back to article Man wins competition with AI-generated artwork – and some people aren't happy

A man won an art competition with an AI-generated image crafted, and some people aren't best pleased about it. The image, titled Théâtre D'opéra Spatial, looks like an impressive painting of an opera scene with performers on stage, and an abstract audience in the background with a huge moon-like window of some sort. It was …

  1. heyrick Silver badge

    Understanding my cat

    It's easy

    "Hey, human, I'm bloody starving here. Feed me before I die."

    (human provides Felix and crunchies and a quick rub between the ears)

    Five minutes later...

    "Hey, human, I'm bloody starving here. Feed me before I die."

    1. Giles C Silver badge

      Re: Understanding my cat

      There is a bit more.

      Let me go outside (1 minute later) yowling to be let in.

      But basically the cats aim in life “enslave all humans “ but if the humans has dreamies then all they want is feeding.

      What do they put in dreamies?

      I know years ago that they used to use chicken gastric juices to keep them loyal to a certain brand…..

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        WTF?

        Re: Understanding my cat

        Let me go outside (1 minute later) yowling to be let in.

        And sometimes with a disemboweled gift! How the hell do they do that in one minute?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Joke

          Re: Understanding my cat

          > How the hell do they do that in one minute?

          Just lucky that a bird/mouse was flying/scurrying past at just the moment you let them out. You should try training your cat to select the lottery numbers...

      2. Vometia has insomnia. Again.

        Re: Understanding my cat

        Dreamies a.k.a. cat-crack. We had to wean ours off them and she's a much nicer cat now!

        1. Fifth Horseman

          Re: Understanding my cat

          Same here. I'm convinced those things really do have coke in them, but I've never summoned the courage to try them myself...

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Dreamies

        1. The sound the packaging makes re-enforces the association that treats are imminent.

        2. The manufacturer... Mars, the confectionery company

        Mars... also are the owners of a chain of veterinary practices, with over 50 locations in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

        https://www.linnaeusgroup.co.uk/our-practices

        A friend who's dog got referred to one of the clinics told me about the connection.

        That I find a bit perverse... if you have to take a pet to them as a consequence of dietary choice....

      4. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

        Re: Understanding my cat

        There is a bit more.

        Let me go outside (1 minute later) yowling to be let in.

        The routine here is

        Cat: "Let me go outside"

        Me: Get up, follow cat to the kitchen, open outside door and let cat out.

        (There is a perfectly good/working cat flap on that very same door)

        1 minute later... cat is back in the house, using that cat flap, letting me know she's back, and wanting something to eat

    2. ThatOne Silver badge

      Re: Understanding my cat

      Understanding your cat is quite easy actually, especially after a couple years of cohabitation. That's assuming you consider it as an intelligent being and not like some kind of semi-autonomous stuffed animal.

      I always understood my cats, after all they meow to communicate with us short-sighted humans who are apparently oblivious to their body language and clearly only rely on sound for communication. And they don't have very complex messages to convey either, it's mostly expressing a feeling or a need, so with a modicum of empathy you can pretty well guess what the cat is trying to tell you.

      Most complex message expected: "Who is this Schrödinger guy, anyway?"

      1. Killfalcon

        Re: Understanding my cat

        In my experience, cats usually have a "language" - or at least a phrase book - of meows that mean things. Usually this builds up over time as they connect noises they made and results achieved - smarter ones can be taught to use a soundboard.

        The problem is that cats are not a hive mind, nor web-connected. There's no universal Cat Language, just noises each individual cat has come to associate with being fed, petted or whatever. One cat's "pick me up" meow might be the same as another's "dinner is 23 seconds late.

        1. ThatOne Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Understanding my cat

          Nah, I have found general parallels, on different cats which had never met and lived in totally different places.

          There is clearly a common base they all build upon, but I agree they all differ in active vocabulary, much like humans. Some are quite limited, other very articulate.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Understanding my cat

      As the late great Terry Pratchett put it

      In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

    4. jmch Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Understanding my cat

      All cat communications are to train their owner. That's why I mostly ignored mine and let him go about his business.

      Incidentally this whole thing reminds me of the Simpsons' baby translator!

  2. Filippo Silver badge

    The parallel to photography is quite appropriate. I've played around with these text-to-image tools. Getting something pretty out of them is not easy. There's also often some photoshopping involved to e.g. eliminate nonsensical details, or at least that's what I did when I wanted to actually show the pictures to someone.

    The stunning "AI-generated" images you see around on the Internet are an enormous selection bias, they are maybe the best 1% of what the tool actually does, and may have been altered after generation.

    1. Pete 2 Silver badge

      > The stunning "AI-generated" images you see around on the Internet are an enormous selection bias, they are maybe the best 1% of what the tool actually does

      TBF, the same applies to human-generated art, too, much of which turns a £30 blank, stretched, canvas into a £20 "artwork". However, it seems to me that what makes it into galleries and is considered "good" art by critics, is more a victory for its marketing and promotion, than of the skill of the creator.

      The same applies to other "artistic" endeavours, too: acting, writing - success being largely random.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Thank you Pete, you saved me a lot of typing.

      2. jmch Silver badge

        "what makes it into galleries and is considered "good" art by critics, is more a victory for its marketing and promotion"

        Indeed, take an artwork that's selling in the corner café or your sidewalk artist for £10, put a nice frame on it and stick it in an art gallery and you'll likely find someone to pay £1000 for it. Framing (not just the physical kind) is important.

      3. Killfalcon

        A lot of expensive art is purely for the boast, like watches. A £35k Rolex is a very, very good watch, sure, but it's primary purpose is telling other people you can afford a £35k Rolex.

        Obviously there's also speculative investments ("will this art resell later for more?") and speculative investment frauds.

        This artist is a rising star! They sold a painting for 100k! And by that I mean the agent sold it to his holding company for 100k, so there's a 100k sale in the record...

        1. Disk0

          Money launderers

          Aren’t that picky

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The parallel with photography is actually wrong, since the debate if a good photography is "skilled composition, judgment, and tone" or something else has never ended - and a lot of photography considered art is not actually based on that assumption.

      A far better parallel would be with Dada. Since Duchamp exhibited bicycle wheels, urinals, and bottle racks, the ready-made entered the art realm. Are AI generated images some kind of ready-made, even if it could take some effort to find them? After all what Dada and Surrealism liked in photography was exactly the machine-generated images regardless of the author - "skilled composition judgment tone" were irrelevant, it was the unconscious generation of images that was important to them - any attempt to reduce photography to the same laws of painting was wrong for them.

      Still competitions should state what kind of submission are approved - you might not enter a painting competition with a photo, and vice versa. If they are open to any kind of art - AI generated images may fit that too.

    3. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      the Colorado State Fair's fine art competition

      I take "fine art" to imply that the people care about tge level of craftsmanship. Getting the comouter to do ghe painting is therefore cheating. Had the "art" been of the more conceptual variety, it would have been fine.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No it's not.

      The parallel drawn was:

      "Washington Post tech reporter Drew Harwell, who covered the brouhaha here, raised an interesting point: "People once saw photography as cheating, too – just pushing a button – and now we realize the best creations rely on skilled composition, judgment, and tone," he tweeted."

      He's wrong with his analogy.

      You still can't enter photographs into an art competition for drawings produced by hand. That doesn't mean that people dismiss the skill in photography.

      Equally, no-one is knocking the AI skill, just the fact an AI drawing was placed in a "human" drawing category.

      If AI drawings are to be a thing, give them their own category. Don't classify them the same as something they're not.

      1. TheMeerkat Silver badge

        If AI drawings are not distinguishable from human drawing, how would you define and police different categories?

      2. doublelayer Silver badge

        This contest didn't require hand-drawn art. The parallel is still appropriate, because it's only trying to answer two questions:

        1. Does this count as art?

        2. Given the lax requirements of the contest, which did include digitally modified photos, would this count?

        The contest didn't specify any rules that clearly remove this from consideration. It was not required to draw by hand or even to avoid using digital editing techniques. You can still find arguments for why this tool shouldn't count, but to be applicable, they'll end up being smaller and more subjective.

  3. steviebuk Silver badge

    Read this elsewhere and said

    Mark my words. Some poncey "artist" WILL generate several of these "art works" and then display them in a gallery in London or other big city and sell them for lots of money to poncey rich people.

    Much like Richard Prince did with people's Instagram posts. Just copied them and sold them as his own work and got away with it.

    This is why I dislike the art world. In school I was a copy artist. Would copy drawings freehand but never make out they were my own work. This was back in the 80s-90s. During one art lesson we were talking about this issue with the art world & in fact Mark Gattis said this on the Richard Herring podcast recently "Who decides that someone's childish scrawl is worth millions and another childish scrawl is just a childish scrawl?". During our lesson we told the teacher our work was the work of one of the art teachers she liked and his work was ours. She said his work wasn't very good (thinking it was ours) and that our work was really good (thinking it was his). It proved our point.

    There are people on YouTube I see who can do almost photo quality pencil work but make no money. My girlfriend's cousin can do near photo quality pencil work but makes no money. Yet a poncy "artist" in London can draw colour boxes and make millions. Then we have Bankys. Blek le Rat was doing VERY similar work but never made it big, Bankys seemed to essentially copy most his work and makes millions from it.

    1. FatGerman

      Re: Read this elsewhere and said

      That applies to nearly every walk of life. Skill and ability at the thing you're claiming to be are rarely the most important factors to success. The ability that matters is the ability to make people think you have skill and ability. Look at politics, almost everybody in management, and the millions of shameless self-promoters on social media making careers out of almost nothing but a willingness to say they're great.

      As a society we're extremely bad at judging the worth of anything, we have always preferred to let people tell us. Maybe this is because, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Read this elsewhere and said

      > She said his work wasn't very good (thinking it was ours) and that our work was really good (thinking it was his). It proved our point.

      Not to mention that of advocates of double blind testing.

      > Then we have Bankys. Blek le Rat was doing VERY similar work but never made it big, Bankys seemed to essentially copy most his work and makes millions from it.

      It's Banksy (not sure of autocorrect issue) and I don't find your criticism fair. Banksy might well be more skilled at the marketing & sales side of things, that in itself is hardly reproachable, but also he's of English culture and language and therefore has a natural market advantage. Also, on more than one occasion they have acknowledged each other (I first heard of Blek in "exit through the gift shop") and Banksy is on record as saying what you just said, almost word of word.

      Nevertheless, just because he's financially successful he's hardly any less of a legitimate artist. At least he a) engages in direct and clear social commentary that can be understood by anyone and b) his art does not come with three pages of pseudointellectual artsy twaddle purporting to explain what the actual work is trying to convey (surprised those fine arts students can't see the glaring irony).

      1. low_resolution_foxxes

        Re: Read this elsewhere and said

        I really cringe at the pseudointellectual art descriptions that plague the art world.

        Perhaps it's my engineering mindset that wants a concise description. Not something dribbled out after a bottle of wine. It always seems to end up something like:

        "This piece explores the juxtaposition between the stillness of the moon and it's heteronormative, patriarchal and phallic impact on society. The artist dreams of moonscapes and a kaleidoscope of adventure lying in wait for future explorers."

        VS

        "This is a lovely drawing of the moon."

        1. Fred Dibnah

          Re: Read this elsewhere and said

          Yeah, but your submission would never make it into Pseud’s Corner ;-)

    3. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: Read this elsewhere and said

      "Some poncey "artist" WILL generate several of these "art works" and then display them in a gallery in London or other big city and sell them for lots of money to poncey rich people."

      Hmmm? Many years ago somebody piled some bricks, called it art. People are still debating it.

      "This is why I dislike the art world."

      My loathing of the art world is courtesy of my school art teacher who firmly believed that one should be able to create art in order to be able to judge art. Of course, by create art she meant "what I call art" which was such a narrow definition I'm not even sure Rembrandt would have qualified, never mind Salvador Dalí or Warhol or...

      "My girlfriend's cousin can do near photo quality pencil work but makes no money."

      PR. It's not about drawing in pencil or making coloured boxes, it's about getting those things in front of the right eyeballs.

      And, additionally, photo quality pencil drawings may be technically excellent but they aren't exciting. What you need is a red circle. Just a plain red circle. Then you can make many paragraphs of utter utter bullshit about how it represents femininity and the vulva and the human condition and... and blah blah blah blah... get that shit to the right set of ears and you'll be made (and the rest of us will be crying into our teacups).

      1. KBeee

        Re: Read this elsewhere and said

        Tate Modern bought the bricks for a fair amount of dosh. Wasn't even the original bricks.

        In the same exhibition, there was a Native American headress cut out from the side of a fridge displyed as Art, and the old fridge it'd been cut from was also displyed as Art.

    4. Evil Auditor Silver badge

      Re: Read this elsewhere and said

      "Who decides that someone's childish scrawl is worth millions and another childish scrawl is just a childish scrawl?"

      The art market. A highly intransparent market, that is. Take the example of some Young British Artist (not that young any more): they managed to stir up quite a hype resulting in art dealers to stock up on their art. Then some YBA started to mass-produce their crapart and in doing so, forced art dealers, who still had full inventories, to buy even more to keep the prices up in order to protect their own inventories...

      In short: what someone is willing to pay.

      Some years ago Banksy was selling his art, anonymously, in NYC for a few USD. Once word got out that they are original Banksys, their value increased to 10'000s of quid - a price no one would have paid in the stall in NYC. Somehow perverse, isn't it? Same madness with some people buying bragging rights via NFTs.

  4. b0llchit Silver badge
    WTF?

    Commodity

    The use of tools to generate "art" is simply making the work a commodity. In contrast, usually "art" is created by a closed group of craftsmen. Now any one can start typing and generate as they please.

    Just like the article states, the photographer is more than a button pusher. A musician is more than playing that old or classic instrument. Just like a real artist is more than putting streaks on a canvas. But complaining that a new group now has access to creating "art" is like saying that inventing the wheel destroyed the manual labourers' work carrying stuff.

    I for one would be very happy to use these new tools (yes, they are tools). My artistic drawing skills are abysmal, but my descriptive ability and programming are reasonable and fine. Now I too can make nice images for projects that can be improved with some nice images.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      usually "art" is created by a closed group of craftsmen

      You have missed a lot of art from the past 100 years....

      1. b0llchit Silver badge

        Re: usually "art" is created by a closed group of craftsmen

        That is why it is in quotes...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: usually "art" is created by a closed group of craftsmen

          Just "art" is no longer defined that way, as "craftsmanship", and that happened a century ago, in some ways even earlier. So it looks to me that those who complains for an AI-generated image look to arrive plenty late.

          Maybe we could discuss if the image is too "pictorial" and thereby another attempt to re-invent painting under a different name, and what AI-Art should really be.

          Read the Baudelaire "rant" against photography - you can probably replace "photography" with "AI" in most of it, and get what most people would think now about AI-generated art.

          Still, Baudelaire was off mark because photography and painting, although similar superficially, as both produce images, are two different things.

          As surrealists were already trying "automatic writing" would think about AI-genereated texts - and what Baudelaire would think of it... and poets too could have been accused of being "would-be musician, every musician too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies", IMHO.... without the skills to write and perform music, as in ancient times an aoidos did write and perform music and poetry.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: usually "art" is created by a closed group of craftsmen

            Indeed, the difference between an artist and a craftsman (in contemporary art studies) is not in their product, which could well be exactly identical, but in their motivations.

            1. TheMeerkat Silver badge

              Re: usually "art" is created by a closed group of craftsmen

              Both the craftsman and the artist are motivated by the same - money.

              The difference is in bullshit the artist talks in order to earn more.

              Rembrandt was a craftsman - people were asking him to paint because his pictures were almost like photographs when photography did not exist. The need for such craftsmen disappeared after invention and perfection of holography.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Understatement

    Stavros Ntalampiras, a computer scientist at the University of Milan, who was called to help the MeowTalk founders, admitted that "a lot of translations are kind of creatively presented to the user," and said "it's not pure science at this stage

    I think it's fair to say that it's not pure science in pretty much the same way that the untreated sewage being dumped into our waterways at the moment isn't pure water...

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Gimp

      Re: Understatement

      ...and who the hell put in the translation "let's go somewhere private"? That's not "creativity", that's creepy!!!

      I mean, apart from anything else, animals generally don't really give a fig about privacy for any of their "personal moments", whatever they may be.

      1. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge
        Pirate

        Re: Understatement

        The only thing my cats want privacy for is the litter box, and that's only where other cats are concerned because when one cat is in the box, the others take advantage for attacks. Kinda hard to protect yourself with half a turd hanging out. They have no problem at all dropping bombs in my presence though. How they turn their kibble into biochemical weapons though I'll never understand. Not like I'm feeding them the cheap stuff either.

  6. BOFH in Training

    I consider this as art evolving / another form of art.

    Nothing wrong with taking this as art, especially since beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

    Blank canvas is art :

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/danish-artist-takes-museums-cash-for-blank-canvasses-titled-take-the-money-and-run-180978794/

    And I recall there was some famous expensive art canvas with a dot on it.

    If someone willing to pay for it, it's the value of this piece of art. Regardless if it wins an award or not.

    1. ThatOne Silver badge

      Remember, beauty is in the eye of the Beholder...

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "I consider this as art evolving / another form of art."

      To an extent, yes, it is. But 's factory made, mass produced art IMHO. In terms of accessibility for the masses, it's not a bad thing, but more akin to buying a print of the Mona Lisa rather than producing a Mona Lisa.

      After all, look at the quality and production values of a well made film or TV show and compare that with the millions of shitty Youtube and TokTok efforts made by people with no clue about how to present something :-)

      (Especially those who don't know when to pause, or prepare and learn a script before switching the cameras so they don't have to keep umming and aaahing while they think of what to say next!)

      1. BOFH in Training

        Will it be considered mass produced if you delete the original digital output after making a print / whatever final output you want so there is only one unique piece produced?

        You may try to recreate it, but you will never get the exact same thing again, similar to how if you see the Mona Lisa and try to make a similar painting, there will be some differences.

  7. An_Old_Dog Silver badge
    Gimp

    Computer-Generated "Art"efacts

    This reminded me of a local art installation which has a six-foot-long, eight-inch-tall, scrolling L.E.D. display. The display is hooked to a computer which uses Markov chains in its programming to produce an endless stream of English-language, free-verse "poetry". I wouldn't call the device's output poetry, but it can be very amusing and entertaining.

    The human's use of the image-generating software mentioned in the article seems more like a human looking at the typewritten pages of many monkeys, picking one that looks usable, and editing it a bit. The final product may be visually interesting/pleasing, but based on the relatively-low amount of human input into the image-creation part of the process, I wouldn't call it "art".

    1. Fifth Horseman

      Re: Computer-Generated "Art"efacts

      A couple of years' back, I went with a mate to a computer generated art exhibition at the Lowry gallery. It was underwhelming, to say the least.

      Mate: "This is a right load of bollocks. Lets go across the river to the IWMN, they've got some tanks!"

      *The permanent exhibition of L. S. Lowry's work is definitely worth seeing though, much more than "matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs", much darker than I expected.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    AI-Generated Artwork

    I have no beef about whether or not this submission was art - I think if a Human presents something that he/she put creative effort into, they can call it art if they want: whether or not it is crap art is up to the viewer. But was the submission in accordance with the rules of the competition?

    Checking the Washington Post article on it, I find:

    21 amateur “emerging artists” submitted pieces of “digitally manipulated photography,” one of the fair’s newest categories.

    The work stretches the meaning of "digital manipulation" somewhat, but more importantly - was it based on the artist's photography? As far as I can tell, he didn't feed the AI his own photographs, so I'd say it falls down on the "photography" part.

    On balance, I'd ask for the $300 back.

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: AI-Generated Artwork

      That rule doesn't say it had to be his photographs that were manipulated. If someone took other photographs that were publicly available and used manual editing tools to stitch them into a fictional image that was distinct from the originals, would that not have counted? I'm not sure, but I think they would allow it. The software used to produce this example basically did that, but instead of making the user draw the connections between the aspects, it did it on its own (or possibly just at random) until the user accepted the result. If the first is allowed, I think the second should be also.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: AI-Generated Artwork

        Yes, I guess if they weren't explicit about the meaning of "photography", he could play fast and loose with the rules and submit manipulation of someone elses pictures. And then it's a small stretch to include those originally submitted to the AI.

        I would still ask for the $300 back out of principle, but give up if he tells me where to go - and make sure next time that the rules are explicit.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: AI-Generated Artwork

      I'm not necessarily agreeing with what you say, but I like your analysis.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Happy

        Re: AI-Generated Artwork

        Fair enough, but thanks for the compliment

    3. Falmari Silver badge

      Re: AI-Generated Artwork

      @revenant "Checking the Washington Post article on it, I find:

      21 amateur “emerging artists” submitted pieces of “digitally manipulated photography,” one of the fair’s newest categories."

      In the same Washington Post article there was this.

      "As far as anyone at the Colorado Department of Agriculture can tell, Allen did not break any rules. Pieces for the category are only required to involve “technology as part of the creative or presentation process.” Digital filters, color-manipulation tools and the “recombination of images” are all expressly allowed.

      No one has filed an official grievance over the result, either, department spokeswoman Olga Robak said, though there has been an unrelated dispute in the fair’s goat-shearing contest."

      On balance, I say he should keep the $300. He did not break the rules and no one has filed a greivience. Though that might not be true for the goat-shearing contest. ;)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: AI-Generated Artwork

        Hmmm, yes. Although I'm sure they were thinking of the artist's own photography, the rules arguably provided a loophole that Allen was happy to drive a cyberbus through.

        Perhaps next time they should be more explicit on the origin of the photographs, but also introduce an 'anything goes' category.

  9. werdsmith Silver badge

    LIke the photoshop in photography argument. For some it’s about the final image regardless. For others it’s about origination and capture. As long as the goal is clear to people then there can be no problem.

  10. nijam Silver badge

    > Will we one day regard AI art in the same way?

    Not until we stop calling it AI. (Which it isn't, after all.)

  11. Stuart Dole

    It may be AI generated, but it's pretty good.

    When I saw this image (full screen high res), I was (and still am) amazed. It's a very compelling piece. So I went out and looked at other images generated by MidJourney. They're mostly pretty lame. Somehow this one popped out - it's haunting. So, yes, it's art.

    A photographer may take hundreds or thousands of pictures in a week - to get one worth framing. This is similar.

    1. FatGerman

      Re: It may be AI generated, but it's pretty good.

      It clearly took a lot of effort to create, and a great deal of skill and understanding of the process. But then you could say the same of a chef making a cake. Is either of them art? Does it matter?

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: It may be AI generated, but it's pretty good.

        I don't know what art is, but I think you can make a case for cookery having at least an artistic element, not including those people who make food, especially cakes, purely for their visual appeal. Those who are effectively making edible sculptures are definitely artists. I don't consider myself an artist even though I do artistic things on occasion, which is good because a lot of people who do consider themselves artists seem to spend a lot of time finding reasons why other people aren't.

  12. Mr. V. Meldrew

    The trAIn principle...

    Oh you doubters of the worthiness of AI, you can call it what you wish, for I have not a toss or jot give.

    On the invention, not of AI but the train, the locomotive, many where scared and big wigs at the time prevented the "Iron Horse" from travelling at any great speed, for fear of passengers having their lungs sucked dry off air. (Citation needed).

    My point is that without innovation and freedom we limit our dreams and hope for technology and the good it can do for all of us.

    So I say. Give AI the chance just as all before us had also eventually embraced change. It's not a big ask in these times.

  13. low_resolution_foxxes

    I like the art piece, and frankly the fact it was made by an early generation AI is far more interesting to me, than knowing an artist spent weeks drawing it by hand.

    The end result is still very pretty, and if it costs a fraction of the cost to make, even better!

  14. steelpillow Silver badge
    Boffin

    What is fine art?

    Art is whatever you can kid the public it is. "Mai bodee iss mai arrt", go wrap a coastline in plastic and watch it blow away, whatever.

    Fine art is whatever you can kid the critics it is.

    There is a genre of "found art", which is just tastefully displaying stuff you literally found lying around.

    None of these things sicken Joe Soap, but when the "artist" picks up an AI instead of a camera - whoosh!

    Maybe we'll soon be following the 20th century's photographic art exhibitions with a new genre of AI art exhibitions.

    Were this 1 April, I would report the rumour that the Tate Gallery is rebranding itself the tAIt in readiness.

  15. trevorde Silver badge

    "All art is quite useless"

    - Oscar Wilde

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