The AI Artist Mindset
Thinking of art more as 'seeds' than 'artifacts' — and AI not as a 'tool', but as a 'mirror'.
Bright Bites #2. The Bright Bites series delivers bite-sized quotes straight from the source.
Today’s quotes are from: ‘Surfing human creativity with AI’ by Nao Tokui (2023).
Art is intent and execution, not form.
When humans are challenged by machines, they rise to produce new meanings.
The more we use AI for creative and expressive activities, the more important it is to protect cultural diversity, and to nurture alternative intelligences.
AI is not a tool, it’s a mirror
The statement “AI models are autonomous” is false. The statement “AI models are just tools” (so we’re safe, because we’re creative) is also false.
Tools and mirrors: this is the duality of AI.
It is important to recognize the nature of AI as a tool, and then dare to focus on the elements that are not just tools of AI and think about how to make maximum use of them.
We will shape AI, and AI will shape us.
AI will be developed to mirror us, and we will, in turn, mirror it.
AI is, in a sense, neither imitation nor mimicry, but rather a mirror which reflects human actions by copying and externalizing them.
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Author and audience in AI music
AI is transforming the relationship between audience and author.
Take, e.g., the AI album KUNST KAPUTT by SENAIDA or the release of AI voices by Holly Herndon or Grimes. Now the audience can compose with the voice of the (AI) artist, and the line between audience and author blurs.
The following diagram is from Nao’s book and illustrates this idea.
Nao’s feelings while AI DJing
The song selected by AI didn’t have issues, but they weren’t interesting either.
It was a real “meh!” moment because averaging among the safest options can only produce mediocrity. Playing it safe is not the path out of a creative rut.
During a rehearsal one day, I played a techno classic from around 2000. In response, the AI DJ picked a contemporary track, somewhere between what I might call ambient and free jazz. I couldn’t imagine the two working, but it was only a rehearsal, so I played it. A completely addictive fresh mix was born. I vividly remember getting goosebumps from the sock of this discovery. I still get goosebumps remembering it as I write this today. I really felt thankful for my AI DJ’s input that day. It thought me that I am sometimes a prisoner of my own habits, and limitations in how I process genre and era.
Generative art
AI art is “seeds” over “artifacts”, dissolving the idea of “fixed works”.
What people are going to be selling more of in the future is not pieces of music, but systems by which people can customize listening experiences for themselves.
Change some of the parameters and see what you get. So, in that sense, musicians would be offering unfinished pieces of music.
Creativity
Unique human creativity is often unleashed by first contact with new tools, and with aberrant and unintended uses. Glitches “in the matrix” can lead to exciting new places.
Hip-hop, a music genre with global appeal, was the product of misusing tools.
Three kinds of creativity: (i) combinatorial creativity that is searching all space, (ii) exploratory creativity that is rule-based searching, and (iii) transformational creativity that expands the search space.
A margin for “misuse” needs to be built-in.
The first thing many creatives do is learn how to “misuse” replication technology. Imitation, and failure to replicate, are indispensable creative acts.
Historical references
2019: Endel became the first-ever algorithm to sign a major label deal, as Warner Music approached them with a distribution deal for 600 tracks and 20 albums that were then put on streaming services.
1973: AARON is one of the earliest examples of using AI to create art.
1935: “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” by Walter Benjamin.
Disclaimer. The excerpts shared here reflect Nao Tokui’s perspectives, as published in ‘Surfing human creativity with AI’. They are not my own and do not reflect the opinions or positions of my employer.