What Is Spiral Town, And Was It Made By Man Or Machine?

Can you separate the art from the artist? This centuries-old question got a modern update in the past few weeks, as users on social media debated a piece of art called "Spiral Town" that was made by an author many of them find abhorrent: artificial intelligence. If an AI makes a piece of art that amazes or moves you, is that feeling legitimate, or does it have to be made by a human?

What Is Spiral Town?

Spiral Town is a piece of art generated on Stable Diffusion by X user @MrUgleh (who goes by /u/Ugleh on Reddit). It was posted first to a subreddit devoted to AI art on September 10th, 2023, where it received a warm reception. But it gained popularity the next day on X, when @deepfates (a big account) reposted it.

Users on X praised the image and then started debating about it, arguing about the issues associated with artificial intelligence and the and its spread.

What Do People Think About Spiral Town?

Some online praised the "Spiral Town," saying it was some of the best AI art they'd ever seen, including Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator. The angles of the shadows, the treatment of sunlight, and the fusion of the spiral with the cityscape elements struck many observers as highly sophisticated.

Others were disgusted by "Spiral Town," saying it signaled the end of creativity and was actually not good at all. They called AI "theft." Beauty, as always, lies in the eye of the beholder.

A group of users thought that it didn't matter whether Spiral Town was made by an artificial intelligence or not. For them, AI seemed like an interesting phenomenon to think about — AI opens up new ways to ponder what art is and how we are culturally conditioned to conceive of it.

Can You Separate The Art And The Artist?

Ultimately, who knows if the art and artist can be separated -- but in this particular case, it isn't like the human did nothing. Redditor /u/Ugleh described an in-depth prompt-engineering process, crafting the language they used to get the artificial intelligence cooking. Arguably, this is its own kind of art-making practice.

However, the use of Stable Diffusion does jostle aesthetics around, and leads humans to wonder what will happen now that beauty, like everything else, finds us through a computer.

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For the full history of "Spiral Town," be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.