Not going to delve into stats. They're great wen appropriate. But this tech (A.I.) is too early to be adequately detected at art marketplaces, in order to produce reliable numbers. I've been to the markets where A.I. art now thrives (and seems like it's taking over), and that's enough for me to go on.

I'm at NFT art bazaars all the time, and on different chains (not every chain. Yet). I've seen enough and know enough artists - A.I. practitioners and non - to be very concerned. But a few major points out of the way, first. To start, I don't hate art generated by artificial intelligence. Such a thing has existed for decades and made a big move toward current popularity in 2014 when GANs (generative adversarial networks) were invented by Ian Goodfellow (Stanford U., U. de Montreal). I've seen a good amount of GAN artwork, and like much of it. Second, A.I. art is HERE (caps intended to emphasize finality). No use crying over revealed tech. Our lives will have to accommodate it and whatev else is introduced. So don't wry abt me doing some Anti-A.I. Art Manifesto lol. That brings us to... Thirdly, not ranting / raving about a thing doesn't mean there are no worries or concerns. I have many of those - regarding art done by artificial intelligence - and will share them in the hopes they'll be intelligently received and considered.

The art shown between these pensive paragraphs has been none other than A.I. art, in the hands of master artists, however. It is true that artificial intelligence favors...intelligence. The more knowledgeable the artist / artist-to-be, the better the outputs will be, by faaar. Hopeless you are not, however, if you don't happen to casually know about aperture, ISO, or DSLR. Or Rococo, Dadaism, or Arte Povera. Or the diff btwn RBG, CYMK, and HSB. If you think the last one is a bank you really are in the wrong place tho. This is crypto, baby, and banks are the enemy. Well, until CBDC comes (later this year, maybe).

The problems are manifold (A pun, yes, but also a great, raw marketplace. And with A.I. art o' plenty) so I'll present this as good, bad, and ugleh. The Good is that A.I. art is allowing talented artists to be even moreso; mediocre artists to level up; and wanna-be artists to actually be, and compete on a digital art marketplace. Also, it will inspire plenty of all-age family fun and good memories with the kiddies. The Bad part of this is compounded: multitudes of artists will be put out of jobs; A.I. is tech that rapidly evolves, so this will simply get worse. Talented graphic artists will be replaced en masse by those who can prompt best, with minimal trial and error. And I can't, just won't stop wondering what Bob Ross would say.

But seriously, there's more: NFT marketplaces are not making enough of a distinction imo between this new digital art and what was before. Personally, I'm at the point where I am craving pre-A.I. art and hope that market strengthens. There is a case for rarity, there. But my attraction is simply based on trust (the crypto anti-word) that human minds and hands were behind the artwork I'm meditating on and involved in. My suggestion? Classify A.I. art based on percentage of machine-work used. So, 'fully A.I.' would mean only the prompt was human (I'm sure this will change); 'mostly A.I.' would mean 61% and above; 'hybrid A.I.' - anywhere from 41% - 60%; 'light A.I.' - 21% - 40%; and 'minimally A.I.' would mean up to 20%. Pricing would have no relevance, here. This would ease the confusion I and probably others feel, now, when gazing at contemporary art.

It needs it's own section. The really, really bad thing about A.I. art is that it's not human. I know that's obvious. But sometimes the obvious is the worst - hidden in plain sight as the saying goes. There are two aspects of The Ugleh side of A.I. art: creation and consumption. Creation can be fun, I'll admit. I don't advise engaging in it regularly, tho, simply because humans can and do get lazy very quickly. Consumption is the trickier of the two. With no exposure to Dall-E or whatev A.I. program, you and I have no choice in our exposure to A.I. art. It fills every marketplace and is probably hard as heck to detect even if a market wanted to categorize, or - forbid! - restrict artists from A.I. submissions in order to have the rare human-art marketplace, post 2022. [FRIENDLY, RELEVANT INTRUSION: As I write I'm watching an Apr 16th 2023 video entitled AI Art: New Copyright Law Changes Everything. You might want to check that out. But after I'm done please. I'll be wrapping up sooner than a first-gen Cryptopunk in order to dive in to the above vid (no affiliation with it's creator).

As I wuz about to say, I question the health of massive A.I. art consumption. The art is not natural. There is no psychic energy or anything metaphysical there. Nothing to eat, y'all. It's hollow. And it can look really good, like those two A.I. art pieces I shared toward the start of this article. That's exactly what is scary about art generated with artificial intelligence: are we being fooled - gradually towards a very unhealthy state - by art that is intrinsically fake? How long can our creative, artistic souls tolerate spam that's served up as steak? Wen starve? But here's where The Ugleh comes to its summit: the 'creative' arts have been prized by humans since the beginning. Poetry, painting, music, dancing, etc etc. These activities celebrate being human. The arts are precious to humans. I really don't know what other animals think when they see us doing ballet or rapping. But I know that, across the Earth, human expression has been cherished by every nationality, each in their own way. I can't help but feeling that humanity is under attack, with A.I. being apart of the campaign. Just look up CRISPR (genome-editor) later and you might see what I mean.

So, A.I. has gotten in the way of human-ness, in my opinion. This is not just a concept. I am uneasy when perusing NFT marketplaces because no one knows - or seems to care - that anyone there is unable to look only at human art, if they wanted to. Imagine grocery shopping and not being sure if you're getting cow's or almond milk. Or pork vs chicken sausages. You get my point. Hopefully some really smart, artsy guy or girl will invent a gadget that distinguishes A.I. art from art made-by-humans.

The final thing I'll add to the Ugleh list is this thought: frankly I think we're being trained to be less human - or trained to feel that way - by tech such as A.I. I'll call this the meet-me-halfway 'theory'. The idea has been put forth from decades ago that super high tech will be invented, and will 'meet' us at some point in the near future (our present). Little has been said about the huge efforts to desensitize and dehumanize us while that other, obvious plan has been in motion. Last, last thing: A.I. will just make practitioners increasingly lazy. Artists prize their own work ethics - it's what has gotten us 'good' at innumerable things since the beginning of time. Let's not let one of our own creations cause massive back-sliding. Who will inspire the world if we don't or can't? The Prompters?

Artfully yours,

Elated Pixel

Not going to delve into stats. They're great wen appropriate. But this tech (A.I.) is too early to be adequately detected at art marketplaces, in order to produce reliable numbers. I've been to the markets where A.I. art now thrives (and seems like it's taking over), and that's enough for me to go on.

I'm at NFT art bazaars all the time, and on different chains (not every chain. Yet). I've seen enough and know enough artists - A.I. practitioners and non - to be very concerned. But a few major points out of the way, first. To start, I don't hate art generated by artificial intelligence. Such a thing has existed for decades and made a big move toward current popularity in 2014 when GANs (generative adversarial networks) were invented by Ian Goodfellow (Stanford U., U. de Montreal). I've seen a good amount of GAN artwork, and like much of it. Second, A.I. art is HERE (caps intended to emphasize finality). No use crying over revealed tech. Our lives will have to accommodate it and whatev else is introduced. So don't wry abt me doing some Anti-A.I. Art Manifesto lol. That brings us to... Thirdly, not ranting / raving about a thing doesn't mean there are no worries or concerns. I have many of those - regarding art done by artificial intelligence - and will share them in the hopes they'll be intelligently received and considered.

The art shown between these pensive paragraphs has been none other than A.I. art, in the hands of master artists, however. It is true that artificial intelligence favors...intelligence. The more knowledgeable the artist / artist-to-be, the better the outputs will be, by faaar. Hopeless you are not, however, if you don't happen to casually know about aperture, ISO, or DSLR. Or Rococo, Dadaism, or Arte Povera. Or the diff btwn RBG, CYMK, and HSB. If you think the last one is a bank you really are in the wrong place tho. This is crypto, baby, and banks are the enemy. Well, until CBDC comes (later this year, maybe).

The problems are manifold (A pun, yes, but also a great, raw marketplace. And with A.I. art o' plenty) so I'll present this as good, bad, and ugleh. The Good is that A.I. art is allowing talented artists to be even moreso; mediocre artists to level up; and wanna-be artists to actually be, and compete on a digital art marketplace. Also, it will inspire plenty of all-age family fun and good memories with the kiddies. The Bad part of this is compounded: multitudes of artists will be put out of jobs; A.I. is tech that rapidly evolves, so this will simply get worse. Talented graphic artists will be replaced en masse by those who can prompt best, with minimal trial and error. And I can't, just won't stop wondering what Bob Ross would say.

But seriously, there's more: NFT marketplaces are not making enough of a distinction imo between this new digital art and what was before. Personally, I'm at the point where I am craving pre-A.I. art and hope that market strengthens. There is a case for rarity, there. But my attraction is simply based on trust (the crypto anti-word) that human minds and hands were behind the artwork I'm meditating on and involved in. My suggestion? Classify A.I. art based on percentage of machine-work used. So, 'fully A.I.' would mean only the prompt was human (I'm sure this will change); 'mostly A.I.' would mean 61% and above; 'hybrid A.I.' - anywhere from 41% - 60%; 'light A.I.' - 21% - 40%; and 'minimally A.I.' would mean up to 20%. Pricing would have no relevance, here. This would ease the confusion I and probably others feel, now, when gazing at contemporary art.

It needs it's own section. The really, really bad thing about A.I. art is that it's not human. I know that's obvious. But sometimes the obvious is the worst - hidden in plain sight as the saying goes. There are two aspects of The Ugleh side of A.I. art: creation and consumption. Creation can be fun, I'll admit. I don't advise engaging in it regularly, tho, simply because humans can and do get lazy very quickly. Consumption is the trickier of the two. With no exposure to Dall-E or whatev A.I. program, you and I have no choice in our exposure to A.I. art. It fills every marketplace and is probably hard as heck to detect even if a market wanted to categorize, or - forbid! - restrict artists from A.I. submissions in order to have the rare human-art marketplace, post 2022. [FRIENDLY, RELEVANT INTRUSION: As I write I'm watching an Apr 16th 2023 video entitled AI Art: New Copyright Law Changes Everything. You might want to check that out. But after I'm done please. I'll be wrapping up sooner than a first-gen Cryptopunk in order to dive in to the above vid (no affiliation with it's creator).

As I wuz about to say, I question the health of massive A.I. art consumption. The art is not natural. There is no psychic energy or anything metaphysical there. Nothing to eat, y'all. It's hollow. And it can look really good, like those two A.I. art pieces I shared toward the start of this article. That's exactly what is scary about art generated with artificial intelligence: are we being fooled - gradually towards a very unhealthy state - by art that is intrinsically fake? How long can our creative, artistic souls tolerate spam that's served up as steak? Wen starve? But here's where The Ugleh comes to its summit: the 'creative' arts have been prized by humans since the beginning. Poetry, painting, music, dancing, etc etc. These activities celebrate being human. The arts are precious to humans. I really don't know what other animals think when they see us doing ballet or rapping. But I know that, across the Earth, human expression has been cherished by every nationality, each in their own way. I can't help but feeling that humanity is under attack, with A.I. being apart of the campaign. Just look up CRISPR (genome-editor) later and you might see what I mean.

So, A.I. has gotten in the way of human-ness, in my opinion. This is not just a concept. I am uneasy when perusing NFT marketplaces because no one knows - or seems to care - that anyone there is unable to look only at human art, if they wanted to. Imagine grocery shopping and not being sure if you're getting cow's or almond milk. Or pork vs chicken sausages. You get my point. Hopefully some really smart, artsy guy or girl will invent a gadget that distinguishes A.I. art from art made-by-humans.

The final thing I'll add to the Ugleh list is this thought: frankly I think we're being trained to be less human - or trained to feel that way - by tech such as A.I. I'll call this the meet-me-halfway 'theory'. The idea has been put forth from decades ago that super high tech will be invented, and will 'meet' us at some point in the near future (our present). Little has been said about the huge efforts to desensitize and dehumanize us while that other, obvious plan has been in motion. Last, last thing: A.I. will just make practitioners increasingly lazy. Artists prize their own work ethics - it's what has gotten us 'good' at innumerable things since the beginning of time. Let's not let one of our own creations cause massive back-sliding. Who will inspire the world if we don't or can't? The Prompters?

Artfully yours,

Elated Pixel