Mind-blowing (and slightly terrifying), artificial intelligence is everywhere. With unsettling, but strangely addictive, AI point of view videos all over our TikTok feeds, we can easily be transported to a day in the life of Henry VIII, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, or a famous renaissance painter.
On the other end of the spectrum, the world was recently subjected to a piece of dystopian propaganda in video form: an AI depiction of war-torn Gaza turned into a surreal billionaires’ beach club, laced with golden statues of Donald Trump. It was even shared by the President of the USA, himself.
The internet is casting a spotlight on AI’s ability to change the way ideas are communicated, in politics, art, history, and everything in between. A milestone was reached in the US when a painting named Théâtre D’Opéra Spatial won first place in the 2022 Colorado State Fair’s digital art competition. Its artist was Jason Michael Allen— and AI.
While browsing Goodreads, I found an article listing 225 authors or publishers known to use artificial intelligence in their books. Like marmite, AI-generated music (think ‘Heart on My Sleeve’) is loved by some for its ability to emulate human creativity and hated by others for its polished inauthenticity. It is safe to say that controversial tools like Midjourney, DALL.E, and Stable Diffusion have found their way into every art form.
But what does this mean for artists?
If AI is blurring the line between humans and computers by replicating the ability to make art, does this mean that artists are becoming replaceable? I once would have said that creativity is an intrinsically human trait, a quality that could never be undermined by something manmade. Ironically, AI is a human creation in itself, programmed to mirror our ability to turn our thoughts, feelings, and a lifetime of unique experiences into a piece of art that captures these emotions, artificially.
This has raised concerns about copyright and ownership, with some arguing that an artist cannot be credited for a piece that AI helped them to create. After all, art is traditionally more than an idea or an end product; it is a testament to refined technical prowess, dedication, and intentionality.
However, centuries of development in painting techniques, from medieval art to impressionism and modernism, prove that the subjective meaning of art has always been in constant evolution.
As long as its role is acknowledged by the artist, text to image software could revolutionise the contemporary art scene in plain sight, reflecting the digitalised society we live in today. It can even make art more accessible, developing a detailed prompt or vision without erasing the artist’s rights to their original idea.
At the same time, as AI-generated work becomes a normalised part of creative industries, it is natural to wonder whether it has the power to replace us completely. Even without human prompts, AI is developing the ability to carry out the entire creative process, start to finish, by generating its own ideas and converting them into images, videos, or music based on data sets.
26 percent of tasks performed by professional artists and designers could become automated by generative AI, according to research by Goldman Sachs. This carries massive implications for the everyday role of artists.
However, it is possible to look at this more positively: almost three quarters of human creativity is still irreplaceable. The backlash against AI’s soaring influence is proof that artists refuse to be replaced without a fight.
Last month, for example, over one thousand music legends—from Damon Albarn to Kate Bush—released a silent album, protesting against UK government proposals to make AI exempt from copyright laws unless artists manually opt out.
Flaws in AI generated art, like distorted faces and unrealistic shadows, show that AI has a long way to go before it can perfectly emulate art made from scratch. When art is too perfect, too artificial, it’s almost uncanny. It leaves me with a kind of empty feeling; however impressive the art is, it lacks an individual story behind it.
Perhaps then, the development of AI could counterintuitively shed light on the creative value of artists, as long as it is regulated. The backlash only confirms that art is a field that cannot simply be taken over by AI in the same way that data entry or software testing could be. It comes from human thoughts and emotions that cannot be authentically felt or replicated by AI–at least for now.
It is impossible to draw any conclusion from AI’s role in art without addressing the fact that it is constantly changing, raising even more potential issues as it becomes more sophisticated. What we believe to be its maximum capabilities today could be nothing more than outdated prototypes tomorrow. After all, Picasso once said, over fifty years ago, that computers are useless because they ‘can only give you answers.’
It is up to us to keep our place in a digital world that has the potential to spin out of control. I believe that AI-driven society has a responsibility to let artificial intelligence uplift rather than overshadow artists, acting as a creative tool rather than a replacement.
