Is AI art the new frontier or just another way to rip artists off? Watch episode 1 of digi-Art now
The new CBC Arts series looks to the horizon to see what's possible with tech and art
CBC Arts' new series digi-Art looks to the horizon to see what's possible with tech and art — charting a course led by creatives and innovators toward new worlds and ways of creating.
The infinite monkey theorem posits that if a countless number of monkeys were assembled in front of a limitless number of typewriters, they would eventually create writing as revered and dense as the works of William Shakespeare.
The theorem feels unimaginable and creative works are so often seen as intentional — great writing and designs can't just be shaped from nothing. But recent trends in AI seem set to transform how the creation of art is viewed in culture.
AI art has been all over the Internet, and even winning awards, and it's leading some visual artists to worry about their roles in the future.
Text-to-image systems, like DALL-E 2, have been enabling anyone to create striking visual works with just a few words. People can now truly create something from almost nothing. But, this process isn't as random as it seems.
Dr. Alexis Morris is the tier two research chair in the Internet of Things at OCAD University. He told digi-Art host Taelor Lewis-Joseph about a process called "classification" — the process by which a machine can turn language to a thing, and then ultimately an image.
"You show the machine an image of a cat, but it doesn't know what a cat is," Morris says. "You give it lots of pictures of cats and after a time, it starts to learn that cats are often a little fuzzy and have pointed ears."
"As you give it more and more pictures, the machine figures out more and more features."
Through being exposed to countless images, AI can begin to generate sometimes startlingly realistic images from almost nothing.
Intelligence stealing art
While AI technology is groundbreaking, not all creatives are excited by its prospects in the art world.
Mark Gagne is a multimedia artist and head of Mindmelt Studio. He's no stranger to using technology in his art — Gagne will often mix together illustrations and photography in his pieces.
But he has grown frustrated with what he views as AI's continued encroachment on original pieces of art.
"These AI programs are scraping artwork off the internet, including my own, and Frankensteining them into a piece of artwork," Gagne says. "It really upset me that I was one of those artists that got scraped up by the AI apps."
Gagne's frustration with AI platforms has been increased by the fact that he considers his work to be very personal to him. His work often explores topics like mental health.
"People … [identified] with the imagery that I was putting out and it really opened dialogue with a lot of people," he says. "They found that my art page was a safe space for them to express that."
What started as personal expression has now been "regurgitated" by AI platforms, Gagne argues. "It's kind of like when somebody breaks into your home and takes off with your television or your PlayStation or something," he says.
"I mean, the technology's amazing, but what's wrong with these companies coming to the artists and saying, 'We'd like to work with you?'"
Taking advantage of AI
While some artists are worried about AI, some are embracing it. Waxhead is an artist who began in a more analogue medium — street art.
But now, Waxhead said that AI is taking an active role in his creations. In fact, AI has helped to inform the art he creates in the physical world.
"I'm using AI in a wide variety of ways as a tool to create seamless textures for 3D models, to create reference material for my murals, to create references for paintings," he says. "It just allowed me to be creative and to learn and renew a love for learning."
Waxhead's experiments with AI have allowed him to manipulate some of his favourite styles of art. He says that AI allows styles of art to be reiterated.
"I'm starting to build models that are referencing my art, so I'm using hundreds and hundreds of photographs of years and years and years of my work to make something that's my style, that's Waxhead, but also created by AI," he says.
While he acknowledges the problems other artists have had with their art being scooped up by AI platforms, he also thinks that this cycle is reflective of art more broadly.
"I think humans have always used other artwork as references and we're all taking our inspirations from somewhere," he says.
"Things are changing extremely fast … I'm excited about the future, using AI, using text prompts. What concerns me is who controls these models."
"I think more open-source AI models that are controlled by the public, in terms of art and creativity, are gonna have vastly more amazing applications in general."
CBC Arts' new series digi-Art looks to the horizon to see what's possible with tech and art — charting a course led by creatives and innovators towards new worlds and ways of creating.
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