You know... to beat a dead horse?

You look at that for five seconds and go "yeah pretty neat. Looks like a sci fi cover." You look at that for ten seconds and go "what's going on with this lady? Is it a lady? Where's her torso?"

You look at it for twenty seconds and you go "and what's up with the ceiling?"

You look at it for thirty seconds and go "I'm not even sure this is a human"

And if you look at it for a minute, you realize your time is not being rewarded.

This is not a dig at all AI art. I follow a few artists who are doing interesting things.

But the difference between what they do, and what was done with this state fair winner, is craft.

I haven't seen much AI art that compares with, say, Vincent Di Fate or Michael Whelan. But the tools are new, the practitioners are experimenting and the future is bright. I think the principle difference between the art I enjoy and the art I don't is the artist has spent the time and energy to get good with their tools.

I heard some dumb shit on television decrying what Mozart would think if he were to encounter a Synclavier. That's because he wasn't an artist he was an art critic and art critics are ALWAYS about "anything new sucks and anything my friends like is the only true art." Mozart was an experimentalist, a performer and a boundary pusher and I think Bill and Ted got it right even if that is supposed to be Beethoven.

We're probably 18 months away from any dumb fuck with a pulse being able to put together a comic book or graphic novel that looks vaguely like a comic book or graphic novel if you don't look at it very carefully. And the thing is? If you're a mediocre artist? Technology has just caught up to your mediocrity. If all you were ever going to be was mediocre, guess what? The world just caught up to you.

Know who did an album on Tascam 4-track that is considered a masterpiece?

Know who did an album in GarageBand that was held against her until she did an album not in GarageBand?

And the thing of it is? the minute Grimes became Grimes, it became okay to cut an album in GarageBand 'cuz I tell you what, there's more fucking power in GarageBand than there was in Electric Ladyland Studios and a willingness to use any tool doesn't make you a traitor, it makes you VITAL.