Artificial Intelligence Artists Assert: The Technology is Ultimately Limited

Swedish artist and writer Supercomposite told that collaborating with artificial intelligence to create art is ultimately "very frustrating and very limited".

Currently, she has stopped working with AI and has turned to writing scripts, saying that her experience with AI art has left her "exhausted".

She said, "It creates dopamine pathways in your brain that make you keep pressing this addictive button and getting these results."

In 2022, Supercomposite created a woman named "Loab" with red cheeks and hollow eyes while testing the new artistic possibilities provided by AI.

Her posts about the creative process on Loab's social media went viral online, with commentators describing the images as "unsettling" and sparking "lengthy ethical discussions surrounding visual aesthetics, art, and technology".

Supercomposite's real name is Stephen Maj Swanson, originally from the United States, and has been researching "negative cues" aimed at excluding certain elements from images.

She inputted the negative cue "Brando::-1" to request a tool to come up with something from the late American actor Marlon Brando. The initial result was a black logo with green letters that read "DIGITA PNTICS". However, when the artist made the opposite request again, asking for "DIGITA PNTICS" "skyline logo::-1", she said the image of a long-haired, red-cheeked, and very sad woman appeared for the first time.

One of the images featured the text "Loab," giving a name to this creature that looks like it's from a horror movie.

Among the hundreds of generated images, including Loab, Swanson decided not to showcase the ones she found most shocking.

Loab's existence was first revealed in a series of tweets on Twitter (X) in September 2022.

"It went viral, and my life changed," she explained how she became "obsessed" with Loab.

"I want to explore who she is, the different scenarios she will appear in, and her limits, to see how far I can push this model."

The reason for the recurring appearance of this character is still unclear. Experts point out that it is impossible to know how AI interprets abstract requests.

Swanson did not disclose which tool she used to create Loab, stating that she wants to avoid "shifting the focus from art to the manufacturer of the model" and being accused of "marketing".

Swanson denies fabricating or manually modifying Loab, stating that she sees these claims as a form of praise: "It means people are interacting with it."

She quotes a line from Korean-born video art pioneer Nam June Paik to summarize her current view on these tools: "I use technology to properly hate it".