Been thinking about this quite a bit lately and as I think that art is essentially self expression and the AI does not have a self, feelings or any kind of experience I don’t think that it converting words into images is not art but content. It’s merely a blender that can obviously generate some very interesting images. It’s a tool, nothing more nothing less IMO.
edit: That being said it will be interesting to see how this will shape the art ppl are making and the kind of symbiosis between artists and these programs that might/will ensue.
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I think we all agree here - it’s in the nuance though right?
A camera is just a tool, but it enables an artist to express themself.
A fair definion, but it’s the human in that scenario that has the self and is expressing themselves - the expression can be crystal clear in an AI generated work by altering keywords in the same way as an artist might alter their mood.
If I want to see pain I can see pain, if I want to see joy I can see joy - is that not me expressing myself?
This is defintiely where I see the most scope and potential.
I agree with you that AI in this scenario is a tool - but I suspect there were conversations around the turn of the century about whether or not an image captured with a camera could possibly be considered art. Where is the expression in aiming at a subject and pressing a button, after all? It’s as much to do with the concept and the choices you make as a camera operator that define the art, and often the best results involve serendipidy or unexpected interactions that the artists didn’t explicitly intend.
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I’ve also been thinking more about the inclusivity angle.
This must be such an amazing door to have opened for those with motor impairment or other cognitive issues, a new way to interact with a canvas that can help bring their ideas to life.
Hell if I’m going to be the one to tell them what they make isn’t art.
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Good points and the definition of art is very much one that is and IMO should be mutable and developing instead of being dogmatic, even though at times I seem to fight against this and hold on to some quite questionable old cliches.
It gets into very obscure semantics and philosophical easily with these things and I think that in and of itself can be viewed as a valuable gift to humanity.
I think that the intention behind the act of doing something is the main thing in determining if something is self-expression, self promotion (like selfies), documentary material or just meaningless random stuff.
With photography there is an interactive process between the surroundings/location, the camera and the person with the camera, and the process continues as you edit and produce the pictures. With DALL E it seems more like a one-shot thing that is lacking all of the editorial/artistic stages and seems to me to be about as artistic of a thing to do as a google search, roughly speaking. With something like DALL E will you get the same set of pictures in you type in the same words 2 times in a row?
Not trying to be negative here but to spark conversation and to see how others here are viewing these things. 
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Not at all I’m enjoying the conversation!
Have you used one of the more advanced AI’s? It can be as involved or as uninvolved as you like to some extent.
You can treat it almost like a Google search, very simple, shallow prompts that you could argue are fairly random and have little interaction with the person performing the search.
However the more intent you load the more reproducable the work and likely the closer it is to what you invisage:
Some of the people will go through dozens of iterations and evolutions before they settle on something.
Here they’ve introduced different attributes and inspiration, it’s interesting to see the ways it shifts:
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Another interesting point is that for these AI’s to remain relevant they must be able to have access to new original creations that have a basis in reality.
If a new popular celebrity hits the scene the AI will need humans to have talked about them, drawn pictures of them and taken photographs of them for it to understand the context.
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Good!!
I have very little experience with AI since I suck with computers.
Okay that makes sense. I shall ask you the question that might in the end be the only relevant question left at least for me when trying to determine if something is to be concidered as art: do you honestly feel like you are creating something meaninful by using these softwares? or do you feel like you’re rather exploring this new space of possibilities while still remaining completely isolated from the results emotionally?
When discussing art there is always this element of vulnerability with the artist and to me that seems to be missing with these kind of generative processes. I might be wrong of course.
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Actual concept artist here working in advertising. We’ve been experimenting a bit with the various AI offerings already mainly just for a laugh. The big issue we’re still seeing at the moment is when there’s actual feedback. It’s a lot of ‘change this, move that, we need a different camera angle, can you make it blue instead of red?’ on a daily basis and AI isn’t really up to that just yet.
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Good question and this is where thigns get weird for me - because I actually do have a strange sense of ownership over some of the works - even a slight sense of pride.
Which I recognise as unusual and undeserved - it’s a very novel experience that I don’t think I’ve had as a creative in the past, can’t quite compare it to anything. Generative music is the closest thing, and actually has many parallels imo - defining constraints and setting attributes, as much audience as artist.
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Aka satisfying client demands amiright haha
I quite like the idea of gaining the excuse of “Sorry the AI didn’t agree with that suggestion” 
Thanks for sharing your experience btw - I suspect that kind of evolution isn’t far off - are you excited about how it could empower you as an artist or more worried about how it might impact work in the longterm?
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It will make commercial GD’s obsolete by 2025. 
ha nice prompt, tried to see what I could get out of Starryai with it
Then decided to be a difficult client and ask for the same image but as a robot with exposed wiring
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Just for fun could you type in “artificial intelligence generated art” and share it here?
edit: “artificial intelligence self-portrait” could be a fun one too hehehe
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Ha ok here we go, I only had 1 credit left on Starryai for today so I used it as creatively as I could
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What was the exact text used for this one?
I kept it to the request as “artificial intelligence self-portrait” and then asked it to give it a steampunk 8k 3d vibe just to throw it for a loop
This early pass is pretty cool
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I must say that I am severly disturbed by midjourney’s results
artificial intelligence self-portrait
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