Can Computers Create Art?

[SC489]

I asked CoPilot in CGPT5 mode to "create impressionist style art of a Yorkshire Dales sunset and it produced the art shown below. This perhaps lacks imagination but much better than I could ever do.

I seriously think that my crop makes this landscape"more artistic"

Would be better still if you used the rule of thirds!

 

[SC489]

I asked CoPilot in CGPT5 mode to "create impressionist style art of a Yorkshire Dales sunset and it produced the art shown below. This perhaps lacks imagination but much better than I could ever do.

Loos awful. Would not call that art.

AI seems to lack taste.

What is your opinion of this?

That looks better. Reminds me of something by Nicholas Bott

Never heard of him. We had cottage in the Canadian Boreal forest and had a few of their prints on our walls. Not the one above.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists)

I have some prints by the Group of Seven artsists in my lounge bought from Ottawa Art Gallery and they are much more detailed than the AI generated cartoon above.

 

[SC489]

Is it question of can it? I think it's a little late for that question.

“AI God” by Ai-Da. An abstract portrayal of computing pioneer Alan Turing.
Sold for $1,084,800 at Sotheby's in 2024

Ai-Da created in 2019 is regarded as the world’s first humanoid robot artist.

• Cameras in her eyes allow her to “see” subjects.
• AI software analyzes visual input to interpret shapes, tones, and proportions.
• A robotic arm then creates physical drawings and paintings.
• It also produces sculpture, poetry, and performance art

There are a few elephants who are continuously creating paintings that routinely sell in the 5 figure range.

"Her" ?

 

[Zeee]

I asked CoPilot in CGPT5 mode to "create impressionist style art of a Yorkshire Dales sunset and it produced the art shown below. This perhaps lacks imagination but much better than I could ever do.

I seriously think that my crop makes this landscape"more artistic"

Would be better still if you used the rule of thirds!

The sun is centred but I think it works. First you learn the rules. Then you learn how to break them. Whatever you create is your art regardless.

--
Funny how millions of people on an internet platform where they can communicate instantaneously with people on the other side of the world using incredibly powerful handheld computers linked to orbiting the satellites hundreds of miles in space don’t believe in science. Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

[Toermalijn]

It comes down to definitions of art, and those vary.

Also, art is in the eye of the beholder. AI can be a helpful tool when implemented the correct way.

 

[Zeee]

I asked CoPilot in CGPT5 mode to "create impressionist style art of a Yorkshire Dales sunset and it produced the art shown below. This perhaps lacks imagination but much better than I could ever do.

Loos awful. Would not call that art.

AI seems to lack taste.

What is your opinion of this?

That looks better. Reminds me of something by Nicholas Bott

Never heard of him. We had cottage in the Canadian Boreal forest and had a few of their prints on our walls. Not the one above.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists)

I have some prints by the Group of Seven artsists in my lounge bought from Ottawa Art Gallery and they are much more detailed than the AI generated cartoon above.

The ones we have are as well. I'm not familiar with all their styles. I did a quick search and I found this one and many more. I don't know if it was AI generated or not.

--
Funny how millions of people on an internet platform where they can communicate instantaneously with people on the other side of the world using incredibly powerful handheld computers linked to orbiting the satellites hundreds of miles in space don’t believe in science. Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

[wh1tby]

No. They can only help you create art.



Of course it depends on what you call art, but for me art is about representing my thoughts and ideas using some medium be it visual, sound, smell etc.

 

[ljed]

The crop is not a perfect square so it is not art. Sorry.

As for the question about computer-created art. First answer: does the word "art" come from "artist" or the other way around.

 

[mfinley]

No. They can only help you create art.

It really depends on what you define "help" as. As I noted Ai-Da has cameras for eyes and it will draw or paint something based on what it sees with no human intervention. Based on "help" are you helping it when you sit down in front of it and say "paint a portrait of me"? Now paint a portrait of my wife, now my dog. Is "help" as you are defining it helping by providing a subject? Then the art is being created with your help.

 

[wh1tby]

No. They can only help you create art.

It really depends on what you define "help" as. As I noted Ai-Da has cameras for eyes and it will draw or paint something based on what it sees with no human intervention. Based on "help" are you helping it when you sit down in front of it and say "paint a portrait of me"? Now paint a portrait of my wife, now my dog. Is "help" as you are defining it helping by providing a subject? Then the art is being created with your help.

There are some deep philosophical discussions around this subject and we each have to come up with our own interpretation of a) what art is and b) what help is. Let me have a go at trying to explain what I feel, which may or may not be in line with philosophical thinking.

To me art represents my thoughts (as I noted in my original post). So, by definition, a computer cannot create art for me, it can only create (if it truly creates anything) a representation of what it wants with your input (this input becomes critical, see later on).

Help is where it can improve on what I have created e.g. I desire an eye, I draw one (or photograph one) and it cleans it up by using what I created e.g. removes noise or makes color more realistic or correct lines that overlap in space where they should not etc. In that sense de-noising algorithms and the demosaicing process in a camera that uses adjacent pixels that represent a particular color to add that color to a pixel which does not have an input for that color (due to the filter) are helping and not creating but in the absolute sense are interpolating your input. This is the help or assistance to which I am referring. The subject and objectives for the representation in sound and light are defined by you and outlined in sufficient detail that all you are asking the computer to do is to "fill in the blanks" using an interpolation process so to speak.

This is where it gets very tricky. You could argue that giving a computer input in the form of a 'rough' description is your input and the computer is filling in the blanks (albeit very large) using information it has to hand that matches your description. Where this goes from art you visualized or wanted to hear to computer originated art becomes a matter for interpretation as there are all shades of grade from " Draw me a picture of a steam engine" to "Draw me a picture of a steam engine from the UK with green livery, 4-6-2 configuration, with 6 full passenger carriages, running at full steam in a valley in Yorkshire" etc. However if you said to a computer "produce me a picture" (in this case we are using art to mean a 2 D representation of something that could be printed on paper or displayed on a computer screen), what it comes up with would be random and will be based on all the pictures it has scanned in its training phase. But is this art or simply a random aggregation of data it knows of as art. Since computers do not have (as far we know) feelings, I doubt it would be based on its current state etc.

This is not a complete nor is it intended to be a treatise on the way I feel about 'art' in general but it is a pointer albeit incomplete of how I view art and why I feel computers today do not create 'art'. I hope this makes sense to someone....

 

[s_grins]

The crop is not a perfect square so it is not art. Sorry.

Yes, it is not a perfect square, it is also not perfectly black

As for the question about computer-created art. First answer: does the word "art" come from "artist" or the other way around.

I do not know whether your first answer has an answer. I am afraid that it does not exist at all. Maybe somebody else knows.

 

[mfinley]

This is where it gets very tricky. You could argue that giving a computer input in the form of a 'rough' description is your input and the computer is filling in the blanks (albeit very large) using information it has to hand that matches your description. Where this goes from art you visualized or wanted to hear to computer originated art becomes a matter for interpretation as there are all shades of grade from " Draw me a picture of a steam engine" to "Draw me a picture of a steam engine from the UK with green livery, 4-6-2 configuration, with 6 full passenger carriages, running at full steam in a valley in Yorkshire" etc. However if you said to a computer "produce me a picture" (in this case we are using art to mean a 2 D representation of something that could be printed on paper or displayed on a computer screen), what it comes up with would be random and will be based on all the pictures it has scanned in its training phase. But is this art or simply a random aggregation of data it knows of as art. Since computers do not have (as far we know) feelings, I doubt it would be based on its current state etc.

What difference would it make?

One argument is that for humans when we create art we are drawing on an aggregation of our data in our brain known as art. We have lots of rules to follow like ai does, we follow the rules of 3rds, composition, leading lines, color theory etc... ai is doing the same thing.

The second argument I would make is that art is in the eye of the beholder. The less educated you are on art the less you can describe why something looks good to you, the laymen looks at something in a gallery and says my kid could do that, the educated can draw from their knowledge of the history of art and artists and link many connections to justify why something is worthy of being in the gallery or not. Ai is doing the same thing.

Who is to say if someone no matter their education level or sophistication level in art, looks at something and enjoys it that it is or isn't art? If this is true than what could it matter if it was created by Monet, a child or ai? Art is art to the viewer. Like someone said about a different subject, how do you know it's art? I know it when I see it.

 

[Toermalijn]

This is where it gets very tricky. You could argue that giving a computer input in the form of a 'rough' description is your input and the computer is filling in the blanks (albeit very large) using information it has to hand that matches your description. Where this goes from art you visualized or wanted to hear to computer originated art becomes a matter for interpretation as there are all shades of grade from " Draw me a picture of a steam engine" to "Draw me a picture of a steam engine from the UK with green livery, 4-6-2 configuration, with 6 full passenger carriages, running at full steam in a valley in Yorkshire" etc. However if you said to a computer "produce me a picture" (in this case we are using art to mean a 2 D representation of something that could be printed on paper or displayed on a computer screen), what it comes up with would be random and will be based on all the pictures it has scanned in its training phase. But is this art or simply a random aggregation of data it knows of as art. Since computers do not have (as far we know) feelings, I doubt it would be based on its current state etc.

What difference would it make?

One argument is that for humans when we create art we are drawing on an aggregation of our data in our brain known as art. We have lots of rules to follow like ai does, we follow the rules of 3rds, composition, leading lines, color theory etc... ai is doing the same thing.

The second argument I would make is that art is in the eye of the beholder. The less educated you are on art the less you can describe why something looks good to you, the laymen looks at something in a gallery and says my kid could do that, the educated can draw from their knowledge of the history of art and artists and link many connections to justify why something is worthy of being in the gallery or not. Ai is doing the same thing.

Who is to say if someone no matter their education level or sophistication level in art, looks at something and enjoys it that it is or isn't art? If this is true than what could it matter if it was created by Monet, a child or ai? Art is art to the viewer. Like someone said about a different subject, how do you know it's art? I know it when I see it.

Art is in they eye of the beholder, it's been this way since the beginning. No matter if a human does a painting or AI, you like it or not.

In 10 years time we might see AI paintings in galleries.

 

[mfinley]

In 10 years time we might see AI paintings in galleries.

Too late, it's been going on for awhile. Museums and galleries are always looking for artwork to get people in the doors, Ai artwork is a current hot topic and good for getting visitors. These museums and galleries regularly have shown ai art

• Serpentine Galleries (London)
• Mori Art Museum (Tokyo)
• Times Museum (Guangzhou, China)
• Art Square Gallery (New York)
• Augmentika Foundation (Poland)
• Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science (Miami)
• ICME AIART Gallery (Nantes, France)

As I posted already in this thread, ai artworks have already sold for over $1 million at Sotheby's art auctions

 

[lylejk]

Is it question of can it? I think it's a little late for that question.

“AI God” by Ai-Da. An abstract portrayal of computing pioneer Alan Turing.
Sold for $1,084,800 at Sotheby's in 2024

Ai-Da created in 2019 is regarded as the world’s first humanoid robot artist.

• Cameras in her eyes allow her to “see” subjects.
• AI software analyzes visual input to interpret shapes, tones, and proportions.
• A robotic arm then creates physical drawings and paintings.
• It also produces sculpture, poetry, and performance art

There are a few elephants who are continuously creating paintings that routinely sell in the 5 figure range.

Looks alot like the many many folk remember dreaming about. lol

Ever Dream This Man? | World of Lucid Dreaming

The legend of This Man begins in a psychiatrist's office in New York. One of the patients drew the face of a man that had been repeatedly appearing in her dreams.

www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com