Paul Graham versus the Pope

I am an amateur photographer. My dad was a commercial artist, but painted in oils at home as self-expression.

And so I believe that my photography is self-expression. It's the record of an experience I had (like getting wet snapping a particularly nice double rainbow) or the gorgeous landscape I shot as a passenger in a car (rare for me) or the fallen 30 foot political banner on someone's barn or a passing rainstorm in the distance (circumstances redacted).

A human, seeing such an image may feel the same way as the artist or photographer, or feel differently, but there is subtle human to human communication.

That's why I really dislike cliche "post card photos" and avoid "photo competitions" like flesh eating bacteria. They remove (IMO) the human communication aspect. When I attempt a piano piece, I often feel the composer's spirit , however clumsily, in my playing. And to some extent in more abstract pieces. Right now, I'm listening to "Pictures at an Exhibition" and I get a wildly different feeling from the orchestrated version than the original piano version. Much bolder colors. But then again, I got a photo of the rainbow at the base of upper Yosemite Falls from Glacier Point, and also saw one with impossibly exaggerated color on the internet. You may have seen it.

Yes, it's real, I suppose but it's still communication, shouting versus singing, and someone turning up the saturation dial rather wildly where I tried to only counteract some of the haze present in distant shots, and maintain "how I saw and felt" the moment.

But real, even if one was more suited to picture postcards than sharing with friends and family. They know that the more subtle take is in line with my expression. And I don't boost the saturation on my sunrises and sunsets. I actually have to hold some back just a tad, given the camera's rendition of jpegs as opposed to raw. Phones are worse (they call it better) in this respect.

Still real.

> Paul Graham (also a painter!) notes that this is about to change. Robots wired into the world will soon perceive it for themselves. A robot or AI that learns from its own sensors isn’t borrowing images from others.

Bet: nobody will buy art created by bots. Decor sure (it is already getting massed produced in factories), but not art.

How would the robot even know to paint it or what painting is. How could it even understand what it is seeing without The information required to identify what its sensors are taking in? We are taught to understand what our sensors take in, I would think a robot would have to be too.