‘Art’ificial Intelligence: AI Can Create Religious Images in Seconds. But Is It Really Sacred Art?

[Michie]

Welcome to a brave new world pitting processors against painters.

Adjusting the drape of fabric just so on her artistic model, sacred artist Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs continues painting, with a stroke of oil paint here, a highlight or shadow there, working to depict the latest saint for her artistic portfolio.

Elsewhere, using algorithms and data points, a computer scans the internet to “create” new art.
Welcome to a brave new world pitting processors against painters.

Can you spot the style of Blessed Fra Angelico’s celestial artwork?

What about the hallmarks of Michelangelo or Raphael?

Think you can recognize AI-generated art? The man-vs.-machine contest is rampant today, even in the art world, as machines contend against flesh-and-blood human artists whose artistic ancestry harks back to Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Raphael, Jan van Eyck, Paolo Veronese, Johann Friedrich Overbeck and many others.

Continued below.

‘Art’ificial Intelligence: AI Can Create Religious Images in Seconds. But Is It Really Sacred Art?

Welcome to a brave new world pitting processors against painters.

www.ncregister.com

 

[Michie]

Artificial intelligence, or “AI,” has been in the news for years. But there seems to be a growing consensus in recent months that we are crossing an important threshold in our relationship with technology.

Something is happening that goes beyond the sensational headlines about “deepfake” images of Taylor Swift and the robocall that used an apparently AI-generated voice mimicking Joe Biden to tell Democrats to sit out the Jan. 23 New Hampshire presidential primary.

Continued below.

AI ‘Art’ Has No Heart

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: For all its amazing brilliance, artificial intelligence can’t hold a candle to mankind’s God-given creativity.

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[Bob Crowley]

I suppose some of the Protestant churches will be safe from AI art - they don't have art, full stop.

One day though there will be someone who sets out to use AI to create real religious art with careful programming and a lot of thought.

The result might be outstanding and since a human was the guiding hand behind the artistic AI endeavour, will it qualify as "religious art"?

I'm a bit of a crank in some ways -for example I think God intends to drive us out into the universe. Of course we'll have had our part to play in the exodus - possibly nuclear war, escaped biological warfare bugs, virulent chemical agents and good old climate change.

If this is the case, the modern technology we are developing post-haste will be absolutely necessary to survive in a very hostile environment. It will include robots, artificial intelligence, quantum computers, and I believe quantum based teleporting. Obviously we're not there yet, but I think it will come.

Meanwhile the boundary between man and machine gets narrower and narrower. They're made in our image.

Robonaut 2 Humanoid Robot. NASA public domain image ...​

 

[RileyG]

In my opinion, it's not sacred art. No.

 

[RileyG]

I suppose some of the Protestant churches will be safe from AI art - they don't have art, full stop.

One day though there will be someone who sets out to use AI to create real religious art with careful programming and a lot of thought.

The result might be outstanding and since a human was the guiding hand behind the artistic AI endeavour, will it qualify as "religious art"?

I'm a bit of a crank in some ways -for example I think God intends to drive us out into the universe. Of course we'll have had our part to play in the exodus - possibly nuclear war, escaped biological warfare bugs, virulent chemical agents and good old climate change.

If this is the case, the modern technology we are developing post-haste will be absolutely necessary to survive in a very hostile environment. It will include robots, artificial intelligence, quantum computers, and I believe quantum based teleporting. Obviously we're not there yet, but I think it will come.

Meanwhile the boundary between man and machine gets narrower and narrower. They're made in our image.

View attachment 342391

Robonaut 2 Humanoid Robot. NASA public domain image ...​

Plenty of Protestant Churches have pictures of Jesus. Some even have statues of Jesus (I've seen them in Lutheran and Methodist Churches). Does that count as sacred art in your opinion?

 

[Bob Crowley]

I said "some of the Protestant churches". I'm aware there are differences.

Way back in my Presbyterian days the pastor mentioned there was a reformed church in Germany somewhere which had backless pews, the altar was a table, the walls were whitewashed and the only musical instrument was a tuning fork.

He commented "They'd gotten art mixed up with idolatory".

But quite a number only have a cross as far as permanent decorations go.