#49 The Terrible and the Tantalizing: Grappling with AI, Machine Learning, and the Future of Art - A Reading by Maren and Jake

Death in The Garden

On this episode of “Death in The Garden”, we are sharing a reading of our recent Substack piece entitled The Terrible and the Tantalizing: Grappling with AI, Machine Learning, and the Future of Art, where we discuss the emergence of AI “art” and the ramifications it is having for artists. In this essay, we discuss what art is and isn’t, and whether or not we’re comfortable with the definition being subsumed by “machines and the unaccountable corporations at their helms.” We talk about Luddism, and how AI “art” threatens to render artists redundant, just as factories rendered the Luddites, artisanal weavers, redundant, and how we ought to reclaim that oft misunderstood and maligned title. We talk about shifting baseline syndrome, and how, as a culture, we’ve gotten used to the cheapened version of everything; from food, to furniture, to art itself. In the end, we talk about the grief for all that the machine takes from us, and call for all of us to stand up for what we still have left: human creativity, and human-made art.

Links to things mentioned in the essay:

* Steven Zapata Video Essay entitled The End of Art: An Argument Against Image AIs

* “Echoes” by Pink Floyd AI generated music video

* Destino by Salvador Dali and Walt Disney

* The Yes Men Fix the World

* Marques Brownlee Video entitled The Truth about AI Getting “Creative”

Support the project by joining our Patreon or consider becoming a paid subscriber on Substack. Thank you so much for your attention!

Editing: Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan

Music: “Echoes” by Pink Floyd

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