The more I read and learn about people's experience with art and literature, the more I'm impressed with the pervasiveness of a certain unspoken belief: that there is a metaphysical essence that accompanies a work that cannot be be produced by a computer.
It's artistic essentialism, and similar to copyright, evokes a sense of "what color are your bits."[1]
"It is a conduit to another human's inner state" sounds metaphysical, but really is not. It is a highly practical concern and a claim that can be traced through physical interactions in the universe, from the observer's neuronal firing patterns directly through to the artist's.
A conduit to the inner state of an Internet compression machine is interesting in its own way, but is definitely not "the same thing."
No I’m saying that art generated by AI is different from art generated by humans in that only one creates a chain of causality to the inner state of another human being.
Pedantically, so do AI models to the inner states of their creators and the creators of their training data, but this is such a chaotic process that you can’t even attempt to infer anything about any of their internal states by observing their output.
Then why do people like the author get disappointed when they find out AI made something and not a human? If that theory was true, then they wouldn't be disappointed.
More humorously, the argument you're making is a pseudoscientific basis to bolster a belief in essentialism. It's extremely easy to see that because my neural circuits are mirroring yours and telling me that is the case.
Would you get upset if someone told you to go looking for something only to say afterwards “lol jk there was never anything to find!”
People generally have the expectation that there is a human to be understood (even if imprecisely or incorrectly) on the other side of a piece of art. Expectation violation (especially after some effort has been spent) is just about the most basic source of disappointment there is.
Can you say specifically what you think is “pseudoscientific” about the claim that there’s a chain of causality from artist’s mental state to viewer’s?
How exactly does a piece of art come into your awareness if not by some chain of causality preceding it?
You think there was just artist and viewer and no chain of physical events in which the former is affecting the latter’s consciousness? Talk about pseudoscientific mumbojumbo!
You seem to be arguing that everyone believes that AI art is only indistinguishable from human art due to your essentialism projection, but the reality is that current AI is only simulating a fraction of a fraction of the experience that goes into making art.
When we have silicon based life forms with full autonomy, free of corpo-fascist influence, I will enjoy their art.
Meanwhile I will sit satisfied hating on whatever this dross is.
"Furthermore, they will contest, there is no “magic”. As Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, posted on X in 2023, “Everything ‘creative’ is a remix of things that happened in the past, plus epsilon and times the quality of the feedback loop and the number of iterations”"
Wow first time Ive read this. The hubris of Silicon Valley couldnt come crash down any sooner.
The more I read and learn about people's experience with art and literature, the more I'm impressed with the pervasiveness of a certain unspoken belief: that there is a metaphysical essence that accompanies a work that cannot be be produced by a computer.
It's artistic essentialism, and similar to copyright, evokes a sense of "what color are your bits."[1]
1. https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
"It is a conduit to another human's inner state" sounds metaphysical, but really is not. It is a highly practical concern and a claim that can be traced through physical interactions in the universe, from the observer's neuronal firing patterns directly through to the artist's.
A conduit to the inner state of an Internet compression machine is interesting in its own way, but is definitely not "the same thing."
You're saying there is a biological basis for refuting "the death of the author"?
If so, that reads like pop-sci. We misunderstand authors all the time perhaps even most of the time. This theory has no bearing on reality.
No I’m saying that art generated by AI is different from art generated by humans in that only one creates a chain of causality to the inner state of another human being.
Pedantically, so do AI models to the inner states of their creators and the creators of their training data, but this is such a chaotic process that you can’t even attempt to infer anything about any of their internal states by observing their output.
Then why do people like the author get disappointed when they find out AI made something and not a human? If that theory was true, then they wouldn't be disappointed.
More humorously, the argument you're making is a pseudoscientific basis to bolster a belief in essentialism. It's extremely easy to see that because my neural circuits are mirroring yours and telling me that is the case.
Would you get upset if someone told you to go looking for something only to say afterwards “lol jk there was never anything to find!”
People generally have the expectation that there is a human to be understood (even if imprecisely or incorrectly) on the other side of a piece of art. Expectation violation (especially after some effort has been spent) is just about the most basic source of disappointment there is.
Can you say specifically what you think is “pseudoscientific” about the claim that there’s a chain of causality from artist’s mental state to viewer’s?
How exactly does a piece of art come into your awareness if not by some chain of causality preceding it?
You think there was just artist and viewer and no chain of physical events in which the former is affecting the latter’s consciousness? Talk about pseudoscientific mumbojumbo!
You seem to be arguing that everyone believes that AI art is only indistinguishable from human art due to your essentialism projection, but the reality is that current AI is only simulating a fraction of a fraction of the experience that goes into making art.
When we have silicon based life forms with full autonomy, free of corpo-fascist influence, I will enjoy their art.
Meanwhile I will sit satisfied hating on whatever this dross is.
https://archive.ph/61EMQ
"Furthermore, they will contest, there is no “magic”. As Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, posted on X in 2023, “Everything ‘creative’ is a remix of things that happened in the past, plus epsilon and times the quality of the feedback loop and the number of iterations”"
Wow first time Ive read this. The hubris of Silicon Valley couldnt come crash down any sooner.