Is it POSSIBLE for AI to be used as art?

I generally agree with this.

AI is just the latest in a long line of new tools that come with developing technology. And at first everyone wants to apply it to absolutely everything. Some of those applications are successful, some are workable in a limited capacity, and some are fundamentally incompatible and they eventually go back to doing things the old fashion way.

Think about digital art tools a few decades ago. When they started to be introduced they weren't "real" art. "Real" art was done by people working with real materials. Pencil and paper. Paint and canvas. Chisel and stone.

There is still some animosity to digital art or animation when done poorly, and traditional techniques still carry a certain prestige, but for the most part people today do not think less of an artist when pulling out a tablet and stylus to do their art over a sketchpad and pencil.

AI may well go the same way. At the moment it is ubiquitous, being forced everywhere, but eventually industries will adapt and figure out where it is essential, where it is helpful and where it is ethical. That includes art. We are merely in the early adjustment period.

At the moment people are at their most sceptical. Their most hostile. But as AI becomes more familiar and we understand its capabilities and limits, it will become a tool like any other.

And I tend to take a very inclusive approach to art. Generally everything humans make is a form of art. A car design is art. The way you place papers on your desk is art. The patterns you trace on the floor while mopping is art.

An AI has no creative drive or independent desire (for now). Left to its own devices, it will produce nothing. Only when fed human requests, desires and demands will it create something. Those are all spawned from the human consciousness, and using the AI as the tool to express those desires will result in art.

I can respect the knowledge, experience and technique required to achieve something similar painting by hand on a canvas. There can be better or worse art. Art is the journey, not just the destination, and AI can shortcut the journey.

But lesser art is still art.

snicker

Well, that's not applying a unique application of AI; that's just using generative AI to make code for you that you could've done yourself. I guess it's still "art" then, since it'd be art if someone coded it themselves, but I get to make fun of whomever put it together for having poor work ethic.

First, I think "AI" is used inappropriately here. (Don't worry, lots of people do this)

"AI", as in "Artificial Intelligence," is the concept of an independent intelligence born purely of program and algorithm, and at least for now remains in the realm of sci-fi.

What corporations today call "AI" are actually algorithms that are programmed to take in vast amounts of information and attempt to twist it into a desired result. There's no independent thought or desire, so it's not an "intelligence."

To answer your question…

I don't think the example given is art, more of an exercise in programming. The code running that program could be considered artistic if they are particularly efficient and well-planned, but the results of the program are not art because they lack a message, or intent.

But a true AI would definitely be capable of art!

(sorry if this sounds condescending, but wanted to put my 2¢ in)

See why don't I get to hear these kinds of stories more often???