There was an interesting interview with John Coulthart a couple of weeks ago, where he says some things about AI I thought were worth preserving here:
We’re still waiting for all these developments to settle down so it’s foolish to try and prognosticate too much but it’s obvious that much of the argument in favour of AI art has been lost. The term “slop” became widespread at such a speed that it’s going to be difficult for the slop merchants to popularise their products in any other way, although I’m sure they’ll continue to make the attempt. I also think getting anyone to respect AI art will be very difficult. […]
On a more abstract level it’s been interesting seeing how quickly so much AI art has achieved a kind of mannerist sameness, a digital mulch that makes so much of the stuff look as though it’s extruded from the same pipe. “Slop” is very apt in this context. […] The slop machines don’t know about this because they don’t know what art is, and neither, it seems, do the engineers who program them. They’re asking people to accept the replacement of boundless human creativity with the world’s most expensive clip-art generator.
I think that last line is the real killer here, plus he’s equally dead on about that sort of sameness AI has attained. Which isn’t really surprising, though, cos AI was bound to feed off its own productions along with all the other stuff on the Internet it devours to make those productions in the first place… it’s not so much how quickly the term “slop” caught on so much as it is how quickly it became slop that is surprising.
