Artificial intelligence is now making art. What does it mean for human expression?

As social media gets taken over by hyper-real and fantastical images generated by A.I., what are the real-world implications of this rapidly-evolving innovation in art?

A little over a month ago, in April, German artist Boris Eldagsen rejected the honour of winning in a category at the Sony World Photography Awards, stating that he was being a “cheeky monkey” as he had used artificial intelligence to generate the prize-winning image. Eldagsen, who is formally trained in photography, wanted to provoke and “speed up” the debate on the permissible limits of ethically using A.I. in art. “We, the photo world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what not. Is the umbrella of photography large enough to invite A.I. images to enter—or would this be a mistake?” he remarked in a statement, an imploration that can be effectively extended to include the larger spectrum of the arts, begging the question of what indeed is art in the age of artificial intelligence. Or rather, where is the art in the art created by artificial intelligence.

A casual stroll through Instagram should be enough to acquaint you with the landscape and expanse of A.I. art that now lives forever on the annals of the Internet. It’s not just about the quirky-looking Wes Anderson-inspired videos of people walking through pastel-coloured, symmetrical streets; it’s the whole gamut of fantastical creatures and dystopian spaces coming to life, of the unlikeliest of worlds colliding with each other. Among the more memorable ones would be the images of Jacquemus bags on wheels cruising through Paris, King Charles’ coronation after party, Donald Trump being dragged and restrained by cops, and Vladimir Putin being arrested. All of these have been created via text prompts run through a generative artificial intelligence programme (like Midjourney and DALL-E), which uses machine-learning algorithms and deep neural networks. Vast sets of existing artworks are used to train these algorithms to find patterns and styles that then create new art. 

In India, in November last year, Prateek Arora’s GothikaGranth / Gothic Family—a fictional family album with a terrifying secret—perhaps set the wheels in motion for the potential of A.I. art in the country. The 32-year-old, who has worked extensively in media and advertising in the past decade, was tinkering around with the image-generating A.I. programme Midjourney since July last year, a time when artificial intelligence was in its infancy, at least in this part of the world.

“I have always been interested in science fiction, so when I heard about these tools online, which kind of almost sounded unbelievable—that you can visualise stuff by writing and describing—it was extremely exciting for me as a writer,” says Arora, who has screenwriting projects in the pipeline. He says that in art, the “thought” or the idea is where a bulk of the creative heavy-lifting happens; the tools to execute are but only a medium of expression, and  bound to evolve with time. “I don’t want to go on about what art is—no one can decide that. But a lot of questions are suddenly starting to put heavy value on the craft of it, as if that’s static, and it doesn’t measure up to what is currently considered creative practices. It’s a different kind of practice, so it does not automatically get invalidated. The onus of creation lies on the person, because if not, every image would look the same, as everyone is using the same programme,” Arora says, adding that people need to understand the process better before criticising it.

The process

A central question about the “process”, however, remains. A large part of it is hinged on the act of creation—from the inception of the thought to its execution—driven by emotional intelligence that is unique to the human species. It is the idea that a thought can be brought to life through multiple mediums, which artists spend a lifetime perfecting, is what occupies a significant part of the dialogue on artistic expression. Where, then, does the advent of artificial intelligence leave us in the “process”? The answer lies in both assimilation and elimination, as historically, new jobs have been created at the expense of old ones.

“For me, the moment Ctrl+Z was introduced, allowing you to go back and correct a mistake on whatever you were working on, was a step towards dehumanising art in a lot of ways,” says Sidhant Gandhi, a digital artist for over a decade now, who recently collaborated with Indian rapper Divine for the latter’s music video Baazigar. “I don’t think an artist exists because of a medium, an artist exists because of a story. If you are intimidated by this new technology, it means you have hesitation towards it,” he says, drawing parallels to how Photoshop was criticised in its early days. “I don’t think you should stop using a tool because it takes away the humanness; because the person who is running that software is also a human.” Arora agrees, and asks, “Why else would you be talking to me and not the creator of this A.I. then?”

Paris-based photographer and artist Rid Burman who primarily shoots on film, however, argues differently. He cites the example of set designers, whose jobs might become obsolete a few years from now as technology advances, allowing people to economise on the time, effort and resources spent on creating visuals that may soon not require human intervention. “I am not necessarily in favour of that because then you’re subtracting the emotional intelligence of the set designer from the process, which can only happen through human experience. How can a machine replicate something based on experience? I don’t know yet, but that emotional intelligence can be gained only through experiences,” and that is perhaps the most indispensable aspect of art as human expression.

There is something to be said about human consciousness that also lies at the heart of any creation, as Burman points out, that while making a picture—at least in photography—irrespective of what camera you’re using, the key is to be present in the moment. Does this, then, also predictably lead to questions of agency and forsaking it with burgeoning technology?

Kolkata-based artist Radhika Agarwala, whose sculptural works use different materials, believes that with the introduction of A.I., the already tenuous relationship that digital technology shares with art has been strained further. “I believe it does remove the agency of artists. A.I. in its current form, if used to create artwork, as opposed to increasing artist productivity, will still create human-influenced artworks—though not of the prompt giver, but of innumerable other human data sources compiled to match the brief,” she says, adding that “unprompted A.I. art would be intriguing—but would be then the creation of the A.I. itself, and not any prompt writer.”

Both Burman and Agarwala echo the thoughts of the 20th-century cultural critic Walter Benjamin, who, in his seminal book The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935) writes: “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence,” thereby, establishing that it’s nearly impossible to not situate an artwork in the larger system within which it originates and operates.

The present and future of A.I.

Interestingly, Sam Altman, creator of ChatGPT—a chatbot powered by A.I. that was developed by the company OpenAI, and released in November 2022—said that the use of the tool and artificial intelligence at large should be regulated. This happened on the occasion of Altman appearing before a US Senate panel in May, during which he informed lawmakers about the potential pitfalls of this novel technology. "OpenAI was founded on the belief that artificial intelligence has the potential to improve nearly every aspect of our lives, but also that it creates serious risks," he said. His words urged Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi, an art scholar, writer and curator based in Delhi, to reflect on the state of affairs in a world riding on the triumphs of A.I. “They clearly seem to know something we don’t know, and they are the ones who created this technology,” he says.

Mopidevi has tried his hand at using some of these tools, and thinks it’s interesting to explore their potential, albeit critically. “One of the potentialities that a lot of artists think it has is, of course, the unpredictability of its usage, and the possibilities that it opens up. At the same time, there are a lot of artists who are absolutely skeptical about this technology because it steals their art and makes them into a new image. So while some are embracing it, there are others who are wondering if A.I. does everything, what do we do?” he thinks out loud.

At this point, Mopidevi believes it is imperative to try and subvert the apparatus’s capabilities to go beyond just generating images that are derivatives of pre-existing ones, while also treading with caution, which comes with its benefits especially at a stage where the subject at hand is still speculative. “That’s what I said when NFTs were introduced as well. When people said that NFTs are going to change everything, I thought we should embrace the discursivity and diversity that it brings, but also be cautious, because it isn’t commonplace for someone to sell an artwork for ₹5,000 today, and then for ₹55,000 next week.”

The idea, after all, is to have machines fill gaps in ecosystems, instead of bulldozing them, which is a rather realistic threat in times when the lines between fact and fiction have been blurred more than ever. Earlier in March, an A.I.-generated image of Pope Francis wearing a Balenciaga puffer jacket took the Internet by storm, leaving several outraged over how the images, real or not, were implying that the religious head and Bishop of Rome could possibly be shown as indulging in capitalist excesses. Even though manipulated images and deep fakes are not a novelty any longer, the ease with which such hyper-real ones can now be created by a person who does not necessarily have to be a Photoshop maverick, is indeed worthy of note. However, this may not be enough to entirely discard the merits of this innovation. “Earlier, painters were considered artists; then came digital illustrators, and they too were called artists. You then have photographers and all sorts of visual artists, so now, you will have A.I. artists—say writers who might become amazing A.I. artists, because their prompt game is so strong,” says Gandhi. He believes a very fitting use of this tool could be in commercial and advertising spaces with hoarders and posters being A.I.-designed, thereby effectively reducing costs for businesses, which ultimately circles back to Burman's fears of having the emotional intelligence of people getting written out. It’s a hypothesis that also postulates how said designers may, in fact, get replaced by A.I. artists that Gandhi refers to.

But art critic and writer Uma Nair harks back to lessons in history at this critical juncture. She believes it is wise to take a moment and introspect about the larger ramifications of such inventions: “It’s like a corollary of conversations to the past. Think man and the machine. Think of brilliant inventors but also think of consequences on planet Earth. One such man was Thomas Midgley Jr. In the years 1922 to 1928, he invented leaded gasoline and also developed the first commercial use of the chlorofluorocarbons that would create a hole in the ozone layer,” she says. Nair admits that she’s fearful of how the advent of A.I. might mean the death of creative inspiration, and that “we will be robbed of processes as well as history,” leaving us only with digital copies.

However, what A.I. has undoubtedly accomplished with its meteoric rise is a more democratic dialogue on art, a domain that has conventionally been heavily gatekept by the old guards, most of whom are born into socio-economic corridors of privilege. It has widened access to allow thousands with just an Internet-enabled device to explore this curious new world of art that currently inhabits a peculiar grey zone of ethics and morality. “But it’s important to have these conversations, and instead of being closed off or resistant to these changes, we should embrace them, find our ways around dealing with their pros and cons, and see what are the better ways in which we can use them,” says Arora, hoping that the technology that fuels the art should never exceed the humanity that births it.

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