The Monkey Buddha: AC: Artificial Creativity

Friday, February 10, 2023

AC: Artificial Creativity

"zen monkey looks into the cosmos"

-Images: Stable Diffusion AI Software
-Prompts & Curating: Paul Micarelli

I have been tinkering with A.I. generated art, using Stable Diffusion software. I am simultaneously amazed & disturbed by the novel imagery that computers are now able to create. As an artist & graphic designer, the A.I. phenomenon makes me feel like a carriage maker at the onset of automobile manufacturing.

The software I'm using is relatively basic, but it can still produce really cool art (as well as hilariously bad formulations). I actually give the software top billing on my posts, because all I'm doing is entering prompts. Yes it's a tool just like Photoshop, but the computer & code creating the imagery is almost spooky and makes you examine the nature of consciousness itself. What we understand to be consciousness or mind is an emergent cascade of phenomena, as is machine learning. However, the ability to explain the system doesn't make it any less mysterious.

The endless amounts of objectively fantastic artwork flooding social media now is just mind-boggling. Just like the Internet itself, there is no way to understand exactly where this technology is going to take society.

I have started social media pages for the A.I. art that I'm collaborating with the machines to produce. If you're reading this, I would greatly appreciate it if you check them out & follow:

Instagram:

@ac_artificial_creativity

Facebook:

@AC.Artificial.Creativity

There are so many questions & issues that arise from this technology...

• What does it mean for the human artist & creator?

• Will A.I. art be required to be detected & distinguished from human art, in certain circumstances? Or will that prove impossible, and proof of process will be required to verify human-made art if desired.

• Are we entering a "post-reality" reality, where we trust absolutely nothing, and objective truth no longer exists in the digital realm?

...It's all so crazy... what the hell is happening? We'll just have to buckle in & find out!

Here are some articles I've read recently about the topic as I try to wrap my head around it all:

My Modern Met:

Art Trend of 2022:
How AI Art Emerged and Polarized the Art World

Wired:

What AI-Generated Art
Really Means for Human Creativity

These are some of the images I've prompted that have really blown me away, but there's so much more to come:

"a futuristic organically inspired city with greenery and sleek rounded architecture"

-Images: Stable Diffusion AI Software
-Prompts & Curating: Paul Micarelli