"Computer scientists often thought they were aligned with artists’ ways of seeing, while in practice, they trained their systems to see like a client." Yes yes yes!
Brilliant! Walter Benjamin lives on in the way you think.
Another step you might take in your research: have artists and also non-artists examine a mixture of AI-generated images and original images. Can they tell which is which?
Thank you so much! and yes that's definitely in the plans. On a larger scale this difference in ways of seeing is an important part of my dissertation, but I'd love to explore it on a micro level, maybe even collaborating with cognitive psychologists, to study different people's perception of similarity and difference. One day!
1. And THEN the question “So well, so what?” would arise. If neither the artists nor the spectators (or heaven forbid, clients) could tell the difference, then does it mean that AI wins?
2. Back when I worked in IT it was proverbial that artificial intelligence could never replace natural stupidity. The corollary is that artificial intelligence will be used by the naturally stupid.
1. I think recognizing that difference or similarity lie in the eyes of the beholders would change the grounds of the conversation to maybe trusting that artists and other creatives have an expertise to be reckoned with. There are not a lot of visible differences between a sound bridge and a flawed one, yet we trust engineers to have made structural decisions regardless of how things look to us. I think there's something similar going on with creatives, but because the output of their work is visual, we assume that their work is just about what is visible, which makes it easier to trust our perception to judge their work.
2. haha yes that makes total sense, in the interviews we did a similar sentiment was expressed about taste, and how no matter the compute power or the dataset size, generative AI can't generate taste.
"Computer scientists often thought they were aligned with artists’ ways of seeing, while in practice, they trained their systems to see like a client." Yes yes yes!
Brilliant! Walter Benjamin lives on in the way you think.
Another step you might take in your research: have artists and also non-artists examine a mixture of AI-generated images and original images. Can they tell which is which?
Thank you so much! and yes that's definitely in the plans. On a larger scale this difference in ways of seeing is an important part of my dissertation, but I'd love to explore it on a micro level, maybe even collaborating with cognitive psychologists, to study different people's perception of similarity and difference. One day!
1. And THEN the question “So well, so what?” would arise. If neither the artists nor the spectators (or heaven forbid, clients) could tell the difference, then does it mean that AI wins?
2. Back when I worked in IT it was proverbial that artificial intelligence could never replace natural stupidity. The corollary is that artificial intelligence will be used by the naturally stupid.
1. I think recognizing that difference or similarity lie in the eyes of the beholders would change the grounds of the conversation to maybe trusting that artists and other creatives have an expertise to be reckoned with. There are not a lot of visible differences between a sound bridge and a flawed one, yet we trust engineers to have made structural decisions regardless of how things look to us. I think there's something similar going on with creatives, but because the output of their work is visual, we assume that their work is just about what is visible, which makes it easier to trust our perception to judge their work.
2. haha yes that makes total sense, in the interviews we did a similar sentiment was expressed about taste, and how no matter the compute power or the dataset size, generative AI can't generate taste.
Great article. Can't wait to read the full paper.
thank you!!