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Suddenly and very quickly, such a term as ‘A.I. art’ began to promptly spread and become popular. People all around the world were thrilled by the quality and beauty of artificial intelligence creations. The general rush to try and generate one’s own picture was unavoidable, considering the fact that it could be done by merely describing the wished-for picture in the text. I myself am not an exception. However, in this article, I would like to dive a bit deeper into understanding what art means to me and share my thoughts on why A.I.-generated art is NOT art at all.
To begin with, here is an example of A.I. artwork:
source: mtgrocks article
Looks amazing to me. The colours, the composition, the world depicted in this image… Fantastic. Though, it carries no artistic value. Read further if you want to know why.
First of all, let’s figure out what is A.I. and what A.I. art could possibly mean. As stated in the Artland article by Adam Hencz: “AI art refers to art generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence. AI is a field of computer science that focuses on building machines that mimic human intelligence or even simulate the human brain through a set of algorithms.” (Hencz, 2022). In other words, artificial intelligence is a set of complex algorithms that, by crawling the internet, are capable of computing a piece of imagery based on and assembled from thousands of thousands of already pre-existing creations produced by nothing else but human beings. Now, let’s look at what visual art means. Mentioned in the Britannica encyclopedia as follows: visual arts – “These are the arts that meet the eye and evoke an emotion through an expression of skill and imagination.” (Visual Arts Portal, n.d.). To put it another way, the visual arts are images that are created using imagination and creativity. It is crucial that a given artwork is expressing an idea and carries a certain emotional component.
Thus, the phrase ‘A.I. art’ is wrong in its essence. The pictures created using algorithms are indeed capable of being nice looking and are capable of evoking emotion in one viewing them. Nonetheless, the image generated in such a way does not represent any idea, it does not possess creative value and is, in a way, not unique. Moreover, art does not only refer to the end result from a technical standpoint. It refers to the process of creation, to the story of one image, which A.I. doesn’t have. It is the way in which the picture was made, the style, the idea behind it, that makes a picture – your picture. While an artificially computed image is random…
Whatsoever, humans are prone to misapply the A.I.’s imagery by referring to the images made with its use as ‘their’ creations. This brings a large threat to the whole digital artists’ community and to the jobs of people devoting their time to the passion of visual arts. The fact that spectacular images can be ‘constructed’ in a matter of seconds and without virtually any effort, or imagination either, deprives the world of digitally created imagery a huge worth. Now anyone without any particular skills or fantasy may assign a beautiful, though meaningless piece to himself.
Therefore, one of the ways to preserve the value of human-made digital art is to embed some kind of reminder in the image itself or oblige those who use this image to refer to it as the creation of algorithms. It doesn’t sully solve the issue, no. But it might help to lower the level of discouragement among digital artists.
The aim of this article was to shine a light on the misconception of calling AI computed imagery – art. It is not. And never will be. No matter how similarly a set of algorithms can simulate human brain or the product of its function, it is and will forever remain a simulation. Just like the copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ will never be worth any close to the actual masterpiece, the so called A.I. art is carrying little to no value in the world of true creativity.
Share your thoughts on this in the comments below 😉 I will be very glad to hear from you!
References:
Hencz, A. (2022, June 27). Agents Of Change: Artificial Intelligence – AI Art and How Machines Have Expanded Human Creativity. Artland Magazine. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://magazine.artland.com/ai-art/
Visual Arts Portal. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/browse/Visual-Arts
I completely agree with you on this one. With A.I on art and a lot of other subjects, in the near future, with just a click of a button, A.I can create anything in a matter of seconds. Computer-Generated Art and actual art created by the human minds should be separated into different categories,Since we’re moving into a more technological society, its best if we value art created by our minds as much as possible before A.I comes in.
Hi, in my opinion, restricting art to a dictionary definition might be limiting, as art is an expression we use to describe not only human doings but, for example, nature’s as well. Furthermore, nowadays, art has so many different shades and shapes that defining it is what will hold back its growth. Therefore, I would still call it art, but maybe not according to the dictionary definition, which was probably constructed before humans had access to the most recent technology like we do today.
I understand your and digital artists’ concern about AI art overtaking the digital market, but that’s the limited thinking that was also present when the internet was making its first appearance. It allowed any person, not necessarily a knowledgeable one, to make statements that became “the truth” and could be seen by anyone, but it also allowed people to share their knowledge and communicate with each other. The power of technology lies in what you make of it and what you will enable it to be. Maybe we can’t see it right now, but perhaps one day, a digital artist will use AI art and construct a new type of art. That’s how the sphere of development follows the path of progress.
Good point, personally I have great respect for manual arts.
So maybe we should give credits to the creator of the algorithm then, as an artist who ,,taught”
machine how to create such beautiful things. Artificial Intelligence is an art by itself.
You are absolutely right with that. I agree with the statement “A.I.-generated art is NOT art at all.”. According to me, A.I. – generated art should be perceived as different category and should not be compared to art created by human. Human art has a much greater value due to artists life experiences, his education, his opinion and especially his commitment to art. Sometimes an artist can spend his entire life to create just one piece of art. While it takes only seconds for A.I. to create an “art”. For me there is no comparison between A.I.- generated art and human created art.
I partly disagree with your view. Indeed, A.I. generated art is based upon thousand and thousand of human-made creations, but the part of the essence of art is building on top of what is already there. Artists can reinterpret previous works of others, or draw inspiration from them. Pablo Picasso once stated that “Good artists copy, great artists steal.’ In fact, all artists have been to some degree influenced by previous works they’d seen – they incorporate and merge ideas of others into their own style.
I believe that art generate solely by A.I. (at least for the time being) loses a bit of its value for us humans the moment we get to know that it was machine-generated, but A.I. could serve as a great tool in augmenting the creative process of a person.
We’re already seeing Elvis’ songs being extended by A.I. – perhaps, in the future, artists could use such technology to help them come up with ideas and use A.I. as an extension of their creativity.