Painting Without a Brush, or even Effort

Art is human. There is no better way to put it. A machine, unless we figure out how to imbue humanity into it somehow, is incapable of producing anything more than a picture of ones and zeros. However, there has been a recent development that challenges this opinion. The Colorado State Fair holds an annual art competition, and this time, an AI-generated picture took home the blue ribbon for digital art. This raises many questions about the legitimacy of AI-generated art and how the expansion of such technology will affect current artists and their work security. If this piece is considered valid in such a competition, how is it that humans are to compete with AI’s efficacy? Furthermore, does this render all artists obsolete? An AI can create hundreds of pictures faster than human can create one. It seems like a losing fight.

As you’ve guessed from my writing above, I am of the opinion that this piece created from the AI MidJourney is not art; it is simply a representation of what a software believes humans see as art. No humanity equals no artistry. It really is that simple. Though I find it hard to believe my opinion will ever be swayed, there are a few interesting ideas to keep in mind about the possibility of these pictures being art, or at least becoming art.

An article from Wired takes a look into this. What is most interesting about this article is how it views the act of using the AI as the creative/human part of the process. In particular, a principal designer at Adobe Research named Aaron Hertzmann was quoted saying that “Craiyon and other image-generation tools are enabling new forms of exploration, something inherent to creativity.” Taking this into account, it could be argued that the ones and zeros of the pictures that are created aren’t a visual artform at all; maybe it is a written one. They say a picture paints a thousand words. A thousand words should also then paint a picture whether in a textbox of a software or not.

Even with this information, I still hold the belief that these productions are not art, and as such should definitely not be winning any art competitions. It seems that Hertzmann would agree with this sentiment, even with his statement above. In one of his papers titled “Computers Do Not Make Art, People Do”, he states that “art can only be created by people (or other independent actors) capable of these kinds of social relationships.” The social relationships he is referring to are those of romance, competition, and conversation among others. Until an AI is capable of these relationships, any and all productions will remain hollow. They will always miss that one little bit of soul that is so invaluable. There needs to an effort made to classify these pictures as what they are: impressive feats of software. They are nothing more and nothing less.