Art by Artificial Intelligence. 1% Inspiration without the 99% Perspiration?

As a teenager, I was a student majoring in "visual art" at the LaGuardia High School of Music, Art, and Performing Arts in Mid-Manhattan.  It's an unsightly block of concrete and glass hidden behind Lincoln Center.  Hidden within the unsightly block is a hive of painters, sculptors, pen and ink, charcoal pencil journeymen.  Included are students of the performing arts:  Dance, Vocal, Instrumental, and Drama.  It was and is where aspiring artists gestate.

Some students continue in their artistic pursuits.  Others set aside their youthful pursuits to work in other professions - perhaps continuing in their passion as an avocation.  Others, like me, sought other avenues of expression, leaving our brushes, pallets, canvass and sketchpads to die on the vine.

After I graduated from LaGuardia, I moved on to study film at Hunter College CUNY.  I had the passion, I learned the technique, but I did not have the connections to enter the field.  Undeterred, I moved on to Brooklyn College CUNY to study television production.  I felt like I was pushed through a tight birth canal into the profession.  What made me retire from the video arts was my inability to cope with the outrageous egos of actors, directors, and producers, who were constantly dismissive of my best efforts.  I did my level best, but it didn't pass muster.

Yes, yes, call the waaaaambulance, you say.  Walk a mile in my Wellingtons, you snotty straw man.

Not everything went to waste.  While I was in the TV production program, I took an elective in Electronic Arts (more commonly known as CGI).  I felt like I was back in my element.  However, instead of pen or brush or clay, I learned to sketch and extrude digital images from the two dimensional to the three dimensional plane.  I decided in my second year of the TV program I would write, direct, shoot, and edit a documentary about animation that I titled Animation - The Lively Art.  I abbreviate it as ATLA.

And yes, I noticed it shares the same initials as Avatar - The Last Airbender.  Pure coincidence.

I received a Master of Fine arts for my toil, but again, no connections.  That is not to say without effort on my part.  Again, I hit wall after wall.  Oy, my head.

During the years I toiled in cubicles at various clerical jobs, my creative itch would manifest itself in scribblings on post-it paper.  Those following this blog may have seen them before.  Again, here are some samples.

I have submitted these and other miniature opera to sites ranging from Instagram to DeviantArt.  The latter of the two is unduly notorious for bizarre superhero and anime erotica.  I assure you, it is not... mostly.  There are many samples of fine art posted at that site.  Visit it at your leisure, and be sure to check out the work of one BilBixBee14.  That would be me.

This brings us to the reason why this blog was written:  Art by Artificial Intelligence.

I was watching an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.  The topic he covered concerned AI art and the effect it would have on artists of various media.  Mr. Oliver at first provided images of himself kissing, fondling, and marrying a large cabbage at at site called Midjourney.  Oliver demonstrated the amount of AI art dedicated to his visage numbered in the tens of thousands.  That was only from Midjourney alone.  Other, cruder, sites such as CrAIyon illustrated (or rather, composited) Mr. Oliver in other mortifying scenarios:  Riding and falling off a unicycle in the middle of the woods, for instance.

Here's my own contribution to the vast portfolio of Oliverana:  John Oliver Transforms into The Incredible Hulk.

Now you ask:  How are these compositions made?  Toiling for days with a stylus and a screen attached to a personal computer using the appropriate Adobe programs to create a work derived from still life or pure imagination?

No.

All I had to do was write in a keyword bar:  John Oliver Transforms into The Incredible Hulk.

That was it.

The AI took care of the rest.

And it finished the artwork in seconds.

Not impressive enough?  Too cartoonish?  Well, here's something I and the AI created using the keywords The Goddess Ishtar approaches the Gates of the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz.

Does it lean a bit towards the chintziness of Maxfield Parrish?  Perhaps.

Still, it looks like a painting that may have taken days(?), weeks(?), months(?) to complete.  No, mere seconds.

Here is another sample:  Keywords, Layne Staley from Alice in Chains with Angel Wings on His Back.

Yet another:  Sumerian Goddess Inanna Afrofuturist.

You don't know what Afrofuturist means?  You may Google it, or see it in action with the costume design for the recent Black Panther movies.  It's a serious aesthetic movement, I assure you.

Some artwork comes out accurate to the typed keywords.  Sometimes, the result is plain bizzare.  Behold, Ishtar from Fate Grand Order Slashes Downward with a Broadsword.

Yeah, you see?

So as an out of practice visual artist, how do I feel about using these AI programs to bring the images in my head to life?

It's a mix of excitement and guilt.

I've already demonstrated the excitement I feel about "composing" this art.  Now, where does the guilt come from?

You know the old saying, "Creativity requires 1percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration?"

Well, look at what I have done!  I have bypassed the perspiration.

The technology will only improve over time.  Think of what can be done with AI combining the media of animation and 3D printing:  Mona Lisa flashes her her pair of inflatable breasts!

I have no sample of that.  I came up with those keywords on the fly.

So, what will this do to the fine artists and commercial artists who apply the perspiration and years of study and work with the faint spark of inspiration?  

Are they out of a job?

Will they go the way of the blacksmith who shoes horses as the interstate superhighway flattened their country trails allowing thousands of automobiles to rush past them.  Will artists become a mere nostalgic curiosity like the blacksmiths you see at historic recreation villages?

To quote Saint Paul (somewhat out of context), "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (Corinthians 13:12)  In short, I cannot see the future with absolute certainty.

Here's one possibility:

The internet crashes across the globe.  All AI go out of commission permanently.  Humanity is flung backward from the pre-information, pre-industrial ages and arrive in a world of wooden ships with tall sails and wagons drawn by beasts of burden.  In this level of technology, the fine artist and artisan would rise again unchallenged.  We would return to the media of pen, ink, charcoal, colored pigments, marble, bronze, etc.

Here's another possibility:

AI continues on its exponential trajectory without disruption.  The hoi polloi will be able to create works of fine or commercial art made to order with mere keystrokes.  The plastic arts are as instantaneous as fast food.  Leonardo Ronald McVinci.

If my art teachers from LaGuardia saw me indulging in this playpen of instant art, they would glare at me in disapproval.  Hell, they may even poke my eyes out with the sharp end of their paint brushes or styli.  That's assuming if they even remember me.  They may pierce my eyes out anyway.

All I can say is, all this thought concerning the future of the plastic arts - perhaps even the performing arts - is making me perspire...

One hundred percent.

- JJB

Postscript:  To lighten the mood, here is an AI rendering of Udo Dirkenberg - the former lead singer of the heavy metal band Accept - cradling a large, green booger.