That’s fair, even while typing it, the point felt shaky. I still think there are pieces of art that fail to have intentionality or design, but I would still call them art. I could carelessly scribble on a page to pass time in a meeting and I think that would still qualify as art, even if absent conscious meaning or design.

May point was more against the process than Pollock specifically because I think much of the high art world is shaped by folks in power over anything else. I agree that folks are too quick to dismiss his work, and I completely believe it is art. I don’t think it’s random, and looking at his work you can see intentionality. I think I bring it up more to show the broad spectrum of art. Similarly, I think it’s completely valid to sign a urinal and call it art. Even if you have no sway over the structure of the porcelain beyond picking what toilet you think works best. A curation I would argue is equally valid when selecting what pieces of AI work best fit what one is going for.

I will concede that the process of interacting with the generation machine to produce something is a creative one, I just don’t think it’s anywhere near what a lot of proponents claim it be.

I guess I don’t know what proponents claim the level of creativity is, but I also think that critics don’t realize the level of depth many of the folks that use AI go to for what people assume was a few tries at a prompt. I think this gets back to the original counter point above. Trying to make something similar to what folks show off, or trying to realize a vision with AI tools is harder than many realize. And I think without having worked with them too much, it can be easy to not see the intentionality that went into AI work, in the same way it can be easy to assume Pollock is random splatters. Now I will clarify again, I don’t hold it in that high of regard or say that it’s comparable to Pollock or any other painters really. More my point is to show that the specifics can be lost, particularly because AI does so much spectacle.

I’ve used Suno, and my lasting impression of it is that it was fun, sometimes really funny, and overall kind of soul sucking. As a musician, there were essentially no times that I felt anything produced there was mine. It was just novelty. Some of it sounded really cool, but none of it was an expression of me or what I was really looking for.

I think that it’s totally valid, and I don’t really think I take any ownership with AI work, I just enjoy it for what it is. Personally I use it as a DM in various ways, so maybe it doesn’t rub me as wrong because it is a smaller piece of everything else, rather than standalone art.