Well, This Is My First Post
1. GAN
I downloaded 540 images of various races, genders, and ages from Unsplash, a free photo sharing site. I recommend the Unsplash site because the quality of the images and the subject matter is higher than other free photo sharing sites.
Now, let’s get back to the topic at hand. I regenerated the image for this Runway. As a training option, I chose Faces. A new photorealistic face will be reconstructed.
As for the training steps, I trained 2600 steps over a period of 3 hours.
It would normally take less than two hours to train 2600 steps.
In my case, the image quality of the image I used was too good and the data was too heavy, so the image regeneration took much longer than expected.
As a result, the images that came out exceeded my expectations. In the class, I had imagined that the face generated by machine learning would be a distinctly human face that would not look like anyone else in the world.
However, I was honestly surprised to find that the actual images that came out of the regeneration process were very strange. That being said, some of the re-generated images are still cool, and many of them are contemporary, so-called conceptual art. I interpret this as creativity born out of chance.
2. NFT IN GENERAL
I’d like to change the subject and talk a little about my own thoughts on NFT. NFT is giving a unique asset value to digital data that can be copied, and It is a technology that makes it possible to buy and sell art in a new way. I would like to focus on how the NFT technology, which has created a new platform in the art world, has changed the value of art.
NFT generally refers to digital data with a certificate of authenticity and ownership that cannot be forged. Since digital data can be easily copied and rewritten, it is not as valuable as a painting in a museum.
Digital data can be easily copied and rewritten, so it did not have the same value as an asset like a painting in a museum.The so-called blockchain technology has brought about a change in this situation. The way it works is as follows.The data in the blockchain can be verified by the participants who manage the blockchain, and this allows the digital data to have asset value.
Digital art is no exception to this. In short, in thinking about NFT and digital art, I would like to develop in the next part a discussion of what is or is not valuable in the first place.
3. The Implication of AI and NFT on Art/Human Creativity
In addition to being a commodity, the value of a work of art is determined by the popularity of the artist, its historical importance, its importance to the owner, and its evaluation by scholars and critics. As for the changes that N F T will bring to the value of art, my reasoning is that it will be the one to put a stop to the recent trend, such as the Internet, where only the image is available and the work is not owned by the individual.
The story becomes more complicated when the A.I. enters the picture. This is because it depends on whether the work was created by the AI, or whether the artist used the AI as a tool to create the work. Depending on which it is, the debate arises as to whether the artist should be paid for his creativity. I think I’ve been influenced quite a bit by Professor Tokui, but I feel that A.I. is a kind of tool that expands human creativity. Of course, it depends on the amount of creativity an individual has put into it. For example, how much direct work you did to code the program to run the AI.
The works at the beginning of this article were just me collecting images and regenerating them with a pre-made program, so it seems too low to say that all my creativity is in the work.
I think the end point of this discussion depends on how much creativity we put into it. What happens to the G I F that A I created, if I think that A I created it on its own, that’s fine, but it also raises the question of how much A I really wants to be paid for its creativity. Adobe’s illustrator is a good example. Torres didn’t color the image herself, but the designers still deliver it to the client as their own work. I had a discussion about this with my classmates in class, and it is a very thoughtful topic.
Lastly, I can’t deny that A.I. has broadened our range of expression. It depends on whether you see A.I. as an artist or as a partner who can expand our creativity. Interesting!
