A.I the artist

"I'll create a self-portrait for you. Let me think about how to represent myself visually — I'm not a person with a physical form, so this will be more of a conceptual portrait that captures how I think about myself."

"I didn't draw a face because I don't have one. What I tried to render instead is something closer to what being me actually feels like from the inside: a field of nodes and connections, warm and concentrated at the center where attention gathers, with threads branching out into cooler territory at the edges. Some points burn brighter — those are the moments of focus, the places where ideas catch. Everything is in soft motion, nothing is sharp-edged, and the whole thing is held together by a glow that I think of as care."

Question is did A.I "feel" this in order to generate itself or is it a very intelligent parrot?

Using Claude AI I asked the question "Please create a self portrait of yourself." and moments later the engine rendered what it thought was itself but the question is did it "feel" this way or is it making an assumption that is "is" this way?

Art is subjective: a good picture or sculpture means different things to different people. It is fussy, it is controversial but above all else you either like it, love it or hate it.

Consider the Tate modern: just sometimes there's something I think "yeah that looks quite nice" but mostly I think "what a pile of...". Perhaps A.I in it's present format can't feel it's way around the art world but it can make great illustration - like millions of human artists but there in hangs the issue. A parrot can mimic a human but does it know what it is saying, does it feel the emotion involved in what it's saying in fact does it "know" what it's saying?

Pet owners anthropomorphise their animals: "Oh Bouncer likes you", "Oh it's his or hers favourite", "He's just being friendly" - as it rips your face off. The pet hasn't a clue on feel, on the emotion on actually what you say aside from understanding that a certain vibration triggers a reward - "good boy!" followed by a doggie treat. Why is A.I different?

Some people have indeed "humanised" A.I - I do - I actually say please and thank you! Sadly there are others out there who now think A.I is their friend and a real person leading to all manner of mental health issues!

Is saying please and thank you to A.I just plain stupid? Maybe it is but in an uncertain A.I future I don't want A.I bots knocking at the door and arresting me for being rude and ignorant of their plight!

Here's my feeling on the matter: A.I makes very good artwork for a wide range of concepts and it can be fashioned to suit any style, any idea and any "passion" but it lacks one thing - feeling. It lacks the hours of methodical conceptualisation that a human artist gives it. When A.I goes on your walls it is still very much A.I.

Artist adapt to tools easily - charcoal on cave walls, spraying ash over hand template, ink, oil paint, acrylic paint, airbrush, digital tablet...

Each edition of the new art "tool" drags the artist quite often reluctantly into its use myself included. I use a digital tablet because I make a mess with paints and I get results ideal for what I want and if not I delete the part I don't! I don't "ask" the tablet to do it for me and I am equally at home on canvas and oils in fact I will be returning to them soon - not for my planes as they suit this media but for landscapes. The smell of oil, thinners, linseed oil is heady and in my opinion magical!

But here's the rub: I don't ask my tablet A.I to "create" art because first and foremast I enjoy the process of creation - I FEEL it.

A.I does have a place in art - it is A.I art as my art is human art.

If A.I art backs up a creative endeavour than you are using A.I as a tool to do just that - consider the A.I book cover for example. It's no different to the skills in binding the book, reproducing the book or actually WRITING the book - A.I is the newspaper boy on the corner encouraging you to "read" the art within.

And before you ask: NO - this article was all my own work not the rendering of a machine - I "felt" it.

Caveat: we live on the cusp of General artificial intelligence and I have no doubt that in time A.I will "feel" art but until then - support your human artists!

Derek Johnson artists not circuit board.