[HN Gopher] A cartoonist's review of AI art, by Matthew Inman
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A cartoonist's review of AI art, by Matthew Inman
Author : ChrisMarshallNY
Score : 31 points
Date : 2025-10-07 18:55 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theoatmeal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theoatmeal.com)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I do think it's, like _really_ long, but he makes some good
| points.
| dude250711 wrote:
| Yeah, he kind of lied about the length.
|
| I would let it slip, but it's obvious that the content is
| optimised for smartphones/tablets too, so kind of painful to
| scroll on a computer.
|
| As such, I sentence this post to be ignored (by me).
|
| The irony is that an AI would do a great job summarising it
| too...
| JdeBP wrote:
| The actual title is _A cartoonist 's review of AI art_.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This is true, but I thought the interpreted title might be
| something that could pique interest. I guess I could change it,
| but I don't think it's gonna hit the front page anyway.
|
| _UPDATED: I asked them to change it; not that it will make
| much of a difference, but you 've got a point._
| dang wrote:
| Ok, changed now. (Submitted title, for those who care to
| track such things, was "A Long Screed About AI Art, by
| Matthew Inman".)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Thanks!
| DrSiemer wrote:
| So tired of pointing that there is something in between
| "marketeer story tellers" and "real artists".
|
| Bots in the Hall, Neural Viz, GossipGoblin, even Joel Havers
| animations. All made with genAI and all undeniably creative
| works, that could not have been created, at least not in that
| time frame, by a single person without it.
|
| I love Matt's work and often agree with him, but the "no heart"
| take is just too harsh.
| ragequittah wrote:
| People being able to express their imaginations in a more clear
| manner always seems like a net positive to me. You can use it
| without heart and for the exact wrong reasons for sure.
|
| The keyboard example is telling because that's basically what a
| bunch of our favorite musicians now do. The drum track for that
| song you're listening to? That's a piece of software not drums.
| nicbou wrote:
| I don't think that toil makes good art, but choices do. Artists
| make choices and those choices add up to something unique and
| tasteful. The choices are influenced by constraints and the
| desire to communicate something. There is a "why", not just a
| "what".
|
| I find that AI art misses both of those, and that makes it feel
| soulless. No decisions were made by a thinking, feeling human.
| There is no "why".
| ragequittah wrote:
| I find there is often very much a why with lots of the AI art I
| see. I often use it to try and visualize a dream I or one of my
| friends had. When I get the prompt _just right_ it 's sometimes
| striking how close I get to what I was seeing.
|
| My friends will often use it for humorous situations that are
| happening to us in the moment. Overexagerations or putting one
| of us in a crazy situation. That's about as meaningful as using
| a gif keyboard, sure, but it gets a pretty good laugh out of me
| sometimes. There are recurring ones that have become a type of
| shorthand for us.
|
| I've used it for highly personalized Christmas cards and
| anniversary invites for other people that they just otherwise
| would never have made because they don't have $500 to pay an
| artist and Clipart is too impersonal to bother with.
|
| I've turned my mother's drawing into a beautiful realistic
| picture that she absolutely adored. I turned a baby picture
| from decades ago into a movie of a kid laughing which made my
| mother instinctively grab the phone from my hand with a big
| grin.
|
| To me AI art is only about the why. It brings entertainment,
| comfort, hilarity and agency. I would never charge anybody for
| it I'm just doing it because I find it a neat set of tools to
| mess around with. And the tools aren't just asking chatgpt to
| make something. You can spend months refining the craft of it
| similar to learning something like Photoshop.
| wrp wrote:
| I am professionally interested in the narrative structure of
| texts, as a teacher and researcher, so I ask this out of
| genuine interest. I often see posts like this in discussions
| of LLM use and I wonder where they are coming from. They read
| like ad copy from a marketing department rather than a non-
| professional expressing personal feelings. Are you in
| marketing, or perhaps was this post generated by LLM?
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(page generated 2025-10-07 23:02 UTC)