#also citing my old tweets Whoever u are ur a real one

[angelhusbandry]

hi elliott if you’re willing, do you have any takes on AI-generated art?? i remember some tweets of yours about NFTs where u criticized how (paraphrasing) that community glorifies the privatization of art consumption & i heard someone predict that AI art would lead to a “democratization of art” where people don’t have to gain skill to produce art and it’s therefore accessible to more people, so i was especially wondering what u think about that. no pressure to reply👍

it’s definitely an interesting topic, i think i’m definitely more “moderate” on it than some people — i’ve seen people call it soulless which i don’t necessarily think is true, for me the biggest problem is theft, the fact that specific artist names are run through algorithms to copy their specific style without permission. if someone made a bank of their own art and ai generated another piece or if someone hypothetically had full permission to generate art from someone’s pieces i don’t think it’s really my business, because they agreed, however i do think it’s bad to steal art of course

the angle of “democratizing art” is certainly interesting but i don’t think i agree, obviously it’s a time saver but it’s still someone else’s art the algorithm has to be trained on so you need people who know art to provide examples. in my head to truly democratize art you would actually provide the resources to learn art to people. i don’t see art as some sort of intrinsic skill, it’s almost entirely practice, so the element of time is the least accessible part. but that’s one of those things you just need to figure out how to put aside time for (insert communist ramblings about how society should encourage and not discourage it)

anyways it’s tricky business. from what ive seen they make it easy to make fun of them (them being ai art bros) so maybe my mild sympathy is unwarranted but i Do understand art is hard and ai generation is cool! again the theft is the sticking point for me. i think there is a way to do ai art ethically but it’s also so far out of my wheelhouse who am i to say