The fact that it's a thing is already bad enough, but it seems that most people are using this technology to have images of themselves generated. As if we needed even more narcissism in the world.
And others are seeing it and actually praising it?! I even saw this comment under one such social media post of someone who sadly fell under the spell of this disturbing new trend:
"This Ai generated art work is so much better than the human modern artists that throw paint on canvas, or leave it blank, or duct tape a banana to the wall, or all the other such lazy poppycock nonsense they dub art and their work that I fully support going artificial intelligence in this way...for now."
On the one hand, yes, it is a fair indictment of the state of contemporary fine art. Because such worthless (literal) garbage is still being produced and given worth by the establishment art world.
On the other hand, AI is neither art nor is it work. And this commenter sadly believes that bananas taped to the wall, and "lazy poppycock nonsense" is all that contemporary fine artists have to offer today. And that AI-generated images are the answer to it.
But what about the AI images themselves? What appeal do they have? Why would anyone think they are interesting or cool? They're not. The images are as lifeless and artificial as the process it took to generate them.
Perhaps some of you out there remember an old movie from the 80s or early 90s called The Lawnmower Man. In it, a young developmentally disabled man named Jobe was offered the opportunity to play a few computer brain games that were developed by a computer scientist named Dr. Angelo. The games started out as a way to improve and increase Jobe's intelligence, but it ultimately went way too far, and not only turned Jobe into a super genius, but gave him telepathic abilities and the ability to get into people's minds, and he ultimately used these powers to get revenge on those that bullied and tormented him. In the end, Jobe was literally, physically consumed by this virtual reality world, and the only thing left of his existence was a computer-generated version of himself.
And that is exactly what these AI-generated images look like, and what they immediately reminded me of when I first started seeing them pop up.
If the avant-garde is the anti-establishment, and "pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or status quo", then traditional representational fine art is the avant-garde of the 21st century. What could be more anti-status quo than an uprising of fine artists bringing the greatness of the time-tested techniques of realism and impressionism back out of the dark and suppressive shadows of the modern art movement of the 20th century that should have died out decades ago? Thing is, we have the artists, but what we don't have is enough influence. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the ignorance of those who think that contemporary art is nothing more than bananas duct taped to the wall. Furthermore, there wouldn't be any thought that photography is the highest standard of realism that can be produced in a 2-dimensional image.
And most certainly NO ONE would dare think that an artificially manufactured image could ever possibly pass as a legitimate form of art, let alone as the answer to the drivel of establishment modern art. By definition, if the human being with his hand, heart, and brain have been removed from the equation, it is not art.
