AI and Art

Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly is finding its way into art and has become a hot-button topic. Artists from all mediums emphatically support the use of AI, saying it augments and enhances their work, expanding what is possible. They are also unequivocal that they are still the creators of their work and the AI is not—but believe artists and technology must learn to coexist harmoniously.

The reasons to use AI in different art forms are compelling. A 2024 study by the U.K.’s University College London and University of Exeter found that stories written with help from AI were more creative, better written, and more enjoyable. The research indicated that writers with the most access to AI experienced the greatest creative gains, with their stories scoring 8.1% higher for novelty and 9% higher for usefulness than stories written without AI.

Deciding how to position AI in art is in the eye of the beholder.

AI as an Extension of the Artist

AI is comprised of two ingredients: algorithms and data, and “Both of these are man-made,” said Tony Fernandes, founder of HumanFocused.AI and CEO of UEGroup, a design company that employs artists.

“People are fascinated to see what happens when both are allowed to run on their own and to look at what they generated,’’ Fernandes said, adding that creating art requires inherent human influence.

“To say that AI creates art is to say that anyone can replicate the work of Picasso,” he said. “What makes Picasso’s work relevant is the human spirit, imagination, and desire for expression. Picasso experimented with cubism to achieve something new. AI has no such motivation.”

None of the AI processes have spawned an entirely new art movement, Fernandes noted, “because it isn’t creative and it isn’t art. It is just software working through logic and probability imitating its master in the only way it knows how: shallow imitation.”

Hugh Leeman, an artist and lecturer who lectures regularly at Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Colorado State universities, is using AI in the visual arts. In his studio art practice, Leeman has created a body of work where half of the paintings are made directly from his imagination, thus representing human creativity. AI was used to create images for the other half of the paintings. Leeman then made photo-realistic paintings based on those AI-generated images, representing machine creativity.

“The idea is that the viewer cannot discern the difference between which paintings were made from my imagination and which ones were made based on my making realistic oil paintings that are copies of AI-generated images,’’ he explained. “This body of work is meant to ask the viewer to consider the blurred boundaries between what is human and what is machine, or what is natural and what is artificial.”

The technology has enhanced the potential to create and collaborate in new ways, while raising questions that allow viewers to reflect on the current changes in our world, Leeman said.

Leeman is clear that AI is “not yet an artist because it is not sentient. It lacks emotions around pain, fears, and fantasies, but it does offer us an incredible opportunity to collaborate with an ever-growing ocean of images and possibilities. AI is becoming an extension of the artists and their creativity in ways that will only become clear as we accelerate the Singularity and merging of humans with their technologies.”

Can AI Save Museums?

Increasingly, museum operators and curators are integrating AI art into their exhibitions as a means of engaging audiences with work that is both interesting and meaningful, said Cansu Peker, a writer and curator specializing in digital art, and founder of DigitalArtsBlog.com. “Just like any other form of art, AI-generated work can evoke emotions, tell stories, challenge norms, and provoke thought,” she said.

Art museums across the Western Hemisphere are struggling significantly and are also “desperately trying to engage younger audiences,’’ noted Leeman. Many are trying to do so “by using experiences that viewers can interact with in something reminiscent of social media that responds to the viewer’s presence and gives some sort of entertaining feedback; more and more, this involves the use of AI,’’ Leeman said.

With so much at stake and so much vested interest, he said, “One can’t blame the cultural guardians for focusing on the narrative of why AI-influenced art is good art. After all, if Marcel Duchamp’s urinal (https://bit.ly/41Yjvz2) is ready-made art, why not AI art?”

Exploring What Is Possible

As a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Doug Rosman became interested in AI and interactive art after taking a class on computer vision. “As an artist, I’ve always been interested in ways data shapes our lives and live in a world that is structured by obscure algorithms and how we interact with generative AI systems that are scraping our images … and make new images out of them.”

Now an assistant professor at SAIC, Rosman is teaching the use of art as a way to explore technology “just as much as we’re here to use technology to explore what’s possible with art-making.”

Rosman has been working with Stable Diffusion, an open source AI model that can generate images, video, and animations from text or image prompts. The technology has not necessarily enhanced the artistic process; Rosman just finds AI tools interesting. “It allows me to expand what’s possible. …There’s a particularly strange aesthetic these AI tools make that is unlike anything you can make with traditional animation.”

He, too, is clear that AI in and of itself should not be considered an artist simply because it can produce an image. “It still takes human artists to contextualize it and frame it.”

In his classes, Rosman said the idea is to teach students what they can do with AI tools, while also teaching the ethics of using them to do things like taking images without people’s consent. “It’s fun to make the cool video, but what does it mean to make it and put it in the world?” he said. “We have to be careful about not promoting a big tech company and make them seem cool … we have to have fun with tools, but then pull back the curtain a little and understand why work with them at all.”

Lynn Rogoff, CEO of Amerikids Productions and a professor at the New York Institute of Technology, has also explored what is possible with AI. Rogoff took a traditional project dubbed “Bird Woman, Sacajawea,” that she created several years ago from a script and integrated several AI tools to enhance the creative process. They included MidJourney to improve and refine existing images and incorporated D-id, an image-to-speech AI software, to bring character visuals to life with synchronized audio and emotional expression. In addition, Rogoff and her team utilized RunwayML to give motion to still images, and Krea, which she said was key in upscaling images to higher resolution, making the visual quality even more engaging.

“These AI tools helped elevate production, but human direction remained essential throughout the process,’’ Rogoff stressed. Now she is expanding the project’s interactivity by developing AI chatbots for each character. The chatbots will allow audiences and students to interact directly with characters from Bird Woman, Sacajawea, which Rogoff says will deepen their understanding of the historical context and enhance the educational experience.

“While AI has undoubtedly augmented the project, it is important to emphasize that human creativity, intent, and decision-making guided every step of the process,’’ she said. “AI was used as a tool to enhance, not replace, artistic vision. The final product is still a reflection of the human creators involved, ensuring cultural integrity and artistic authenticity.”

Different Definitions of Art

Not every piece of art is made better with AI. Peker said a lot of what AI produces may be technically impressive, but “can feel repetitive or lack the unique soul that human artists bring to their work.”

This doesn’t mean that AI-generated art shouldn’t be used, though. “Many digital artists are finding ways to incorporate AI into their creative process, using it as a tool to enhance their work rather than replace their own creativity,” she said.

Peker considers whether an end-product is considered art. “The definition of art depends on context, the artist’s intent, and the audience’s perception,’’ she said. “It’s worth remembering that any medium can produce mediocre work, which some may even hesitate to call art.”

The bottom line for Peker is that “If a work of creative art is appreciated for its imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content and shows skill or accomplishment, then an AI-generated piece can certainly be art.”

Leeman uses text-to-image generative AI tools such as DALL-E, Midjourney, Meta.AI, and ChatGPT, and believes these tools can “better our lives.” For example, in Leeman’s social art practice, he said, AI can create images based on people’s unique lived experiences told in stories embedded with their emotions and memories.

Yet Leeman also fears future generations “will likely lose elements of agency of their creativity through the further merging of AI with humans in our social ecosystem as well as our physiology.”

The UCL study also addressed concerns over a potential loss of collective creativity. Anil Doshi, one of the study’s authors, said that while the findings indicate increased individual creativity, “There is [the] risk of losing collective novelty. If the publishing industry were to embrace more generative AI-inspired stories, our findings suggest that the stories would become less unique in aggregate and more similar to each other.”

Should AI Art Be Copyrighted?

Alongside the discussion over AI’s role in art, there is a “gap” because the technology is evolving faster than the regulations and frameworks that govern it, particularly when it comes to intellectual property and authorship, said Peker.

She noted that the U.S. Copyright Office, for example, does not allow for AI-generated works to be copyrighted, since only humans can hold copyright and the AI is not a human.

“Even though AI cannot create art itself and requires a human to author the prompts to generate visuals, the unpredictability of AI’s output challenges the idea that these works can be truly ‘authored’ by the individual who inputs the prompt,’’ Peker said. “This lack of legal clarity leaves a significant gray area in determining who the artist is, and more importantly, how to protect creators’ rights.”

This is an issue being faced by Colorado Springs, CO, artist Jason Allen, who caused a stir when he submitted an AI-generated painting to a digital art competition and won. Allen used Midjourney, a generative AI platform that has been accused of stealing from several copyrighted works. Last fall, he filed an appeal in a federal court in Colorado, arguing that AI is a tool just like a brush or camera, and that the U.S. Copyright Office was wrong in not allowing him to register his work.

A New Form of Artistic Expression

A great challenge of the 21st century will be trying to discern between human creativity and AI creativity, which will become more blurred by the day, if not entirely indistinguishable, said Leeman. “Consider the profound power of art. Be it visual art or writing, its power relates to society’s ability to construct cultural narratives that influence how people believe and ultimately behave” and shape our perceptions of reality.” At some point, Leeman said, we must address the question of what will happen when humans are no longer the sole creators of the images and stories that shape our perceptions of reality.

Peker believes AI art will become “even more interesting as artists and engineers collaborate on deeper, more meaningful ways to use the technology. Imagine dynamic art that evolves with real-time data or interactive pieces where the artist and machine work together in an almost symbiotic relationship.”

Perhaps the most practical way to think about AI and the arts is to consider the adage “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Rather than viewing AI-produced art as a threat, “We should see it as a tool for empowering human creativity,” says Jeffrey “digitaljeff” Castillo, a futurist, tech entrepreneur, and filmmaker. “AI may produce artificial art, but tapping into human imagination and emotion will always yield the most poignant, culturally relevant works,’’ Castillo said. “The future of art depends not on AI vs. humans, but on integrating our creative gifts to push new frontiers of artistic expression.”