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[BookTenTiger]

This is the most crucial part imo. It is easy for many to reject 100% AI art based on prompting alone. But AI as part of a creative process? Giving AI original concept art, generating many developed versions, and then modifying those into a final product?

The boundaries get fuzzy, human expression is more involved, and many of the anti AI arguments break down.

In this scenario, you have conceptualized and revised a product. But was there an actual artistic process?

 

[BookTenTiger]

So yes, humans can use AI to create art. Which has value, because a human is doing it. But I would argue that whatever the AI produces isn't art. When the human uses the AI product to express something, now they have created art.

Quoting myself here to clarify:

What I mean by this is that an artist could, for example, have an AI develop a thousand pictures based on a prompt of beauty and then create a collage in order to expose the AI's inherent bias. Or an artist could use prompts to try to closely recreate classic works of art in order to create discussions about the value of art itself.

Typing a prompt into an AI creates a product that looks like a piece of art, but doesn't follow an artistic process.

 

[The Firebird]

In this scenario, you have conceptualized and revised a product. But was there an actual artistic process?

I'd say so. Is conceptualizing something not artistic? Is revising not artistic?

If that's too far for you--we can imagine using AI a little less (maybe the background only) or a little less (maybe to rapidly test some color schemes).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Conventional wisdom would seem to say yes,

Market value, certainly. Enjoyment value, I don't think it's necessarily so. I've a replica of a Mondrian painting in my entrance hall, and I don't think I'd be enjoying it more if it was the original. Actually, if it was an original, I probably would have to keep it in a safe at a bank, lessening my enjoyment of it.

but when you look at digital art and really examine what's happening the answer is probably no. Every time you move a file between drives you're making a copy and deleting the original. Every time you move files between servers you're making a copy. For digital art even what passes as the master copy is probably a copy of a copy of a copy. Traditional art differs but that's arguably a matter of resolution; a photograph of the mona lisa doesn't copy the painting atom for atom; if you somehow did copy the painting atom for atom, isotope for isotope, there would be no way to even say which was which

Sure, with digital media, the original and the copy aren't different.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I'd say so. Is conceptualizing something not artistic? Is revising not artistic?

The process of imagining the result is a key part of the artistic process, I'd say. Execution (how to turn the idea into the result) is secondary. If a device was able to print the score of a music or print an image directly from the mind, I don't think I'd value it less than the same result obtained by the intermediary of other means (like writing down the score with a pen, or drawing the image).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Why is a Van Gogh more valued than a photocopy I made of a tree?

Not sure, is it? I guess you could sell a photocopy you made of a tree, while Van Gogh failed to sell most of his paintings. Famously, the Portrait du Docteur Rey was used to close a chicken coop for a decade because it had absolutely no value. Yet it contained the same amount of human expresssion back then.

Or, more simply: why is human expression valued?

If it is inherently valued, it is valued the price of a chicken coop's door. The remainder of the value must come from elsewhere.

I'd say it's the effect it produces on the viewer (beauty lies in the eye of the beholder) that makes a large part of the value assigned to an artwork. How it is produced can affect this reaction, with some disliking paintings or photography or photoshop or AI), but it might not be the main drive for appreciating something, nor something that's taken into account by each and every potential enjoyer.

Some might focus on the end result only to generate this appreciation (and disregard the details on how it is done), and I guess they wouldn't be the ones to buy Zone de sensibilité picturale immatérielle* by Klein nor Friedman's 1000 Hours of Staring**.

* = It's a non-existant area you're given a deed to. Optionally, you can complete the artwork by destroying the non-existant area and throwing it into the Seine in the presence of an art critic or a museum director.
** = it's a white sheet of paper the artist (purportedly) stared at for 1,000 hours.

Then there is the speculation value. If it was only the human expression that is valued, a lithograph made by an artist and signed by him wouldn't be valued much less than the original proof, and the lithograph numbered 5 wouldn't be worth more than the lithograph numbered 83.