Eighth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

This paper is focused on the role of artificial intelligence in generative media and lays a foundation to examine generative practices across a number of distinct media production fields, all of which have developed a common dependence on underlying AI frameworks. The concept of generative media, media that are created with and activated by a wide range of intelligence systems whose algorithms perform transformative and generative operations on collocated data, invokes the tensions between customization and control, automation and creative expression. Generative media have become popularized through both commercial and open access text to image generators such as Midjourney and Craiyon that use custom text prompts to generate synthetic images from a networked database. These tools are grounded in the research and development imperatives of OpenAI and its natural language systems as well as the more expansive goals of artificial general intelligence. These interactive communicative systems contour image creation to the semantics of their underlying algorithms and the familiar logic of a search engine; and as semi-autonomous, generative systems they call to question the relative freedom that exists in media that are fundamentally transactional. The goal of this paper is to understand the expanding industrial contours of creative programming and the impact of AI-driven image work on popular media culture. This paper does so through a critical analysis of the text to image generators Midjourney and Craiyon, their impact on visual culture, and their position within the grander industrial goals of OpenAI that foreground the economic values of autonomous systems.

Presenters

Eric Freedman
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Academic Affairs, Truman State University, Armed Forces Americas, United States