This question has been rolling around in my mind for awhile, and there are a few parts to this question. I will need to step through of how I got to these questions.
I have used AI as a tool in my own art pieces before. For example, I have taken a painting I had made more than a decade ago, and used a locally hosted AI to enhance it. The content of the final image is still my original concept, just enhanced with additional details and also make it into a 32:9 ultrawide wallpaper for my monitor.
From that enhanced image, I sent it through my local AI again (different workflow) to generate a depth map, and a normal map. I also separated the foreground, midground, and background.
Then I took all of that and loaded it into Wallpaper Engine (if you don’t know what that is, it’s an application that can be used to create animated wallpapers). I compiled each of the images proceeded to manually animate, track, and script it to bring the entire thing to life. The end product is something I really enjoy and I even published it on the wallpaper engine steam workshop for others to enjoy as well.
However, with all the AI slop that is being generated endlessly and the stigma that AI has in the art community as a whole, it brought the following questions to mind:
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Is the piece that I painted and then used AI to rework, and then manually reworked further, still my art?
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One step further, I didn’t build any of the tools to make the original painting, I didn’t create the programming or scripting languages. I didn’t fabricate the PCBs or chipsets that I built my computer with to run all of those tools. The list can go on and on for how many things I use that were not created/generated by me nor would it be possible/feasible to give credit to every single person involved. So, is any artwork that I make actually mine? Or does it belong to the innumerable shoulders of giants of which we all stand upon?
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Those questions led me to the main question of this post. Say that a real human grew up with only the experience of seeing AI slop and, as such, can only reference that AI slop experience they had learned; if that human creates something with their own hands, is that piece they create still art? Is it even a piece that they can claim they made?
I’m curious to see what thoughts people have on this.
That’s a common issue. People simply enjoy neat boxes and categories, but the world is actually really complex and chaotic, and that’s why these categories are very problematic. While you can create arbitrary categories for everything, these definitions will inevitably be flawed. They’re still useful but far from perfect, with areas of ambiguity and contradictions.
Consider, for example, where one species ends and another begins. It’s a messy and fuzzy situation, so we simply draw an arbitrary boundary. Similarly, what even constitutes “living”? Draw a line and don’t worry about the details. Yes, it’s indecently hard, because humans really love clear definitions with a burning passion. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t really support that notion.
The same problem arises in art. Who created this painting? Well, it was primarily the work of Mister A, but he received significant assistance from his apprentices B, C, D and E. It’s complicated. Let’s just draw a line and stop worrying about the specifics.
What even is art? It’s very messy. Expect uncertainty and contradictions within these fuzzy categories. Yes, but is this slop? Yet another category problem. Same answer.
The best definition of Art that I have heard is “an object/piece that makes one feel things”
However, AI slop makes many people feel anger, so I don’t know if that definition can really fit or not. Probably not.
There is art, such as music, that has the intent of of making people angry or frustrated too. So, it is a grey area and as you said, very messy.
In the age of romanticism, art usually depicted idealized and beautiful things. Then realism emerged, and artists also stared painting poor and ugly people. In social realism, the art was supposed to make you feel a bit uncomfortable. All of that was still clearly art.
I think art requires an intention. When you paint a picture of a seagull covered in oil, you may want the viewer to feel something about the petrochemical industry. When you take a photo of Chinese children working in a toy factory, you might want your audience to feel what the children are going through.
When you’re painting using digital tools, you may draw the same line 20 times to get it just right. As an artist, you have a goal in mind, and you will keep pressing undo until each line in the drawing meets your criteria. If you generate a hundred pictures with an AI and pick the one that fits your goals, you’re essentially acting as a curator of art. There’s a goal and an intention behind the selection process. That’s why the line or picture that didn’t get deleted is art.
What if there’s zero human involvement? If there is no selection process guided by goal or intention, is that still art? Maybe? What if the viewer still feels something when looking at the result. Maybe that could make it art¿ What if you just look at the clouds drifting in the sky, and that makes you feel something. Is that art too? This is where it gets really messy and the categories fall apart.