AI and Creativity
Can AI be an artist?
What is an AI?
As the definition from the book “Deep Learning with Python”, by François Charlet, field of AI is “the effort to automate intellectual tasks normally performed by humans.” I would like to define it as a task to make a machine intelligent. Since intelligence is the ability of a subject to grasp the environment, make predictions, and respond appropriately. So I think AI is about make the machine to have that intelligence.
Then, what is a creativity?
Creativity
The definition of creativity is the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work. I think the most important point in creativity is the ability to think about how to use existing things in new ways. For example, suppose there is a product for purpose A. Thinking of usage of the product for doing B, or deriving something entirely new will be of creativity.
Creativity has always been important in art. And I believe this will become more important with the development of AI. Art works without creativity will be replaced by results of AI.
What can disappear
The ability to draw non-original, repetitive pictures will be not needed. AI can replace artists who just draw similar arts. AI will be creating images and pictures in repetition. One example can be shown with my final group assignment.
In the final group assignment, our group worked on a project to create faces of animation character. About 20,000 pictures were collected for the training. At first, I started training with the human face as the base image set. However, the difference between the human face and the 2D image was so great that the process was not working well. Accordingly, a portrait was selected as the base among the base image sets of RunwayML. It was a drawing that was close to a real person, but it was still a 2D picture, so much more natural results could be obtained. The material used was about 1300 sample images among 20,000 images, to reduce the processing time.
https://periwinkle-young-mambo.glitch.me/ (Web link for trying this project)
After several attempts, quite successful result was obtained. This GAN model is able to create countless faces of anime characters. However, unlike various hair styles, they all have a similar faces. They all have similar big eyes with similar shapes. There are flaws that every characters seems so similar to each other, but it was also a factor that allowed the results to work out. Which means, it is difficult to train AI by combining too various styles for drawing. AI is great, but its creating ability is from just a combination of sample pictures. Therefore, if the drawing style of the artist is completely different from the popular style, AI cannot replace that artist. In other words, no matter how well you draw, you don’t need the ability to draw anything anywhere. Instead, unique unique painting styles will be required. Unless designers try their own unique drawing style, AI will be conquer the field of creating 2D characters.
AI as a tool for artists
Rather than AI becoming an artist, I think how the artists will use AI is important. There are already people called AIartist.
Before we could take pictures with camera, drawing as close to reality as possible was one kind of art. In modern times, realism is not so important in the field of art. However, the invention of the camera did not end the field of art. In art as a drawing, abstract expressionism paintings began to develop instead of realism. That’s not all. After cameras were invented, there became a new profession called photographer. Anyone can easily capture the scene of reality with camera, but the feeling we get from the photo varies depending on who took it. How photographs are captured became as an important factor in art.
I think the change photography brought to the art field shows us the future of art field with AI development. The art field in the future will go in two directions. First, as realism has disappeared, the creation of pictures that anyone can draw will disappear. Instead, unique art, which cannot be replaced by AI, will gradually develop. The second is the development of AI art. Just as cameras were invented and photography became another part in the field of art, how to use artificial intelligence will become new kind of art. I am looking forward to seeing what creative arts artists will create with the tool of artificial intelligence.
More interactive pages
Rock scissor paper : https://assignment-temp.glitch.me
Auto-mask : https://dsh0416.github.io/auto-musk/
*Gan training with RunwayML
