> I tend to think the important part is the end product: was someone able to express their vision to the highest possible level of fidelity? In that regard, every new technology gets us closer-- the person who couldn't draw a circle can take a photo and doctor it in the GIMP until he's happy. The next frontier for this is to say "I can use AI to generate 200 permutations, and then take the ones I like best and further hack on them to get what I want."
I don't think effort should be arbitrarily constrained to make the bar high, but I do not agree with you that the end product is important.
What is important is that the product comes from people because art helps society be healthier by existing as a means of communication from people to other people. Once AI begins to take over part of the process, it becomes like athletes who dope...it removes the essence of their achievement.
Art is more than just a single, isolated product for consumption. It exists to inspire, to change minds based on its ORIGINS, not just on its end results.
The problem with your argument is that you are ignoring the sociological effects of artistic creation, and focusing on the act of maximizing along a SINGLE variable: aesthetic value. That does art a disservice, and it means that the argument for or against AI must also be more subtle.
Besides, isn't the strategy of releasing AI just to see what happens a bit haphazard?
I guess I find it difficult to buy into the origins of art mattering too much because it often seems to turn into a game of academics arguing among each other over the interpretation of symbols. A particularly spiteful take on this would be that if your nuance is so delicate and obscure that a lay audience can't figure out your meaning, maybe it represents a failing in your ability to communicate.
I'm not sure where you got the "single variable" as "aesthetic value". Yes, it's possible that some people are trying to hit a specifically aesthetic goal, but others, their vision may be "the poster that finally convinces Aunt Frank to vote no on Proposition 23", or "the short story that expresses the feelings of loss I have for my beloved hamster", and the people trying to express these things were unable to create what they wanted from whole cloth.
At the end, it's still people making the decisions of what to release, whether directly, or by designing some sort of scoring mechanism to do it. It's similar to the curation choices in a museum collection-- they say something, even separate from the artifacts themselves.
I don't think effort should be arbitrarily constrained to make the bar high, but I do not agree with you that the end product is important.
What is important is that the product comes from people because art helps society be healthier by existing as a means of communication from people to other people. Once AI begins to take over part of the process, it becomes like athletes who dope...it removes the essence of their achievement.
Art is more than just a single, isolated product for consumption. It exists to inspire, to change minds based on its ORIGINS, not just on its end results.
The problem with your argument is that you are ignoring the sociological effects of artistic creation, and focusing on the act of maximizing along a SINGLE variable: aesthetic value. That does art a disservice, and it means that the argument for or against AI must also be more subtle.
Besides, isn't the strategy of releasing AI just to see what happens a bit haphazard?