The Monet question

Recently on Twitter, someone asked us to describe why a (purported) AI-generated Monet-style image was inferior to Monet. The trick is that the image was of a real Monet. First: I fell for this. I looked at it for a few seconds, reacted to it, and wrote down some stuff about the outlines of the waterlilies and the balance between the parts of the painting. So all of this is coming from someone who "got owned" here. That said, this sort of trick says only a little about the potential of generative AI, and almost nothing about Monet. Many commentators drew optimistic conclusions about AI-generated art or pessimistic conclusions about Monet. Those conclusions are unfounded, for at least these reasons: People are not generally good at judging the quality of art quickly. Great art is great largely in how it rewards attention over time. (And analogously for good writing of any sort, which is a big reason that LLM prose is so dangerous.) The quick reactions of Twitter users you've primed…