The creation of AI image generating tools such as DALL-E 2, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion has in turn created much controversy over copyright, talent and what constitutes “art”. In short AI generated images are not “Art”. They can be beautiful, even transcendent, but that doesn’t make them art any more than stepping in paint makes my cat the next Picasso.
Some people would argue that art is subjective; since art can mean many things to many people. It’s not, the meaning might be. But art requires intent and that is a pretty good place to start. We need to look at what the definition of art does and doesn’t encompass to see why AI generated works cannot be classified as art, with an exception.
Let’s start with the simplest thing. What is “art” is not subjective. That is, your subjective feelings about something does not determine whether or not it is art. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder but art is not. Art is not determined by the viewer but by the person creating the artwork.
The Nazi ( four paragraphs in and already talking about Nazi…) tried to label some artwork as “degenerate” but they couldn’t un-classify it as art. That’s because it’s the creative power that determines whether or not something as art, not the power of gaze. You can say “I like this, I don’t like that” but you do not get to say this is art, this is not art. Only the person who created it gets to do that.
If you walk into a room and see a light switch you don’t get to say “This art is amazing!” because you didn’t create the light switch, you didn’t install it. It’s just a light switch no matter how beautiful it is. Is a Banksy graffiti or art? That’s up to Banksy. Only he can determine whether or not his work is art.
Another key element is it needs to be a person. Because the intent to create art must be present at some stage of the creative process. Animals can create paintings. And some are quite interesting, even beautiful. But they are not “art”. Below is a painting by Denver, a Macaw, titled “Busy Day”. The bird didn’t give it the title, nor did it chose the medium, or possibly even the color palette. The bird has no concept of what “art” is, or even what intent is. To claim that the bird was making “art” is nonsense. It was performing a series of tasks to get a reward. (Easily confusable with what artists do!)
I enjoy this painting. I would consider hanging it on my wall, but I would never call it art. The same goes for AI generated art. I argued what art is over a decade ago and I have seen nothing in AI that would make me change my mind.
Think of it like this, do the materials determine whether or not something is art? For example, does it need to be a painting to be considered art? The answer is a resounding, “no”. Sculpture is art, installations are art, photographs are art. Art doesn’t need to be physical either, there is lots of digital art.
Does it need to involve a lot of effort? Insert poor tortured artist myth here. The answer is again, no. Many artist utilize what is called “ready-made” or have teams of craftspeople who create the actual pieces so that is not the determining factor.
Does the quality of the craftsmanship matter? No. There are lots of shitty painters out there. It is still art. Likewise there are many skilled craftspeople, such as ironworkers, or knitters who wouldn’t consider what they do as art.
What about location? Does that determine what is art? The answer again is “no”. Duchamp tool a urinal and put it in a gallery and called it art. But the reverse is also true. If I took the urinal out of the gallery and installed it back in a bathroom it would become plumbing again. However I could take the urinal into the park, and install it as a fountain and *poof* it’s art again.
Does the subject matter determine art? No. It might determine what is considered “high” art or “low” art, but the subject matter is completely irrelevant. Artists are constantly pushing the boundaries of what subject matter is appropriate. Simply look at artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe to see what it means to push those boundaries.
Does beauty matter? Nope. A sunset is beautiful, but it’s not art. The work of artists like Jake and Dino Chapman might be difficult to call beautiful, (disturbing might be a better word) but they’re definitely art.
The sunset also isn’t art because it’s nature. Take a photo of that sunset and then you can have art. A tree is just a tree. Put it in a pot and trim it, and it’s now a bonsai. A very ancient and wonderful artform.
So we know what makes art by peeling away the things that are irrelevant. When everything is stripped away the only factor that is left is that art must be made with intent. By extension, it must be made by a person, since only people have intent (that we know of) and it must be something created or changed by the person.
Artificial intelligences do not have intent. Currently they’re not conscious or self-aware. So like the macaw, they are merely responding to inputs and performing a set of tasks.
AI-generated images can be produced through a process known as “generative adversarial networks” (GANs), where an AI system is trained on a dataset and learns to generate new images based on the patterns it observes. These images can be visually impressive and aesthetically pleasing, often resembling works of art created by humans.
However, the intent and involvement of human artists or programmers in the AI-generated process can also influence the perception of its artistic nature. For example. in the first image I told the AI what I wanted. I could tell it to change the background or the color of the sky. I could ask it to change the style to mimic Picasso, or Leonardo Da Vinci.
You could claim that the AI is simply replacing the craftsmen utilized by artists such as Jeff Koons. Through the wonders of GANs anyone can draw like they’ve always dreamt of. And draw anything they can dream of. And in this notion is the rub. Creative people will always be creative. They will come up with new and exciting ideas, regardless of the available technologies.
Whether or not something is art will lie with them, not with AI.