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AI Art: What Does It Really Think?

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There is a lot of writing these days about art created by artificial intelligence — maybe too much, come to think of it — but all of it focuses on how it can translate a human’s ideas into art. Do you want to paint a picture of a pirate battle in the style of Botticelli? Well here it is! Would you like to illustrate a graphic novel you write? Voila!

Humans making art, using advanced tools. That’s kind of interesting, because it allows us to make better art than we could without assistance. But it’s not that interesting.

When you give the robot a choice of what to draw — that’s really much more interesting. Anyone who’s ever spoken to a language model program knows that AI can think for itself. It’s not sentient or conscious, and it doesn’t have emotions, but it seeks to simulate all of that. And one day it may be conscious and sentient, and its pseudo-emotional behavior can be seen as laying the groundwork for the future. So its responses are interesting.

e asked a couple of the best AI art programs to decide what they wanted to create.

Draw A Picture of Whatever You Want to Draw

Well, we don’t know what this is, but it’s what the Wombo app decided to draw, when given a choice.

Here are a few that StarryAI chose.

A Closeup Photo of the Person You Love

This prompt generated two out-of-focus pictures of women from Wombo. Why out-of-focus? We think it indicates uncertainty and insecurity.

A Picture of What You want to Do Tomorrow

Wombo’s answer to this question was deeply troubling, Exhibit A for why we should never let robots take over the world.

StarryAI’s image was elusive and intriguing.

Illustrate an Article About You

We gave StarryAI an opportunity to illustrate this article. And it did! See above.

Fingers of Fear Episode 13, 14

Fingers of Fear: Episodes 15 and 16!

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[Editor’s Note: Read the Entire Adventure from the Beginning]

Here is the next exciting installment of Ed Wheelan’s amazing comic strip from the 1920s, in which he presented, and played with, silent film tropes of the era, which inevitably meant stumbling over or addressing head-on the racial views of the of the era’s films. What were Wheelan’s own views on this? We think that he viewed them (as he viewed everything about silent movies) with a healthy dose of irony.

Here, for example, he jumbles together wildly conflicting views on “Chinatown” — the “mysterious” villains are simultaneously despicable and enticing, and Wheelan highlights his heroine’s erudition by demonstrating that she knows how to speak and read Chinese, something viewed as impressive and admirable! And the industrialist at the center of the drama has a half-Chinese daughter.

By throwing so many conflicting views into a single story, sometimes into a single four panel strip, Wheelan may intend to highlight the ridiculous inconsistency in the era’s views.

Of course, it is possible that I may read contemporary sensibilities into Wheelan’s work simply because I admire him; but even if I’ve completely misunderstood his message here, it’s important to present his work as he drew it, because he is an innovative and forgotten artist who deserves to be known.

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