AI-generated paintings — is it art?

For the longest time, we have associated creativity as one of humanity’s distinct features. But with upcoming technology shocking us with every breakthrough of our current scientific knowledge, is creativity unique to humans? Moreover, recent innovations came with a particular question: what is art?

We all praised Leonardo da Vinci for painting the famous Mona Lisa, which took him around four years to complete. What if I told you that with a few clicks and typing, a computer could create an image with almost the same intricacy as Mona Lisa in less than five seconds? Recent applications such as NightCafe, DALL-E 2 and Artbreeder can create realistic artwork after the user has typed in a prompt. These applications and a myriad other arising can execute this with machine learning and, precisely, neural networking. The program uses a current database of images to learn how to develop new ones. After keying in a prompt, the program works and based on the pictures in the database, the program generates new images.

What do people think of AI-generated art? At the 2022 Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition, Jason M. Allen won the blue ribbon for emerging digital artists. The catch is — his work was an A.I.-generated piece. He received lots of backlash and accusations of cheating, conjuring a heated dispute on the ethics of art. “I’m not going to apologize for it,” Jason M. Allen said. “I won, and I didn’t break any rules.”

As the saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Just like in current artwork done by humans, some may perceive its message differently from others, and some may not feel any emotion whatsoever. Although AI-generated art seems to receive lots of negative feedback, there is no denying that technology has impressed us once again.