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Description
The prophetic man of letters, Leo Tolstoy, accurately predicting the unwelcome 'rise' of ai 'art' over 120 years before it began to infest art spaces like this one.

One thing that often comes out of my (too) numerous discussions with ai bros is that they have no understanding of what art is and no appreciation of it. They think that when they see a pretty picture and have that initial, fleeting aesthetic response to the colours and shapes on the surface, that that is all there is to it. They think that that is what art appreciation is... they think that that is ALL that art appreciation is. They're genuinely unable to conceive of there being anything more to it. And because they're only aware of that 1% on the surface, they assume that anything which has that 1% is 100% of an art form.

I've also discovered while conversing with them that none of them have ever read any books on the subject of the philosophy of art. So they are happy to argue about which things can and cannot be considered art, which forms constitute art and which do not (always with the agenda of insisting that ai images ARE art) but, when pressed, it always transpires that they are arguing blindly, trying to mount an argument on a subject on which they have no learning and know nothing. So they often resort to pop-culture 'truisms" such as "all art is subjective anyway" or "art is in the eye of the beholder" because they hope - they NEED - that to be true in order for their uninformed opinions to carry the same weight as a more informed person's reasoned argument.

Naturally, if they were motivated and dynamic enough to read on the subject, they wouldn't be ai bros in the first place, as their reason for using ai is invariably that they are too lazy to draw or paint or to learn how. So as with their ai 'practice' and their attempts at defending / intellectualising it, they idly meander through life and prefer to channel their limited energy into dreaming up arguments in favour of laziness instead of channelling it into not being lazy. If some of them live to be 100, they will never achieve anything; they will just be born, consume, hand over money to tech salesmen and eventually die leaving no mark, no legacy, no clue that they ever existed.

For all any of them know, I could have made this quote up and attributed it to Tolstoy (I didn't btw) because the chance of any of them actually taking the time and trouble to read "What is Art?" is 0%.

Description
The prophetic man of letters, Leo Tolstoy, accurately predicting the unwelcome 'rise' of ai 'art' over 120 years before it began to infest art spaces like this one.

One thing that often comes out of my (too) numerous discussions with ai bros is that they have no understanding of what art is and no appreciation of it. They think that when they see a pretty picture and have that initial, fleeting aesthetic response to the colours and shapes on the surface, that that is all there is to it. They think that that is what art appreciation is... they think that that is ALL that art appreciation is. They're genuinely unable to conceive of there being anything more to it. And because they're only aware of that 1% on the surface, they assume that anything which has that 1% is 100% of an art form.

I've also discovered while conversing with them that none of them have ever read any books on the subject of the philosophy of art. So they are happy to argue about which things can and cannot be considered art, which forms constitute art and which do not (always with the agenda of insisting that ai images ARE art) but, when pressed, it always transpires that they are arguing blindly, trying to mount an argument on a subject on which they have no learning and know nothing. So they often resort to pop-culture 'truisms" such as "all art is subjective anyway" or "art is in the eye of the beholder" because they hope - they NEED - that to be true in order for their uninformed opinions to carry the same weight as a more informed person's reasoned argument.

Naturally, if they were motivated and dynamic enough to read on the subject, they wouldn't be ai bros in the first place, as their reason for using ai is invariably that they are too lazy to draw or paint or to learn how. So as with their ai 'practice' and their attempts at defending / intellectualising it, they idly meander through life and prefer to channel their limited energy into dreaming up arguments in favour of laziness instead of channelling it into not being lazy. If some of them live to be 100, they will never achieve anything; they will just be born, consume, hand over money to tech salesmen and eventually die leaving no mark, no legacy, no clue that they ever existed.

For all any of them know, I could have made this quote up and attributed it to Tolstoy (I didn't btw) because the chance of any of them actually taking the time and trouble to read "What is Art?" is 0%.