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Here's a recording of my talk on the role of computers in making art, including so-called "AI", which was presented as the opening keynote of SIGGRAPH 2025, incorporating lessons from the history of computer graphics, photography, modern art, and philosophy of art. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2YR... 1/

My writing on this began in earnest with my 2018 paper "Can Computers Create Art?". Since then, I have refined my presentation of the core ideas (art as a social behavior), and updated for common responses, and the rise of text-to-image. www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/... 2/

A common misconception is that "a computer that makes high-quality pictures is an artist". But we have 60 years of experience of computer algorithms and tools that can make high-quality images. 3/

Plus seminal conceptual artworks like Sol LeWitt's "Wall Paintings" and John Baldessari's "Commissioned Paintings", where the artist didn't make the painting. 4/

Another common misconception I often hear is that "people are just computers." While this might theoretically be true in the sci-fi future, it is absolutely false for computers as we know them today. If not, why is it ok to wipe and destroy your own laptop, but not ok to kill people? 5/

All this means that these new "Artificial Intelligence" algorithms are new technologies for art, like photography and previous CG algorithms. Like previous technologies, they have complex impacts on how we make and understand art, some good and some quite harmful. 6/

I argue that art is a social behavior, a product of our evolutionary history. We care about art made by people (even when they used computers to do so). Computers are not people, and so we don't accept computers artists. "Computer-generated art" and "AI art" are ultimately art made by people. 8/

In the 2018 paper, I discussed long-term effects, and I failed to acknowledge with the shorter-term harms from new tech change can enable. This stuff is technically exciting, but scary from a sociological perspective and impact on today's artists. But that's not part of this talk. 9/

Arguing over whether something is or isn't art is usually a huge waste of time. Just call it art. Instead, discuss its quality, functioning, and values. Is it expressive? Skillful? Ethical? Meaningful? etc. 10/