Comment by dragonwriter
6 months ago
> A pro photographer and my mom will get wildly different results even with the same equipment. Not so with AI, which very much has it's own bias and is eager to inject it.
That particular AI models have their own bias and are eager to inject it is among the reasons why a skilled user and an unskilled user will have very different results, not a reason why that isn’t true.
> The other question is, is AI a tool or a medium?
Is oil paint on canvas a set of tools or a medium? In art, a tool ot set of tools often characterizes, or even defines, a medium; they are different but not orthogonal concerns. (And the cultural phenomenon of identification of a regularly-used tool or combination of tools as defining a medium generally only happens well after that tool or combination has been in significant use for a while.)
AI is a broad category of tools. Particular combinations of those (either with eachother or with other tools) may also come to be be understood as particular media.
>That particular AI models have their own bias and are eager to inject it is among the reasons why a skilled user and an unskilled user will have very different results, not a reason why that isn’t true.
Not quite what I mean. If you and I both take a photo of the same controlled scene with the same camera, the result will be essentially identical. If you and I both type the exact same prompt into Nano Banana, we will both get very different images. So, how is one supposed to know what parts of the AI image are intentional or incidental? If the AI image is "good," is it good because of or despite the prompter?
>Is oil paint on canvas a set of tools or a medium? In art, a tool ot set of tools often characterizes, or even defines, a medium
Agreed, and this is basically what I'm saying. I'm fine with siloing AI art into it's own category and I'm sure some cool work can be done there. But it's fundamentally odd to think that AI will, for some reason, replace or displace other art.