"A Thesis Exploring Aspects of A.I. Iterations,"

(Based upon Personal Experience & 10,000 +/- A.I. Renderings) 

by Brad Michael Moore

(5th Draft)

    There is a fundamental difference in the process outcome between the, “Art,” of what Artificial Intelligence can produce, and the idea of what Analogue Art represents...  In traditional art, the conceptual idea of outcome is to condense perceptions of probabilities into a singular render in 2-D, or 3-D – one that is unique, and reduces the agitation of many notions into one refined idea presented.  Then, once the style dialect has been created - further constitutions of the original manifestation may be created - with slightly altered cousins.  These further alterations of the original vision, are further refined into true siblings of the original render – thus beginning a more complete series of related works.  This births a body of art building into a new formation of iterations from the original render - as a body of, non-orphaned, related works that will be produced and presented.  These processes define and differentiate one artist from another, or, artists of a particular movement from other artists, and their practiced disciplines.  At some point, the original concept, and its hand-made iterations of that original vision – will grow stale to any practicing artist, and even, possibly, to the supporters of the style, or movement.  As an impending result, the artist, with creative furor, begs upon their imagination to produce a new concept, style, or movement – willing growth from the aberrations of their productive creativity.  Thus, a page in Art History is completed, and a new page – perhaps, a new chapter, is begun.

   In the similar sense that Rap Music resulted from the sampling of pre-generated, original music compositions, and Disco from Analogue Vinyl Records, manually manipulated – A.I. Image Generation also is the result born from the sampling of pre-generated, original, images – except – on an exponentially grander scale allowed by the currents of our advancing technologies!  It should be understood – that unlike hand-made art of a single artist, A.I. Iterations should be considered as many altered states from an original idea - digitally created from the form of an image file, like a .jpg, or (to a lesser degree) by a textual, ‘Prompt,’ conveying a drier preconceived concept. 

A.I. has its own sensibilities as well that must be considered.  A.I. Generators are not producing exact, or random, renders.  A.I. Generators (currently) are coded to make sense of the files, and, or, prompts presented to them. A.I. Generators have their, “Quirks,” that, therefore, need to be considered, in order to reach reasonably acceptable outcomes.  For instance, when inputting a .jpg file of an original drawing, photograph, or digital rendering - its orientation plays a role in A.I.’s Interpretation of that input.  A.I. will consider a portrait, for instance, or, an image of flowers in a vase – when they are inputted 90, to 180 degrees, contrary to the reality of the original capture – as possibly a different 'Reality' all together!  Subsequently, A.I. Generators will base their Iterations, instead, as if the orientation was correctly presented to them at the 'onset of input.'  Being so, a sideways, or upside down, image will be considered, ‘right-side up’ – and the outcome may be valued more upon elements of the presentation (design, texture, color palette), and, the subsequent renders will likely be more unpredictably presented as, 'altered,' realities of the original subject.  A.I. Generators, in fact, if totally stumped by the input parameters, may go on an, “Outcome Tangent!”  In such resulting iterations, the disorientated vase of flowers may be rendered as a bird, or butterflies in a garden, or a cat, or (more likely) even a human female figure - in any numbers of settings suggested by the awkward input data.

It must be assumed that a person, familiar with the tics and quirks of A.I. Generators, can, therefore, more skillfully control the projected outcomes of their efforts, and reach more feasible, and acceptable, results – however surprising they may seem.  It is, therefore, the ‘many,’ iterations – successfully generated by A.I. Generators that should be summarily curated, and presented, as some sizable portfolio of concept outcomes.  Successful renderings will be linked by those parameters the creator instigated through trial, error, and the manifestations of their imagination... 

A.I. Iterations are both marvels, and wildling notions of Artificial Intelligence exercised!  A.I. Renders are contrary to the processes of a traditional painter, photographer, or an artist working with color pencils, or pen & ink, bronze, even weaving materials, for instance.  A.I. Renders cannot be compared, and should not be compared to the outcomes of traditional artists.  They are, instead, a digitally transformational art form, reliant upon pre-created digital art manifestations – brewed through the Internet, from the artist's Original Artwork, and out of Trillions of bytes of pre-created data - culled at the speed of our near-most advanced technologies...  A.I. Iterations, at their best, should be embraced as the current summation of those technologies reflecting the results of human imagination over centuries - encapsulated into a new resolute form of digital intelligent reproduction!  A.I. Digital Renders will only be as original as the results of our earlier period outcomes from the annuls of Past, and Present Art History!  As such, we will still, and forever, be dependent upon the imaginations of living artists, and creators, to continually grow our ever-developing Art History into the future.  A.I. (as long as it continues to be, “Self-unaware,”) will always gait just a half-step behind our leading pursuers of cutting-edge innovation, through our innermost creative aspirations, and inspirations, towards future visions – those rekindled, and those anew...  However, A.I. Renders also have the power of blending the creations of all past & present artists as well - merging many of their best traits - into new, coherent, forms of A.I. Generated Art.  

- Brad Michael Moore 1/10/2023

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