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Stop generating, start thinking
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this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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I don't see that as art, no. I am not the arbiter of universal objective truth though, so feel free to form and exercise your own opinion. Godspeed.
Then meaning does not simply come from 'the struggle, the challenges.' Art is a sprawling complex aspect of human existence, and once again, a new thing has people making grand assertions for why only the old ways are real art. Directly addressing these philosophical declarations often results in open hostility. I'm not sure passive-aggressive 'agree to disagree, good day' is much better. Why'd you say anything if you don't wanna talk about this?
Never once implied that the meaning of art is simple, or stems only from one area of human experience. What I said is that without struggle, it is meaningless. That isn't to say art is always a struggle, not even close, it certainly gets easier as you hone your craft, whatever that may be. But it is from the struggle against each challenge along the way that the artist grows more resilient, more passionate; it is through that struggle that their personal flair takes shape. And unless you quit, there will always be some new challenge to overcome. Life imitates art or whatever.. The difference between advancement in tools throughout history is that it never once took the doing part out of the process of the art, or stripped the artist of their agency with what is to be done after the doing of the art is finished. A chatbot prompter is not creating anything, instead they are paying a company to proliferate the continued theft of actual artists. True creatives aren't going anywhere. We do what we do because we love the doing. Destination is not everything, it never has been, and for some (I'd wager most) it is the least enjoyable part of the process. Thank you for sharing your opinion, and thank you for entertaining mine.
You kinda did, though. And then repeated it here. Then immediately contradicted it. You are unsuccessfully splitting hairs as if a sweeping absolute has nuance.
Indirect effort is still effort. CGI artists don't draw the frames that audiences see. "The destination" is rendered by a computer, from their work. It's obviously more direct than simply describing the scene - but there's a gradient, not a cutoff. If someone spends a week fighting any tool to get exactly what they want, then it's not a trivial push-button affair, and the result is a reflection of their desire and experience.
Even for generated art, you can feed in a blurry approximation, or have it modify a finished-looking image. You can photoshop the output and loop it back through. Hell, a generated video could animate a scene you painted on canvas. To insist that's not just lesser, but utterly disqualified, is not a defensible assertion.
Consider this Neural Viz video. It's mostly people talking to-camera. You might insist they could've done that with real actors... but that's the thing, this tech can do anything you might do with real actors. Would you suggest that no amount of telling actors what to say and do makes someone an artist? Why is this silly bullshit not art, when a version wiggling GI Joes in front of the camera would be?
I don't see the contradiction. I do see that there is a fundamental divide between what you and I consider art. As I alluded to in my previous reply, art is the journey. That is my personal take after many years of engaging with many artistic pursuits. If you don't like my opinion, based on my subjective experience as an artist... I don't really know what else to say to you. As I keep saying, feel free to hold and exercise you own opinion, based on your own experience.
If that journey is multiple days of fucking with these tools, why does that not count? Why is this the only technology immune to human expression?
I don't need the constant reminders of what an opinion is - but you might need a refresher on what arguments are. If you give a reason for an opinion, people will often assume that's why you believe something, and address it in a way that may alter your conclusion.
I'm not sure why you're so hell bent on changing my opinion on this subject. Could it be that you aren't so sure of your own opinion, so you're projecting that uncertainty outward? I don't feel the need to convince you or anyone of anything. I have simply been sharing where I stand on the subject. I think I should be free to do so without the expectation that I engage wholeheartedly in someone's desire for debate.
Then why are we talking?
You seem to think opinions are decorative things, having no bearing on reality. Like the topic at hand doesn't practically impact entire career paths for millions of people. As if the only reason to try to dissuade someone from dismissive absolute rhetoric is if I am somehow swayed by it, and secretly believe the opposite of all the words I'm saying.
Solipsistic time vampire. Why does anyone give a shit where you stand, if you don't know what it means to stand by it?
I'm sorry, what? How am I a time vampire? This is an open forum. I should be free to share where I stand. Just as you are free to share your standpoint, and attempt to engage in debate. You may not always get what you want in this life, and that's ok too. It might be that there simply isn't much debate to be had. Your engagement with these "tools" is directly and actively harming those who provided the data that built them. That is a fact, not opinion. I'm not sure if you consider yourself an artist or a programmer or whatever, but let me ask you this: If you along with several other chatbot prompters were to line up your individual products, would a viewer be able to spot the difference? Would any difference there be specifically attributed to any individual chatbot prompter?
At what point were you engaged in debate? You act bewildered that someone tried to critically examine your assertions. I've been asking questions from your opinion. Do you not recognize your own stated beliefs?
Incorrect. Locally running ComfyUI or Ollama neither picks their pockets nor breaks their bones. When these cloud companies crash, local models aren't going anywhere, and they won't do psychic damage to someone whose DeviantArt posts were in the training data.
In one shot, probably not. After a week of fucking around to pursue a specific idea in each person's head, almost certainly. Then again, you could have one group of people prompt a hundred images total, and a completely different group each pick their favorite ten, and that non-interactive selection would reveal individual aesthetic internality. Curation is not creation, but it requires identifying a work's shortcomings, even if you won't correct them yourself.
Would a demonstrable difference change your conclusion? Like, is this line of questioning relevant, or are we just saying words recreationally?
Huh?
I find the way you view those whose data built the systems you use pretty interesting. The distaste for artists is palpable. "...won't do psychic damage to someone who's DeviantArt posts were in the training data." How do you view art in general? Is there intrinsic value in the experience for which the piece represents, or is the value of a piece purely the numbers on the pricetag?
Look, I fundamentally do not agree with your thoughts on the matter. That will not change. I also have at no point forced you to respond, you have done that on your own.
You can't go from 'it does harm! fact!' to an appeal from the nature of beauty.
Nor can you honestly claim 'this is an open forum for debate' and then make crystal fucking clear you're not actually arguing, you're just spouting words at someone. You came to me. I did not seek your opinion, I did not invite brainstorming, and I'm not keeping you here. But for some fucking reason every single response includes a pearl-clutching rejoinder like you can't figure out why someone is talking back to you. All you did was offer concrete rationale and claims to fact which are supposedly relevant to the broad and important topic at hand! Why would anyone have something to say about that?
If addressing your alleged reasons cannot possibly change your mind, then they're just lies. That's pretense. That's pulling out excuses that sound like arguments, but cannot be foundational to your conclusions, or else removing them would make that belief structure collapse.
If you don't actually want to discuss this, consider shutting up.
I never said I was arguing, just sharing where I stand on an issue.
I came to you... What are you talking about? I replied with my thoughts.
"...you can't figure out why someone is talking back to you." I'm not sure where in this thread I responded in a way to make you feel that way, but if I was I am sorry. I will say that you have made it clear you don't appreciate conversation with those who disagree with you.
This last part honestly makes no sense to me. I'm pretty sure I'm not lying, but I guess you might have information about that which I'm not privy to.
I feel I've been pretty respectful throughout this conversation. You seem to be having some difficulty respecting others with differing opinions... I'm sorry that's so troubling. I hope you find peace.
I wish to disabuse you of that notion. Every response has been condescending repetition of your apparently dogmatic opinions - and insistence upon your right to hold them, as if anyone challenged that. Conversations are supposed to pursue a mutual understanding of reality, instead of spitting conclusions at one another. You can't make declarations about all art with a sweep of your hand, and then flinch in confusion when the person you're talking at has a follow-up question.
You "don’t feel the need to convince you or anyone of anything," but boy howdy you sure keep yapping. And then cannot imagine why that's not the end of it.
Meanwhile, I've held the vain hope this interaction might be productive in some way. From the very start, I asked you: do words matter? And you clutched pearls as if the answer was obviously yes. But then ev-er-y sin-gle response, that one included, ends with useless 'agree to disagree' fluff, and some sign-off like you're just going to nope out, and then you keep coming back to do it again. I've made it crystal clear why I'm still trying. I for one give a shit about this topic, enough to constructively discuss it. Why the fuck are you still here if you're not even listening?
I see what you mean. I have been pretty condescending and dismissive of your stance. That wasn't cool for me to do and for that I am sorry.
Can I ask, between our views, what might a shared understanding of reality look like?
Recognizing that no tool is immune to human expression. So even if a stick-figure single prompt isn't art, some weirdo pouring their time and energy into an iterative process should be.
Distinguishing capitalist implications of a technology vis-a-vis material impact on existing professions, versus people running some jumped-up chatbot and renderer on their own desktop for their own purposes.
I see what you're saying, my issue with this is the product is (as I understand) no more than an amalgam of its inputs. I do understand the similarity to human artists, where one's art is building from reference (either directly/indirectly/cumulatively). The difference here for me is that current models, don't/can't comprehend the meaning behind the components of their construction. They also don't or aren't able to add any additional meaning to what they produce. I'm not sure that makes much sense. What I'm trying to communicate is more of a feeling behind the art, which is either really difficult to describe, or I lack the words. Maybe you can help with your own thoughts/corrections?
That second paragraph makes perfect sense, especially tying in to the first sentence of your first paragraph. I wonder if it might be possible to escape the necessity for human produced data for training? That would certainly alleviate a lot of my concerns with the tech, especially when talking local.
Consider this image. It's full of blatant tells, like the bouncer becoming a real boy from the knees down, or the improbable stacking inside that trenchcoat. Yet it obviously conveys meaning in a clever way. You wouldn't commend whoever made it for their drawing skills, but the image transmits an idea from their brain to yours.
The model did not have to comprehend anything. That's the user's job. A person used the tool's ability to depict these visual elements, in order to communicate their own message.
If some guy spends days tweaking out the exact right combination of fifteen unforgivable fetishes, that amalgamation is his fault. You would not blame the computer for your immediate revulsion. It tried its best to draw a generic pretty lady in center frame. But that guy kept doodling a ball-gag onto Shrek until image-to-image got the leather strap right, and once he copy-pasted Frieren behind him, it just made her lighting match.
Neural networks are universal approximators, so you're always going to need human art to approximate human art. However, there are efforts to produce models using only public-domain, explicitly licensed, and/or bespoke examples. (Part of the 'do words matter' attitude is that several outspoken critics scoff at that anyway. 'Like that changes anything!' They'll complain about the source of the data, but when that's addressed, they don't actually care about the source of the data.)
Personally, though... I don't have a problem with using whatever's public. For properly published works, especially: so what if the chatbot read every book in the library? That's what libraries are for. And for images, the more they use, the less each one matters. If you show a billion drawings to an eight-gig model then every image contributes eight bytes. The word "contributes" is eleven.