Can Artificial Intelligence Create Art?
written by Tony Aparicio
It seems that Artificial Intelligence can generate novel-digital-images worthy of acknowledgment and praise. Be that as it may, the question remains, can Ai generate Art? If so, under what circumstances?
Art, generally speaking, is the application of human creative skill and imagination, typically, in visual form. There is no shortage of theories which make delineating True Art from Non-Art impossible, therefore, to keep things as simple, and accessible, as possible for everyone, I’m going to avoid delving too deeply into any one theory or school of thought for the time being and focus on the intrinsic relationship between Artist and Artwork, as an indispensable element, and the fundamental basis, Which True Art manifestation is contingent upon.
With that in place, I think it’s possible to distinguish whether ai-generated-images are closer to True Art than Non-Art and vice versa. Currently, there are several ‘’Ai-art-generators’’ in the mainstream. The most popular are ai-powered-art-generating-tools, such as Midjourney’s text-to-image-art-generation-tool, which requires human beings to input text-prompt into a server, which is subsequently automized into ‘’ai-generated- art’’ by a bot.
There’s no doubt about it, artificial intelligence can definitely render glorious, awe-inducing-images, that exceed our expectations, stimulate our intellect, and set our senses on fire. But is it Art? If so, who’s the artist? The human beings who effortlessly input text into a server? The bot that runs the server, designed to automize images, based on text-prompt and the millions of images stored in its memory bank? Or the team of developers, who program the system, establish restrictions, and ultimately, determine which algorithmic sequences can, and should, germinate, and which ones cannot, and should not, germinate. I could go on, weaving in present day and departed artist’s who’ve been assimilated into the system by third party users, but for now, to keep things from becoming too incomprehensible, I’m going to limit my investigation to the three, most-likely-artist’s, responsible for Ai-generated-art.
Regarding human beings who input text into ai-powered-art-generating-servers — Questions, such as, whether ‘’Ai-art-creators’’ (text-inputters) can copyright the work they ‘’create’’ via Ai-art-generating-tools, are being asked before we’ve identified who the artist responsible for ai-generated-art actually is. Art, as I understand it, is made manifest through an exhausting process of vitality-infusion, during which, the artist engages in an intensive psychosomatic-wrestling with his or her work, which goes on inexorably, seemingly without end, until finally, animal-vitality, mental-stamina, spiritual-vigor, and crude-materials, become one, the outcome of which is something like a metaphysically-contracepted-transcendental-brainchild, in other words — Art.
Based on this conception of how True Art manifests itself, I can assert, with a significant degree of confidence, that inputting text into a server, and sitting back, while a bot automizes digital-images based on that text, in seconds, does not constitute as an act of artistic-creation. Ergo, text inputters are not artists, rather, they’re more like the employees of business-minded ‘’artists’’ who exploit capital, technology, and employ teams of assistants to manufacture decadent-large-scale sculptures or to mass produce computer-assisted paintings. Sadly, in this case, they’re neither employed, nor compensated, instead, many text-inputters pay-to take part in the production of human-assisted-Ai-generated-digital-images, the only compensation they receive, it seems, is feeling like they’re somewhat-artists, and part of something larger, which unfortunately, most do not completely understand.
Regarding bots which automize text-based images — it’s clear now, I hope, that inputting text into a server does not constitute as an act of artistic creation, therefore, the next most-likely-artist in question, is the bot which automizes the images. If True Art manifestation is contingent upon an intrinsic relationship between a human creator and creation, i.e., artist and artwork, the question that follows is whether the relationship between bot, human, and outcome, is a contingent one? In other words, is Ai-generated-art self-subsisting, or does it depend on human vitality and ingenuity to actualize itself? It appears that Ai-powered-art-generating-tools, such as Midjourney’s text-to-image-generation-tool, is somewhat-contingent upon humans, insofar as the server requires human beings to input text, which is subsequently automized into digital images by a bot.
Having said that, such minimal effort, on behalf of the human-contributor, could hardly be deemed intrinsic, or necessary for that matter, since, I imagine, it’s not impossible to program a bot to randomly input the text itself, or to input text based on text previously input by humans, or to simply generate novel-digital-images, without utilizing text at all, by itself — ad nauseum. Therefore, it can be concluded, that the relationship between the medium (Ai) and the artist (text-inputter) is barely-contingent, by design, not by necessity, which means the relationship is not intrinsic, therefore, mostly-mechanically-driven, devoid of freethought, spontaneity, and freewill, which means Ai-generated-art, produced mostly by technological means, is not Art, therefore bots are not artists.
This means the last, most-likely-artist in question, is the team of developers, who invested their time and energy, into developing the machine. In my opinion, Ai-developers, such as the Midjourney team, are certainly geniuses, and closer to artists, than any other party involved, in this conundrum. Whether they are artists, in the typical sense, is a question which cannot be answered without delving deeply into the realm of philosophy. For instance, answering questions such as whether a car is a machine, or a sculpture in motion. Moreover, is the creator of the pencil, by virtue of the fact that he created the pencil, the artist of every drawing subsequently rendered. No, but he did invent the first pencil, and there are myriads of things which were drafted by pencils, following the advent of pencils, which are not Art, for instance, a laundry list. That said, a pencil has never created anything on its own, except perhaps a dusty silhouette of itself.
In conclusion, I’m not attempting to sway anyone into adopting my views, nor do I claim to be an authority on the matter. Technology is advancing at such a rapid rate; it makes sense that human understanding should necessarily follow post-facto. If this article can inspire people to stop, and think, long enough to realize that the only people who benefit from the fogging of the definition of Art are talentless wannabes who exploit freedom of expression, and business-minded pseudo-artists who exploit their affiliates, I’m appeased.
