AI-art isn’t art An Essay by Erik Hoel erikhoel.substack.com AI-generated artwork is the same as a gallery of rock faces. It is pareidolia, an illusion of art, and if culture falls for that illusion we will lose something irreplaceable. We will lose art as an act of communication, and with it, the special place of consciousness in the production of the beautiful. …Just as how something being either an original Da Vinci or a forgery does matter, even if side-by-side you couldn’t tell them apart, so too with two paintings, one made by a human and the other by an AI. Even if no one could tell them apart, one lacks all intentionality. It is a forgery, not of a specific work of art, but of the meaning behind art. artconsciousnessbeautymeaningai
Useless work on useful things Anyone can verify by simple observation two important facts. The first is, that whenever humans design and make a useful thing they invariably expend a good deal of unnecessary and easily avoidable work on it which contributes nothing to its usefulness. The second fact is that all useful devices have got to do useless things which no one wants them to do. Who wants car to get hot? Or to wear out its tires? Or to make a noise and a smell? David Pye, The Nature and Aesthetics of Design The works of GodIf you have to do tedious workWe might as well make them beautifulAgainst form follows functionCombinations and arrangements function