From canvas to tablet, art can be created almost anywhere at any time with any materials. Some people create with a paintbrush and a canvas, while others may take a more peculiar approach to their craft, such as creating a sculpture from “trash” or painting with food. In all, art is a craft that anyone can try and take their own approach to, there are no limits to art. Although, with this lack of limits many questions begin to arise, like what draws the line of what is considered art. Artificial intelligence (AI) art is where many people have considered the line lies.
AI art is very controversial among the art community and many refuse to accept it as a true form of art, claiming that since the hands of an artist did not create it, it doesn’t count. Others may argue that it is still an art form because they tell the AI what to make, and it creates the piece from their words and ideas. I, however, believe that AI art is not an acceptable form of art as not only is it not created by an artist, but it also doesn’t have emotion in it.
Every art piece has some sort of backstory or emotion tied to it, and every artist has a reason behind making a piece. AI art however lacks this emotion and reason. The AI only knows one thing, and that is just to create exactly what it is told to. There are no feelings or messages hidden behind anything an AI can make. A person can try to tell the bot to make the art feel emotional or have a meaningful message in it, but it will never be truly the same. For this reason, AI art can never be real art.
Despite this, AI art has been making a large impact on the art industry and many artists, particularly digital, fear that they may be out of a job soon, replaced by AI. This concern follows them around daily and is very valid. AI art can create a piece in minutes or even seconds that could take an artist several hours to days to make. This is revolutionary to the art industry and could save many companies thousands of dollars using AI art instead of hiring artists.
While this is a growing concern, there are many reasons why I believe that artists will still prevail over AI art. For one, AI art often has a very eerie feel. While at first glance it may look amazing, the more you look at any AI piece, the more you will be able to notice that AI does not typically get everything exactly right.
To test this, I went to three different AI art platforms: “IMG2GO,” “Hotpot,” and “NightCafe Studio.” I gave each website the same prompt, “A girl sitting at a desk playing with her cat,” and had each generate an image for it. The results were disturbing, to say the least. Each image upon first look had a set of problems that made it very noticeably amiss. For example, in “IMG2GO” upon being given the prompt one of the cats had no face on the head and instead, the face was on the stomach of the cat, one of the cats had five paws, and the girl’s hands were very disfigured. “Hotpot” had its host of issues in the generated image as well, where there was only the head of a cat, and it was attached to the girl’s body. Not to mention, the sky in the background had a large gray streak going through it. The final website, “NightCafe Studio,” also had many issues with the image, as the cat’s proportions were very off and the tail came out from the middle of the cat’s back. Even more so, the girl’s leg was attached to the desk itself. While these were only three out of the many image-generating websites out there, I believe this can help to ease many artists’ minds about AI taking over the art industry fully, as there are many issues with AI art.
Ignoring the technical issues, there is also a large ethical dilemma concerned with companies using AI art. If the art industry was taken over by AI art, then thousands of people would be put out of a job, as art is one of the fastest-growing industries in the modern world. With the new creation of websites, television shows, and more the demand for artists is at an all-time high causing many people to enter the field. If companies were to switch to AI art with no warning, then that could cause a huge economic crash for all industries. While it is not a guarantee that all companies are thinking of this while they consider AI art, it is a hope that at least some realize this issue and decide to hire professional artists instead of AI.
With all of this in mind, there is never truly a risk of AI taking over the art industry, at least until it can be improved upon greatly and remove the errors present in every picture. If that ever happens, though, then the art world would be in a lot of trouble.
