LeftHandLuke
Shohin
All blathering armchair conjecture with zero proof or empirical evidence.
I want to hear more arguments ..Bonsai Humor Thread No. 2
- Thread starter Shogun610
- Start date
ShadyStump
Imperial Masterpiece
Dang right!
Did you forget what thread this is?
shohin_branches
Omono
What's the point of faking it to look like art when you take the soul out of the creation? Just post a photo because you've removed the purpose of art.
LLM "AI" is for analysis of large datasets and should be used to free humans from mundane or dangerous tasks so we can spend more time making art.
AI cannot make art because it doesn't have any feelings or experiences to express. It takes stolen art and mashes it together to build an approximation of what the person giving a prompt may want based on how that stolen art was tagged. We are at a crossroads over AI and how we behave could determine how hopeful or bleak our future as humans is. Right now it's looking a little bleak. My career in Software development is morphing quickly. Is it right that the code I write now will eventually train a data model that will make my career obsolete? Probably not. Will I use AI trained off art that was stolen to avoid paying an artist for their work? Absolutely not.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
shohin_branches
Omono
People who hate Portulacaria afra as bonsai typically have never grown one and hate having fun.
Growing Portulacaria afra is fun.
Bonsai is fun.
Therefore people who hate Portulacaria afra don't have any bonsai.
Growing Portulacaria afra is fun.
Bonsai is fun.
Therefore people who hate Portulacaria afra don't have any bonsai.
Paradox
Marine Bonsologist
Well maybe you're made of money and can pay someone several 100 to over 1000 dollars to draw/paint a picture of your tree, most of us aren't.
Just saw a meh (IMO) painting in a restaurant selling for $4200, which IMO is too much. Guess its like Bonsai, its only worth what someone would pay for it.
I like the AI drawing of Fidur's tree, I think its well done and very complimentary to the tree. I dont care that it wasnt made by a living, breathing human.
I think it still is art even if its AI generated. There is no rule saying art has to be created by a human or its not art or has no soul. Some might not think it is but there are plenty that will and do.
I think its kind of fun to put things into an AI art generator and seeing what it comes up with.
Honestly what is the difference between the AI generated drawing or someone taking the actual photo into Photoshop and digitizing it to look like a drawing. That is something humans do all the time and its not that hard if you know what you are doing. Hell I did a little bit of that myself when I was learning photoshop. The AI is essentially doing that.
I've seen some testing of some some of the AI chat bots and they are coming up with things that can be considered very human, emotional, even personal responses. Some of it is also very hateful, much like some humans can be. Yea the AI doesn't "feel" like humans do but damn if you would really be able to tell the difference in some of it.
I am not overly crazy about some of the implications of AI either but AI is here and more is coming whether we like it or not.
I do love the fact that my Roomba cleans my house 3x a week and I dont have to
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Wulfskaar
Omono
Is art in the eye of the beholder?
If I am moved by a piece of AI "art", is it not art to me?
As far as the energy argument: Anyone roasting @Fidur over making an AI pic probably shouldn't be online, or playing video games, or streaming movies, shows, or music, or using a cell phone, or driving a gas vehicle, or any of the millions of unnecessary things we do to make our lives easier or more fun.
With that said, artistic value will always be on the human side, whether creating or viewing art.
I used AI on April Fools in the "what did you do today" thread to falsely show my progress.
If I am moved by a piece of AI "art", is it not art to me?
As far as the energy argument: Anyone roasting @Fidur over making an AI pic probably shouldn't be online, or playing video games, or streaming movies, shows, or music, or using a cell phone, or driving a gas vehicle, or any of the millions of unnecessary things we do to make our lives easier or more fun.
With that said, artistic value will always be on the human side, whether creating or viewing art.
I used AI on April Fools in the "what did you do today" thread to falsely show my progress.
shohin_branches
Omono
P&K nutrients are important for setting flower and fruit, but a tree is a complete organism with complicated nutrient requirements that we dumb down for our limited human thinking capacity. When you oversimplify science to the point that you destroy the intention of it then that doesn't make the science a myth. That is just an improper application of scientific findings.
Depriving a tree of other macro nutrients will also reduce flowers and fruit, duh.
LeftHandLuke
Shohin
Love this post. Puts an exclamation point on Shady's comment.
8 Most Expensive Bonsai Trees Ever Sold - Rarest.org
Bonsai (in Japanese it means, “tray planting”) is actually a Japanese version of the ancient Chinese art of penjing. The trees are not only pruned ... Read morerarest.org
JoeWilson
Mame
This is a completely incoherent argument. Firstly, people are not against AI because it is a form of entertainment or because it offers convenience; that's not what we're talking about. Secondly, all of those other things you mentioned can function without theft on a massive scale. Hell, none of them require even a little bit of theft.Is art in the eye of the beholder?
If I am moved by a piece of AI "art", is it not art to me?
As far as the energy argument: Anyone roasting @Fidur over making an AI pic probably shouldn't be online, or playing video games, or streaming movies, shows, or music, or using a cell phone, or driving a gas vehicle, or any of the millions of unnecessary things we do to make our lives easier or more fun.
With that said, artistic value will always be on the human side, whether creating or viewing art.
I used AI on April Fools in the "what did you do today" thread to falsely show my progress.
JoeWilson
Mame
You can commission an artist to do an illustration like this for much less than you think. Probably less than you spent at that restaurant. Exactly how much will depend on a few things: how good and/or busy the artist is, how detailed you want it to be, how quickly you want it done, how much input you want to have in the process, and so forth. But AI is decimating illustrators' livelihoods, so there are many of them looking for any kind of work. There are tangible benefits to doing this; for example, you get an original work of art that someone made just for you. I'm not sure about you, but when someone makes something unique just for me, I tend to feel pretty great.
I mean sure, you can run a Photoshop filter on the photo of the tree, too. But I'm talking about a unique work of art that someone would draw or paint of that tree.
AI can generate images, but it can't make art. The reason is simple: the artistic process and human intent are critical parts of what makes art art. With AI, there is no process and no intent. It's just slop that a compression scheme has jumbled together with an algorithm designed to guess the next most likely pixel. An AI's rendition of a photo is as much art as an AI-generated image of a small tree in a pot is bonsai. To conflate art and AI-generated images is to understand neither.
In any case, I'm sure you would be a little less happy with your Roomba if it had to break into all of your neighbors' houses and steal their vacuum cleaners before it could do its job.
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NMbonsai
Mame
Didn't the renowned bonsai artist Nichola Tesla use the copper coils and magnets technique to achieve the unbelievable results he got with his shohin redwoods? Witnesses claim that the electricity generated would travel out of the soil, up the wired branches, and arc out of the top of the trees; creating an incredible display and resulting in amazing growth. Unfortunately, after his death, government agents came in and confiscated his trees, along with his equipment, prototypes and documents.
What a huge loss of knowledge to the bonsai community.
I read this on the internet so it must be true.
shohin_branches
Omono
Lol depending on the artist it's $20-$80. There's an artist up the street that will do a commission of my dog for $50.
I'm in an urban neighborhood full of artist though. The bar two blocks from me does a tiny art show every year where you can get small original paintings from a local artist for $30-$200. There are a lot of people that want to make art for their livelihood. You grow bonsai you want to make art.
A roomba isn't AI, it's a robot full of "if, then, else" programming statements. They're supposed to do jobs we don't want to do. The LLM models we have aren't true AI it's just the next iteration of a search engine like Google. It can process lots of information quickly and recognize patterns based off the training that's been given to it. If the AI wasn't given tags based on human assessment of art it would have no clue what feeling the art should evoke. Without processing the stolen art it would not be able to rip off that art and generate images.
I already explained the theft part of AI image generation in my previous post. I get if people don't interact with artists and creatives on a regular basis that they won't have empathy for the precipice that people with creative livelihoods are sitting on. Your actions though have consequences. Plain and simple of we want a future with art in it, including our own, we should acting like it.
leatherback
The Treedeemer
Interestingly.. What makes art valuable? In part it is also the artist who made it. The name on the painting by and large determines the value of older pieces.
And then people start realizing that Rembrandt did not paint all these paintings. It was his trainees who often made them. Ripping off the style of Rembrandt, copying his use of colour, brush strokes, and scenes.
So who is the artist there? And are students not just copying the style of their master?
@Fidur where did you get that picture? It looks a lot like this Monet painting I found online:
© Fidur + leatherback + Chatgtp
JoeWilson
Mame
Rembrandt trained his apprentices and gave them permission to work on his projects. This was a common practice in art production houses at the time and still is. Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel by himself either. Artists work in teams all the time, even if the studio name or the head artist's name is on the final product. The main difference is that back then, apprentices would often pay a master to work in his studio and learn from them. In any case, his apprentices didn't "rip him off", they trained under him. Consent is key here; this is in no way analogous to the mass theft of millions of works of art, photographs, films, books, etc by AI companies.
Apprentices were often influenced by their teachers; however, they usually developed their own unique style as well, something AI is not capable of doing. Because the models we're talking about here can not reason or learn, and fundamentally lack creative expression. They're only able to reproduce what they have "seen" in their training dataset. They often reproduce it verbatim as well. It only appears as a unique work when you're unaware of the original source, and again, given that the dataset may include millions of works, chances are you haven't seen what it's ripping off, so you may not notice the plagiarism. But it's always there, often times very obviously so.
This is more apparent with prompt-based generative AI, and less so when running an AI process on a photograph that you have taken, which is admittedly more of a gray area because there is a unique input. We can think of this as a sort of half-theft or Theft Lite, if you will, because what is being stolen in this case is usually the style of a particular artist rather than their work directly. Even still, it's usually the same doesn't work at all without the theft models running the process either way.
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JoeWilson
Mame
Let’s look at a more modern example. Hayao Miyazaki works with a team of animators, colorists, voice actors, and so forth. By working on a Studio Ghibli production, are these people ripping off Hayao Miyazaki’s work? Of course not. Should Hayao Miyazaki get credit for the entirety of the production? Also no. But the people who work with him do so because they want to make a Ghibli film with Miyazaki. Everyone understands that Miyazaki is the driving force of the production and happily consents to this arrangement. This is directly analogous to the works of Rembrandt, Michalengo, and many of the classical masters.
Coincidentally, this is what Hayao Miyazaki thinks of generative AI used to create “art”.
Coincidentally, this is what Hayao Miyazaki thinks of generative AI used to create “art”.
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Wulfskaar
Omono
I saw many people (not here) arguing that we shouldn't generate AI images because it takes a lot of electricity to generate them, therefor, hurting the planet. That's where my argument about wasting electricity on entertainment comes from. I was not arguing that anyone is against entertainment.
As far as "stealing" art, that is one heck of an argument. Is emulating a style stealing? I don't think AI is going into the Louvre and bringing me the Mona Lisa. "Stealing" a style has been done by artists since the beginning of art, and happens in every single man-made thing we can possibly imagine. I doubt whoever designed your clothing had all of their ideas originate from their own brain. I doubt whoever designed my car came up with the design in a dream. If you think bonsai is an art form, are you copying the Japanese style, taking jobs from Japanese bonsai artists?
The only valid argument, in my humble and unknowledgeable opinion, is that many people (not only artists, but programmers like me, writers, engineers, etc etc etc) are going to lose work down the line.
Those guys who blame others for wasting electricity on the internet should cut off grid themselves and live like hermits...otherwise they are hipocrites and wasting resources
"Stealing" intelectuall property or virtual things is a bit slippy topic - they are not physical goods and can be copied.
Good writers, engineers and programers always will be in demand..
if not for designing new things then for keeping old things up and running, maintenance and translation
someone like that can be ripped off their job? I dont think so..
"Stealing" intelectuall property or virtual things is a bit slippy topic - they are not physical goods and can be copied.
Good writers, engineers and programers always will be in demand..
if not for designing new things then for keeping old things up and running, maintenance and translation
they are limited resource, have established position and they are keepers of old knowldge and traditions
someone like that can be ripped off their job? I dont think so..
accountants wouldnt let them
SailDesign
Sapling
Those guys who blame others for wasting electricity on the internet should cut off grid themselves and live like hermits...otherwise they are hipocrites and wasting resources
"Stealing" intelectuall property or virtual things is a bit slippy topic - they are not physical goods and can be copied.
Good writers, engineers and programers always will be in demand..
if not for designing new things then for keeping old things up and running, maintenance and translation
they are limited resource, have established position and they are keepers of old knowldge and traditions
someone like that can be ripped off their job? I dont think so..
accountants wouldnt let them
As a yacht designer/engineer, I can assure you that intellectual property is a GREAT deal more than a "bit slippy topic". If someone steals one of my designs they will see me in court. I suppose the whole copyright deal at the beginning of movies and books has passed you by. Shame.
As far as the amount of electricity being used for AI, I suggest you do some research. You might learn something.
</rant>
shohin_branches
Omono
You're oversimplifying it though by pretending intellectual copyright doesn't exist.
The shape of a generic t-shirt isn't subject to copyright and isn't considered intellectual property. The design an artist crafts and puts on that t-shirt is. The Milwaukee Tool logo is protected by corporate copyright, but the basic shape of a hammer isn't. A unique feature of the hammer or a method of manufacturing can be patented as intellectual property.
Students are taught art history using licensing agreements for art to be published in textbooks for the purpose of education. It's about consent. AI companies did not receive permission or pay for licenses to train their AI models on art. Artists have always been stuck with this problem on the internet. Post all of your work with watermarks to prevent theft or spend many hours chasing down grifters stealing your art and reselling it as their own.
When you combine that with the understanding that consumer-level AI isn't creating anything it's smashing existing tagged files together and using pattern analysis to complete tasks with content that wasn't paid for and licensed for that purpose now we are in copyright infringement and intellectual property theft territory.
As for the environmental impact of it I'll use MIT as a source for explaining this.
Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact
MIT News explores the environmental and sustainability implications of generative AI technologies and applications.
If we were off fossil fuels then we may be able to meet the energy needs of this new era of computation, but our electricity generation is so inefficient that we are wasting a lot of energy making and transporting energy.
So yeah it's complicated. I think we need to prioritize survival of our planet over convenience of making funny images, but it's hard to get people to care about anything larger than themselves right now.
Paradox
Marine Bonsologist
First of all NO ONE stole anything. Fidur had an AI image generated from his own picture that he has of his own tree.
Actually my Roomba (any robot vacuum) uses AI to map and navigate around my house so that it can do its job of cleaning.
It uses machine learning to map the house and remap if I decide to throw a chair in its way.
Look, you guys and I will just have to agree to disagree
I like the image created from the AI and I think its art. I don't believe that only humans or sentient beings can create art.
Art can come from anywhere IMO. Nature creates art in the twisting of a tree by the wind or the weight of snow or the colors of a sea shell, its nature's art.
I don't see much difference between an AI rendering of a photo or someone making a drawing from said photo. In either case its just copying the image.
Its not an original work, its not inspired, its just a copy, one generated by a machine and one by a human.
As for people making a living as artists or anything else for that matter. I acknowledge it isnt easy making a living as an artist, but there are many, if not most careers that are not easy either.
We all choose to pursue a line of work or career to make money to live. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
No one is obligated to buy or support anyone or any business just so they can make a living. If they have a product I want or need, Ill buy. If enough people want the product, they make money and thereby a living. If they cant make a living then its time to find another line of work where they can. That's life.
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