Artificial Intelligence in Art

New technologies are constantly changing the way we work, they take part in our daily life and jobs. From self-driven cars to a painting made by a software program, such inventions are revolutionizing the world. We have seen the rise of new categories in the art field like digital art, NFTs or artificial intelligence and although some people may think they will take over the creativity and realness of art it has become a teamwork with the human mind.
AI Art is the creation of art helped by artificial intelligence, it has taken part in this field since the 19th century and many artworks have been sold since then, but the peak started when the “Portrait of Edmond Belamy” was auctioned in 2018 meaning a new beginning for the artificial intelligence art. 

 

   Portrait of Edmond Belamy

There are a variety of programs to create art through artificial intelligence like Midjourney StyleGAN.
It is no news that technologies have always been enemies of many artists like when cameras were invented some saw the end of realism, and it is no difference with artificial intelligence nowadays. The good side of AI is that it creates art through algorithms that combine existing images into one, some of them would even be impossible to create for humans and it’s always getting updated to use the very best of technology for art. 
On the other hand, AI may have its perks, using millions of pictures from the net could end up in plagiarism as it can use someone’s artwork to get inspired you can create an artwork by mimicking some great artists like Murakami or Bansky or any other image as is just getting inspired and is mostly copyright free.

 

The whole process takes away all the creativity and all the effort artists put into and it is normal to think AI art can take away the artists jobs but at the end AI algorithms feed from existing data so in order to come up with something unique and different it needs new content, new art, styles. Yes, it can always take artsy jobs, but it would turn out by having boring and same looking art pieces, besides it does not have that human touch most people like. It would be better for AI made art to have its own category like when cameras appeared.
Controversy is always going to exist when it comes to new technologies, some like to be more traditional and keep using the “old way” to do art, whereas others like to give a new try and use the new technologies that may come and in no way is one better than other it just has to be ethical build and then used. It is estimated that more than 3000 artists for more than 118 countries use the DALL-E AI system, not just to create paintings but graphic novels, movies, and any type of visual art.

 

Some artists who use AI systems to create art are Stephanie Dinkins, Wayne Mcgregor, Robbie Barrat and Sofia Crespo, most of them use AI tools to revendicate causes like Joy Boulamwini who is fighting for bias in algorithms and also founded the Algorithmic Justice League to fight for coded gaze- harmful bias .

 

Sofia Crespo Digital Art

 

Conclusion

AI art is no harm for human made art if used with ethics. It needs a control in order to be fairly used and it needs to have its own category when it comes to contests or fairs because it is not fair for other artists who spend a lot of time working in their art for it to be judged with a rapidly made art piece. However, we have to take into account that Artificial Intelligence takes ideas and is based on art techniques that already exist to create something on its own, so it is kind of an artist too even though it is not a physical person. Because AI art is made by a machine, does not mean we can’t enjoy it as we enjoy human made art. 

Artdrei 2023