ABSTRACT
The chapter analyses the aesthetic underpinning popular AI art (PAIA)—a term covering artworks that flourish in online fora and that are created by amateurs using AI tools such as text-to-image generators. The chapter's aesthetic investigation of PAIA focuses mainly on poiesis, relating to the creation of the works, and to a smaller extent on aisthesis, relating to sensuous experiences of the finished works. While the creation of AI images in general is deeply entangled with the technological protocols embedded in AI image generators, the chapter (inspired by Alexander Galloway) analyses aesthetic protocols specifically at work in PAIA. First, the chapter accounts for overall practical, institutional art theoretical characteristics of PAIA by comparing it to other kinds of AI art (professional AI art and festival AI art). Second, the chapter analyses strong aesthetic affinities between PAIA's and the 17th-century French art academy, which developed a systematic image program based on fixed links between linguistic concepts and visuals. Third and finally, the chapter synthesizes and discusses the aesthetic protocols of PAIA and concludes that an important component in this particular form of AI art is social interaction that takes place on a technical and cultural level.
