What art is for me

Art is the craft of inducing emotions by purpose. A fisherman's net strewn over a drying rack by the beach can induce emotions. Was this the intention of strewing the net over the rack? Not really. It is an opus, a creation. But art? No. A baby's joyous jotting of coloured lines on a scrap of paper is an opus, too. Was it the baby's intention to induce emotions? Probably not.

A toddler, then? Most likely. Toddlers ARE aware of the emotions of their care-givers. Making Mum happy by making a depiction of a pony (though, admittedly, the drawing itself bears no resemblance with a pony) is a deliberate act. I would say, that this constitutes art. The rest of us may follow in the toddler's footsteps. If we care to.

AI is is machine made. A product of carefully curated algorithms. Algorithms don't have emotions, and they most certainly do not have intentions. They are exclusively reacting. So, AI in itself is not art. But I dare say, that there is a bit more to it than this. You see, if someone with cerebral palsy wants to express themselves, AI could offer some assistance. You could imagine someone completely locked inside their body, barely able to blink. With the proper equipment - and patience and training - said person can communicate very precisely. Including feeding prompts into an AI algorithm. Does THIS constitute art? I would argue, that it does. Especially if said person adds a personal touch. Perhaps an overlay of a second image?

What if someone fully capable of expressing themselves feeds random prompts into an algorithm and churns out an endless barrage of images? Does THIS constitute art? Not even remotely. There is no intention, no afterthought.

But where to draw the line? One observer would draw the line firmly between the person with cerebral palsy and the random person excreting piles of pixels. Another observer might exclude AI entirely, and yet another would accept the pile of pixels as an expression, and thus art.

Art in itself is a difficult term to define. When is an opus ACTUALLY art? The first photographers were ridiculed for making "non-art" that made "non-sense". Photography is now considered a fine art. Same thing with collage art. The dadaism and their collage work was condemned for being meaningless piles of junk. A condemnation that turned into full recognition later on.

Every photo is not a work of art, though. The photo in my passport is not art, even if it actually IS an opus, a product of a deliberate act. Middle school pupils gluing random scraps together in order to make the arts teacher stop complaining, are they producing art? Not in my book. Same goes with AI, I reckon.

Do YOU consider AI "non-art" exclusively for being AI? You have every right to do so. For my part, I reserve the right to consider AI a potential form of art.

Sorry that I got carried away. Here's a potato (as if this was 2012):