Art is more about creativity and individuality than it is about intelligence. AI can create something that we can perceive as art, but it loses the core qualities that make it something we value.
We admire human creation because it is something we can work towards. Rembrandt studied his art before perfecting it, and Klimt encapsulated human love as he, himself, was able to experience it first. AI has never witnessed two people fall in love and has never had its heart broken.
Microsoft and ING attempted to use machine learned algorithms to create The Next Rembrandt. This AI may be able to reflect the skills of the Dutch painter, but what matters is that this ‘art’ is not original. It is a faint recreation.
This fact is what acts as my main argument against AI art. Artificial Intelligence works by collecting data and then producing results based on the analysed inputs. Art works by reflecting on our individual human experiences and trying to find a way to portray this.
Artemesia Gentileschi attacked patriarchal dominance through her art, drawing on her personal trauma. Magritte’s Kantian stance enabled him to explore the irrational and unconscious mind through his painting: The Mysteries of the Horizon. Van Gogh’s battles with his mental health inspired abstract colours capturing imaginations globally. What experiences does AI have to represent?
If we want AI to be able to create art, then we need to give AI the opportunity to experience the world and feel emotions. Does anyone really want this? I think most ethicists would say this is inherently immoral.
What I see as more interesting however is why we would want AI to create art. Humans have the capacity to be creative and this, from what we know, is entirely unique to us. It seems so strange then, the notion that some people would want to give this speciality away to AI.
Perhaps it is dismissive to say that AI can never create art. Rather, AI can create something which resembles art, as is seen through The Next Rembrandt. For some, this may be art, and I cannot be the person to discredit this view. But what I, and many of the people I talk with, see as art, is that which is originally creative. AI, in its essence, lacks the emotion needed for art. Without experiences what do we have to be inspired by? Without inspiration, what is art?
Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash