AI-Generated Art, A Game Changer?

Article by Nadia

As you might have noticed through the recent TikTok trend utilizing AI art generators to produce portraits, or, have heard about Jason Allen’s prize-winning piece generated by artificial intelligence (Théâtre D’opéra Spatial), the power of algorithms has grown and flourished in the field of arts.

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Now, with AI art generators such as Stable Diffusion, DALL-E 2, and MidJourney, you can simply produce images by entering a few phrases and choosing a style from the huge variety that the generator provides. After a few seconds, you will get plenty of slightly different pieces based on the phrases you’ve entered, and, astonishingly, most of them seems indifferent to artworks created by human.

Such a huge leap in AI technology can be revolutionary, from conceptual to practical aspects. The emergence of AI art causes humans to once again ponder, “What is Art?” “Should these works of AI generators be considered art?”

If yes, what about the fact that these images are just syntheses of already existing works, produced by algorithms. But if no, isn’t all human-created art created based on influences of other existing styles and former works (with the artist consciously or unconsciously knowing himself doing so)? Moreover, some AI works can be nearly indistinguishable from human-created works, wouldn’t it be somehow ironic to insist AI works shouldn’t be considered art when you can’t really tell the difference between the two?

On the practical side, some may start to worry that AI art generators may replace artists and illustrators. Imagine wanting to commission a piece of art for your event poster, and you can choose between hiring a professional illustrator to do the work, who might take days or weeks to finish, requiring a higher commission fee, or, using an online AI generator to produce the piece, which would only take seconds to generate several pictures for you to choose from, and it wouldn’t cost much, even being free. From this scenario, it is obvious which choice is more time and cost-efficient.

Indeed, AI art generators can to some degree replace artists and illustrators, but definitely not entirely.

By how AI works are sometimes indistinguishable from human art, we can tell that AI is capable of imitating the shallow surface and appearance of art, yet not the deeper qualities behind art. Only humans can create art that conveys spiritual aesthetic, which derives from the culture, intentions, and meanings behind the work. Therefore, it is impossible for AI to fully replace humans and our relationship with art, at least with present AI technology.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt the development of AI art generators will revolute the art world. Yet everything is double-sided, while AI art hops in with all its controversies, it also brings new possibilities and perceptions to art creation.