MINNEAPOLIS — Ever have the itch to create a piece of art but lacked the inspiration, skill, or time? Turns out, you don’t need any of that. All it takes is a word or phrase and a little help from artificial intelligence.
That’s right, A.I. has arrived in the art world and there are plenty of sites helping would-be artists express their thoughts in ways they would have never imagined.
Angus Russell is the creator of NightCafé Creator. He took open source, publicly available artificial intelligence and made it easier to use through his website.
“The A.I. was trained by looking at 40 million photos," Russell said. "So, when you type in words the A.I. has kind of built this map of what kind of images should be associated with those words.”
It’s that simple. Type it in a word or your thoughts and A.I. interprets it as art.
“It’s complex but essentially, it’s got neurons just like you and I do, and the neurons have learned. It’s really just math.”
The translation for those of us who didn’t excel at math, the program is thinking! Extremely cool and perhaps extremely creepy...don’t dwell on the latter and just have some fun.
Create original pieces or type in a well-known artists like Van Gogh and see what comes up.
“It’s seen photos of artworks in the past and so, if you type in Van Gogh you get a somewhat similar to a Van Gogh style output,” said Russell.
I decided to get a little more cerebral and test what this AI is made of by typing in the phrase "What does the inside of a black hole look like?" It generated an eyeball looking straight at me. Interesting, maybe the A.I. knows something we don’t?
Artists have mixed feelings about artificial intelligence creeping in on their space. Some are angry because they see it as a cheap form of what they do for a living. Others look at it as another tool in their toolbelt, like photoshop or other digital applications.
Russell understands both sides, but for those of us who never progressed past crayons and stick men, NightCafé Creator is the resource we’ve been craving, giving non-artists a feeling of gratification, creating something that they're proud of.
Taking that into consideration, perhaps we should just stick to the words of Andy Warhol who said that "Art is anything you can get away with.”