With A.I., What is the Future of Art?

Written by Juliane Guo
Edited by Kathy Lu
Cover Image by Angelina Tseng

Artificial Intelligence. Something first imagined by works of science fiction is now becoming a part of our lives as new technologies emerge. As AI gained huge popularity over the years, many began to worry that it might completely replace humans someday. This question has now extended to the field of art.

Months ago, the company OpenAI released the highly skilled art-generating AI, DALL·E 2. It can easily generate dozens of artworks in countless different styles, media, and topic/theme?, based on user-inputted prompts. However, this release sparked opposing discussion among artists. Many artists were afraid that this might put them out of work, as this new technology is efficient, cheap (free for the most part), and developing at an insanely fast speed. DALL·E 2’s predecessor, DALL·E, was only capable of producing unrealistic and muddled images in 2021, while DALL·E 2 now seems to already have the skills of many human artists.

This is a DALL·E 2 generated painting, based on the prompt “New York City in the style of Vincent van Gogh.” The AI is also capable of imitating the style of famous artists (OpenAI).

For the good side of things, OpenAI is aiming to help people to creatively express themselves, and DALL·E 2 is not created for the purpose to replace human artists, but to inspire and aid them in their way of creating artworks. A few months have passed since its initial release, and luckily, this technology has been proven more helpful than harmful for the world of art. Artificial Intelligence learn their skills from human artists, combine them, and create something new. So meanwhile, the creativity of human artists is irreplaceable as a whole, as the source material of the generations are made by humans.

However, not everyone thinks so. In August, a man named Jason Allen, president of a Colorado-based tabletop gaming company, came in first in the Colorado State Fair’s fine arts category using artwork generated by another art AI, Midjourney. It has since caused much controversy, as many artists have pointed out the inherent unfairness in this act. To them, this has undermined the hard work of many artists over the years and all the effort they put into their art creations. Despite the seemingly complex process of art generation through AI—curating prompts and going through approximately 100 versions before the final one—it is still nothing when compared to actual human art, meticulously planned and drawn by hand. A Twitter user, OmniMorpho, also commented that this is “the death of artistry,” and that even creative jobs are not safe from being replaced by machines anymore (Gault).

Still, Jason Allen justifies his own decisions. According to him, there is a fair amount of human elements involved in creating his piece (such as rendering using Photoshop) and it is merely just a difference in terms of artistic method or creation. He also indicates that he is encouraged by his win, and will continue on this path in the future.

From now on, more art-generating AIs could emerge, and more people might reside on them as a choice, whether professional artists or not. It is possible that it’s only a matter of time for AI art to win every art contest out there, and for all employers to turn to AI rather than human artists for commissions. But with adequate regulations and rules regarding the use of AI such as DALL·E 2 and Midjourney and with the constant collaboration between AI developers and artists, there is hope for a brighter future in art. Maybe one day there will even be art contests that are purely reserved for AI-generated art, putting everyone on an equal ground. For now, people could just sit back and enjoy some amazing artworks.

Works Cited

Gault, Matthew. “An AI-Generated Artwork Won First Place at a State Fair Fine Arts Competition, and Artists Are Pissed.” VICE, 31 August 2022, https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmvqm/an-ai-generated-artwork-won-first-place-at-a-state-fair-fine-arts-competition-and-artists-are-pissed. Accessed 4 December 2022.

OpenAI. “DALL·E 2.” OpenAI, 2022, https://openai.com/dall-e-2/. Accessed 4 December 2022.