In Response to Machine-Learned Art

First and foremost, I apologize for my absence in posting. I have focused myself on completing some of the last classes for school as I approach the end of my time achieving my degree.

Unfortunately, my skills in utilizing the customization for Showdown is lacking, therefore this post will likely lack the same beautification that my dear friend Gabe has been able to achieve.

In response to the post that Gabe made discussing the AI Generated Art or Machine Learned Art as he described, unfortunately offers bold claims with little substance. The irony being he describes the term perfectly, this is not AI generated, but instead it is machine learning. The difference? AI implies there is self awareness of a new lifeform that has been created artificially. Artificial Intelligence like in Science Fiction with characters like Data from Star Trek:TNG. Sad to say, we are still a very long ways off from reaching the level of intelligence presented here. But keeping with the pop culture reference, here is Data actually painting. When we do reach the level of far off Science Fiction, we will have achieved true AI generated art.

What is happening with systems like Dall-E, the same program used to create the image in this post, is complete and utter plagiarism. Daniel Cooper in an article describes the process of how these systems work by pulling images from the internet made by real people to train the machine to create new images (2022). The issue being that while the outcome of the 'art' is new, it works on the backs of humans (Cooper 2022). Taking the original product and turning it into something new might not be a new concept, in fact it has been happening since the dawn of time. So why is a computer program that does this same function so different? The difference stems from how the machine uses no skill, no passion, and no originality. The program simply views the database of the internet and pulls from unknown artists to fuel the next produced image.

There is real harm here. Plagiarism, after all, is quite literally stealing the ideas of someone else. Once the machine starts pumping out more and more images it will run artists out of real jobs. It will make humanity lazy and forgo the effort put into creating art. The problem arises here because less artists will be putting out their work either because of the ease of machine learning or because of the plagiarism that occurs with it. In either case the outcome remains the same, less art for the machine to steal from. When the machine has less to learn from it becomes stagnant in how it operates. Regardless of how it produces 'new' images, they are still based on the human element which when there is a lack of fuel, it has a lack of ideas to steal from. Therefore, the machine cannot create something truly original because the new images it produces are still based on the old art.

Sadly, all art is under attack. Writing software like ChatGPT or Bard are also on the rise. These use the exact same tactics of pulling information from the internet to produce a new outcome. What is even more scary about these software's is how biased they have become. It can filter out certain ideas or push an agenda based on the mass information that is available (Marchandot et al 1). It also directly leads to a decrease in the ability to think critically and creatively (Marchandot et al 1). Again we see the same issue. Authors, researchers, and even coders, might relay too heavily on machine learning which causes people to be unable to create something actually new. Now there is real danger here. When using software to write a research paper how can there be any sort of critical thinking from a specialist in a field when it is all based on biased or wrong information. Or not all of the information is considered as the machine takes a small sample size of the much larger idea. It will create stagnation.

Is machine learning actually art if there is nothing behind it besides typing a line of text? Or is the issue actually that humanity has again become overzealous in its consumerism? After all, we can make the machine pump out any number of works of images or text, but more often then not these are thrown away in the trash bin after the initial enjoyment has been seized from the cheap copy. When it comes to art the purpose "is to serve a political function by resisting instrumental rationalizations and elevating the imagination or the passions above all else. Art exists in an autonomous space that is separate from the rest of the social world and is disinterested." (Marchessault 8). Does machine learning actually elevate the imagination or passion? The argument would remain, no. It steals from those who do elevate imagination or passion and attempts to pass it off as an original new creation. Meanwhile the original artist has nothing to show for it, and worse has no idea their artwork that is public on the internet is being stolen. Not only does it offer no passion it is the exact opposite of disinterested in the social world. It quite literally takes from the social world, whereas real art would not care whether you liked it or not, it simply exists. Although you do not need to be skilled to create art, you do need to put in some effort to make it meaningful.

In the end, humanity is waiting at one end of the machine excited for what it will produce while there are those unknowingly jumping in the other side of the machine. Consumerism based on the prey that is our artwork. Andy Warhol not only held the same belief that art is anything you can get away with, a common thinking in postmodernist art. But he also is quoted as,

In the future, we will all be famous for 15 minutes.

Warhol not only correctly predicted this, but here in the future, we might not even get 15 minutes.

Works Cited

Cooper, Daniel. “Is Dall-E's Art Borrowed or Stolen?” Engadget, 27 July 2022, https://www.engadget.com/dall-e-generative-ai-tracking-data-privacy-160034656.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHEhltvC9AhDoKZGzuru8i_J2CwPQhmS_xMIlrjp1LqJhjLsbp9iSzDxFvU2Ws1Ibju4OFkBjPS8oHZ6AG4ZUPhzDf83ZWA6TF2pf_pZ18b9tJj4n6OOhT7OvKBzbpEu1jUw9ui_fodkLVenjEeHVem1PPuYew8KBjjndUo_jmgb.

Marchandot, Benjamin, et al. “Chatgpt: The Next Frontier in Academic Writing for Cardiologists or a Pandora’s Box of Ethical Dilemmas.” European Heart Journal Open, vol. 3, no. 2, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehjopen/oead007.

Marchessault, Janine. Marshall McLuhan: Cosmic Media. SAGE, 2005.