AI-generated art: a tool to increase creativity

Artificial intelligence (AI) is usually associated with improvements in technical processes – better analytics, streamlined operations, autonomous devices and the like. Lately, however, his prowess as a creative force has taken center stage, to the point where some attribute it to creating legitimate forms of art.

This has created a dilemma for human artists, namely how the very nature of their livelihoods will continue when people with little or no education are able to create original works of art and hyper-realistic images with no more than a few descriptive words.

The issue was much relieved earlier this year when a piece of digital art created with an AI-based platform called Midjourney won a top prize over manually generated works. The piece, titled “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial”, was produced using textual descriptions, leading critics to argue that it is not “real” art, but a form of digital plagiarism.

A helping hand from AI

Aesthetics aside, the real problem for artists is essentially the same as for anyone else, as the world becomes more digitized and intelligent algorithms become more adept at performing the tasks humans do today. After all, why pay large sums of money to a real human who takes a lot more time to produce a finished product that may or may not be exactly what was desired? And this question doesn’t just apply to the higher arts, but to legions of craftsmen and commercial artists, given AI’s proven ability to paint, sculpt, quilt, and perform a wide variety of other creative activities.

But as in the tech field, AI will not replace these jobs. Instead, people who know how to use AI effectively will replace those who don’t. And the applications for this more artistic use of AI have already become quite diverse and powerful — not just for artists, but for everyone.

For example, average users can enhance their data in many ways: turning a photo of an ordinary fruit bowl into an impressionistic painting, or mining stored volumes to enhance personal applications, translate languages, or generate new forms of synthetic data. And once the metaverse reaches a critical maturity level, AI will be vital for creating and evolving immersive digital environments, which would otherwise be left to the experts in fields like programming, analytics, and design.

To be sure, there are some thorny legal issues when it comes to AI-generated art. For example, copyright ownership gets a bit clouded if the creator is a digital algorithm. But if the AI ​​model can’t own the art, who can? The person who defined the project, the data scientist who trained the model, or someone else?

AI-generated art: the latest technological evolution in creativity

At its core, AI is just another tool used to project human thoughts and desires. After all, the first artists painted on cave walls with their hands or primitive tools. By the time of the Renaissance, this had evolved into brushes and canvas. In modern times we saw photography and lithographs, which led us to the different digital art forms we see today.

None of these technological advances replaced or even diminished the artistic merits of previous generations. Instead, they enhanced the meaning and value of art by supporting new forms of expression, which in turn gave their descendants greater insight into the human experience of their lives and times. And it’s fair to say that regardless of the era, people have always used the tools available to define themselves in a changing world, just as we do now.

Some might argue that because AI does the hard work of producing images, it essentially removes the human mind from the creative process, leaving the end result no more artistic than a plastic spoon. But this ignores the fact that even an intelligent machine needs human guidance to design a finished product, and it’s that spark of creative imagination that gives art its real value. And yes, even mass-produced plastic spoons are designed by humans using the same tools and processes that produce high-quality art.

Narrow Intelligence

This reflects the fact that while AI’s level of “intelligence” is very effective at processing large amounts of data quickly, it is still a very limited form of intelligence when it comes to producing original thoughts. Even new forms of generative AI that use applications such as natural language processing (NLP) and neural networks to create speech and text, including original songs, only seem to “think” on the same level as humans. In reality, they are just cracking huge amounts of data to mimic real thinking.

And this makes all the difference, because art is not measured by the precision of the work or the level of detail it brings, even as it approaches the point of realism, but by the thoughts, feelings and emotions that the artist creates on the surface. conveys to the public. A digital entity cannot fully understand the human experience. Therefore, it cannot convey such concepts without a human mind to guide it.

Ultimately, this means that AI brings to the arts what it adds to everything else it touches: the ability to magnify the human mind to reach new levels of expression and understanding. It does this in much the same way as previous technologies: by optimizing the creative process and bringing greater clarity to the ideas expressed and even the ways of expressing them – whether in lofty artistic circles or an advertising campaign.

Rather than dismissively dismissing AI as a creative tool, artists of all kinds should embrace it as the next great advance in a long history of artistic progress that has been and will continue to be guided by humans’ unique desire to express themselves. to press.

Of course, change is rarely easy. The creative community certainly has a right to explore this new AI-driven art form, provided the intention is to assess its value impartially and let it succeed or fail on its own merits. As any art historian knows, the works of Picasso and Monet were initially pilloried by the experts, only to emerge as defining forms of expression for the 20^e century.

AI will in no way create new forms of art, but it does have the power to enable human artists to do just that.

Prasad Joshi is please and go to Infosys Center for Emerging Technology Solutions (iCETS).