novel picture and recognize "this picture is of a dog pissing on an apple tree". Any model that can do that can also be run in reverse - essentially "here is a block of white noise I am saying is supposed to be a really noisy picture of a dog pissing on an apple tree, try to clean up the noise and show me how it looks like a dog pissing on an apple tree", then run that in a loop until the picture doesn't change much between iterations. It doesn't need to have seen something precisely identical to what it's generating - with enough training data it has an internal model for things like dogs, clowns or what makes something look like anime and the generation just tickles the bits until the picture rates as probably being what's being asked for.
It isn't wrong, it's a simplification. You REALLY like the smell of your own farts, huh?
Grandma's cookbook?
"Fuck the AI companies but..."
Love it when shills try to make their take seem reasonable.
That's right, I'm Mr OpenAI and I'm here to say, having your privacy violated through backdoors is A-OK!
Color does not matter, said the blind man.
Go listen to Skullgrid
What is it and can I have a link?
It's an album by the prog-metal band "Behold the Arctopus"
And listening to it (or more realistically, reading the lyrics) will convince me of what exactly?
No idea. The guy who suggested you listen to it, seems to think it's the best album ever, tho- considering he named himself after it.
So I will learn about this user at least, but I'm struggling to find the motivation.
Lol I wouldn't bother. Music lyrics rarely translate to real-world action or beliefs. So even if the music says something profound (it doesn't) it's just there to sound artistic, or go with the theme of the music. It's extremely performative.
Good news! It's instrumental.
Well, you were very interested in doing an ad homonim attack on my perception of art, and there are challenging sections in the album skullgrid. Have a listen and see what your perspective on art is like and let me know if you're a deaf man that says "notes don't matter"
If you need to refer to an album to make your argument, you don't have an argument.
And it's not an ad hominem to notice you're saying you can't distinguish between art and slop, it's a restatement of what you've said.
If I need to defend myself with evidence against baseless ad homonim attacks, I don't have an argument?
Again, without referring to real world things like intricate albums or shitty paintings made by humans that are overrated, we can't discuss things like that, now can we?
To borrow from wikipedia:
Questioning someone's motivations for choosing an argument, their ability to form a sound argument based on their personal experience or the biases they display in an argument is not (generally) an ad hominem. Dismissing you because you have three hands, enjoy anime, support [political party], etc. would be an ad hominem (unless those were the topics being discussed, then maybe it's not). Saying that your argument is based on a lack of familiarity with the topic being discussed is not. Were this a discussion about the comfort of various shoes, it would be very relevant to disclose that you yourself had lost your feet (heroically saving orphans from a crocodile-filled river).
I guess? But your insinuation that I have no familiarity with art, self expression or relevant fields is hurtful and an attack on my character.
I've spent enough time being upset that the best musicians of our age are forced to get second jobs while being upset at pop music before the advent of AI generated art. Corporate slop is still slop. Just because it was made in a boardroom instead of in a computer doesn't give it any more soul.
I have also read about different fringe art styles, spent enough time on online , human generated art places to know what I enjoy and again, what I abhor due to the lazy, effort-free pieces they made that overshadowed better people.
I also messed around with AI art myself (NB : not "being an AI artist", messed around with AI art generators). I also was interested in AI generated music by others, procedural generation of games, music and writing before the AI boom.
And let me assure you of a few things :
Re stating that yes, human beings also make unartistic slop which goes on to dominate human culture because it simply exploits markets and people that know no better.
a) Some of those sloppers found entire movements because of how their half assedness is a bold statement.
b) While ironically both de-legitimising and legitimising fields of art that would otherwise go un-noticed. Compare found objects with industrial design and set design. The initial idea is sound : what separates art from objects? Look at this thing and feel a feeling. Then after doing this shit for decades, we end up with basketballs in formaldehyde selling for millions. But again, Dieter Rams and other industrial designers have ideas they are communicating that deserve examination. Sets on films are also an underappreciated artform, but it's "just finding a chair for a set"
The AI artwork allows the person with no capability to express themselves in a field that was inaccessible to them before. Yes, AnYoNe CaN dRaW, but not to the degree they want to, without having to sacrifice so much time; perhaps time they literally cannot fucking afford.
b) Have you tried making art in a mechanically restrictive, not 100% controlled way? It takes a certain level of skill to make music by manipulating existing sounds with filters, or to make a piece of music relying on a specific piece of equipment like a guitar pedal to control not the pitch, but the timbre of the instrument. Or maybe you want to get a chicken to play the piano. These are also fringe ways of making art that isn't 100% controlled, and relient on a manufactured machine , or non sapient animal. It's still relevant, interesting and a worthwhile endeavour and a different way to express yourself.
c) Have you tried making art through AI? You too can stop basing your argument on a lack of familiarity if you want. I don't mean slop "Make a cartoon of farm animals" into a generic supercomputer, actually fucking work with a raw ass, fine control seeking AI image generator. See how much effort you need to get something that looks both half decent and in line with what you're trying to do. Because I've fucked around with it, and it needs at least some effort to make something that isn't either mangled or completely sterile. You need some technical ability to get a balance of performance, fidelity, originality and certain vision.
If you think these are easily answerable questions in the field of art, you might be misguided.
Anyway, grats on baiting me into writing a paraphrased version of a rant I wrote over a year ago. I rate it b8 out of 8.
EDIT : I forgot to shoutout dadabots, which where exciting when they were the only horse in the race, in 2017 https://dadabots.bandcamp.com/album/coditany-of-timeness
There was no insinuation - it was I believe quite plainly stated (and not by me) that that you lack enough familiarity with the subject to make a meaningful argument. I don't care - I just find it irksome when people attempt to throw a logical fallacy out like a rhetorical pokemon trainer and, like same, expect it to do the work for them.
Edit: Now I think about it, AI sloppers and pokemon trainers make for a surprisingly apt metaphor...
here you go
https://beholdthearctopus.bandcamp.com/album/skullgrid