In the past few years, the technological and artistic world collided to form AI Generated art. AI generated art creates pieces of artwork by combining images found online. Types of softwares such as Midjourney, StableDiffusion, and Artbreeder, require users to input certain descriptive words, in turn creating new, highly detailed art pieces that match.
In early November of this year, OpenAI, the Silicon Valley research facility founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman, released the highly anticipated DALL-E 2. This latest improved software set a new standard for AI image manipulating, attracting over 3 million users worldwide and producing over four million images within the first week.
What makes these AI tools so appealing is not only about how they can create beautiful pieces of artwork, but also how they work. Apps like DALL-E 2 are built to put together millions of photos from the web and use algorithms to recognize patterns within the images with the same style.
Most AI Generated art softwares, including DALL-E 2, are made by a diffusion model. In short, a diffusion model is a computer program that essentially breaks down and puts together images, aiming to find statistical patterns in them to replicate and use in the generating process. Though the process is extremely complex and unpredictable, almost all of the generated images are extremely photorealistic and detailed, appealing to and impressing millions of users across the globe.
Although the general public seems to be fascinated by these pieces of art, there has been some controversy surrounding Generative AI. A famous artist named Jason M. Allen recently won an art competition by creating something on an artificial intelligence program. Although AI generated art has been around for years, many tools that were recently released made it possible for artists to make more photorealistic artworks. Many debates are ongoing about the controversy of AI generated art, stating that these apps are essentially a high-tech of plagiarism.
These hyper-realistic images have changed the meaning of traditional art and are expected to significantly change the way professional artists and industries work in the future. More debates will be brought to the table discussing whether or not these pieces of art should be considered art, or if they are just works of forgery.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-artists.html
https://bigthink.com/the-future/dall-e-midjourney-stable-diffusion-models-generative-ai/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/technology/ai-generated-art-jobs-dall-e-2.html