Is AI Ruining Creativity in Visual Art?

By Niamh McCartney

Edited by Lily Nie

The world is now consumed by artificial intelligence (AI); from healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, social media, and online shopping, it is virtually impossible to escape. This has become painfully apparent to artists around the world in the past decade, through AI’s assistance in concept design all the way to a print of an oil painting hanging in a gallery. AI is revolutionizing the way that we create images and express creativity, raising questions over authorship and diminishing skillsets. So, do restrictions have to be set in place for an artwork to classify as art, in a society where the definition of art itself is the freedom of human expression? 

In practice, AI could completely take over the role of creation by generating images based on prompts. The art community hopes that this amalgamation is far in the future, and to instead use it as a creative sounding board for ideas. For example; ‘hey chat could you show me what this pencil sketch I drew would look like as an oil painting?’ Responsible usage like this can be in conjunction with AI and the artist's ideas.  By harnessing human and technological skillsets, processes usually taking weeks to complete can be done with a single response; ‘Using this theme, what are some ideas for a painting?’ ‘What should my colour palette be?’ ‘What is missing from my piece?’ AI for image creation doesn't just have a place in visual art though, film producers are using it to see pre-visualitions for films or to create otherwise difficult pictures to photograph for an advertisement. 

Could the skill set that AI provides override that of humans? Since prehistoric times humans have been practicing art. What started as mere sketches on cave walls, with bark and dirt as the mediums, turned into meticulous works of perfection. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa took 15 years to complete by an artist who studied more than 10 years to perfect his trade. Now this legacy could be diminished in 10’s of seconds by a glorified computer.  Art schools which used to be the height of education and sophistication will be deemed unnecessary. The physical technical skills which used to be taught will no longer be necessary, only the eyes for technicality required. Although most artists are taught the same techniques just by natural individuality, paintings would always differ. Now, due to the lack of individuality from AI, many pieces produce a similar ‘look’, and will always be apparent unless specified. The question of authorship also arises, even if one uses AI to add finishing touches to their piece should this be labeled as co-authorship? 

But what could AI do for those wanting to access the world of visual art? With AI the cost of materials does not need to be considered. A timeframe of 3 months to create an artwork could be cut down to 3 hours. The risk involved in investing in an art studio, gallery, materials can all be diminished and replaced with a social media presence, a website, and a computer. Making the creation of art widely accessible for those who it otherwise wouldn't be. Instead of laboring over a painting a carefully written concise prompt can be given to create the same level of detail as a human would. This leads to wider opportunities of developing style, the look of different mediums and much more. 

Upon consideration of the analysis of both sides of this argument differing opinions will be a fact of this analysis. Some believe that benefits outweigh the negatives, and others believe in sticking to the classic human declaration of emotions which is visual art. Either way one thing can be said as a fact, the industry and the phenomenon of art will change forever. What were manual processes will change into technology. Maybe not in all circumstances as artists want to stick to their traditional ways, but in order to share their work with a larger audience technology and AI must play a role. What used to be physical creativity of depth of colours, placement, and physical strokes will be replaced by the creativity of opinion. Changing an AI developed piece to suit one's creative visions. This is not the first technological advancement which has changed art, from the printing press, camera obscura, to modern day videography. Art is constantly evolving as humans have also done. How we display political, emotional, and ethical thoughts must change as those thoughts change themselves.  

So what will the future of visual art look like? Will the value of hand drawn or painted artworks increase as they become a rarity? Will the perfect imperfections of artwork due to human error cease to exist, as a computer takes them away? Will regulations for museums and galleries be established to what constitutes art or just a generated image? Whatever consequences occur, AI is a human made tool that must be respected and used under regulation. But the real question occurs when we have to control the thing that we created. 

Works Cited

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