Who can really claim to be an artist when the medium is a machine?

With Artificial Intelligence tools making creative processes easier, where does an artist draw a line between seeking aid and disrespecting an art form? 

For centuries, the power and authority to define art sat with a small pool of critics, collectors, and cultural institutions. Then came Photoshop, Instagram filters, Canva templates, and now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) models capable of producing entire visuals, music, and scripts with barely a flick of human intention. The debate isn’t particularly new, but as AI tools become more accessible, the idea of authorship itself has started to fracture. 

With the release of OpenAI’s l GPT-4o, image generation has become instant. Within days the internet was suddenly awash with visuals resembling hand-drawn stills from Studio Ghibli films—sepia skies, wide-eyed children, dreamlike nostalgia rendered in pixel-perfect detail. The images were not made by illustrators, and certainly not approved by their reference point— Studio Ghibli’s creator, Japanese animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. 

While the backlash was swift, in a quote that resurfaced from 2016, Miyazaki called AI-generated art “an insult to life itself.” This prompted the question: If style can be replicated and sentiment can be simulated, what is the role of the artist? 

In 2025, Artificial Intelligence isn’t just assisting the process of creation—it is doing the creating. Across music, illustration, filmmaking, and design, AI has evolved into an autonomous artist. Platforms like Suno can now generate full-length pop songs from a single lyric and a vibe—vocals, instrumentation, and structure included. To some, it’s a technological marvel. To many artists, it feels like theft.

Ethical challenges of AI-generated art in India 

This isn’t just a technological shift but a cultural one. And the question goes beyond whether AI can simply make art. It’s whether we still care about how it’s made. “These are nothing more than just images produced on the internet without any artistic merit,” says Harshit Agrawal, one of India’s first artists to work extensively with AI in 2015 His concern is not with the technology itself, but with its superficial application. Unlike prompt-based generators, Agrawal develops his own models, trains them on curated datasets, and designs custom algorithms. For him, AI isn’t a shortcut but a medium. “I work with the material of AI–data, algorithms, and codes,” he explains, using it to explore ideas around digital identity, authorship, and data colonisation. 

What frustrates Agrawal is the sudden deluge of “low-effort” art that rides on borrowed styles, often without credit or intention. “Calling that your own work of art is dissatisfactory because you’ve not put in any personal effort,” he says. 

It’s this distinction—between art as process and art as product—that sits at the heart of the current debate. And the waters are only getting murkier. 

Mumbai-based AI artist and filmmaker Varun Gupta creates art using prompt-based AI. Also the founder and creative director of content production company We Create Films, Gupta’s process is less technical, but no less deliberate.  He uses tools like Midjourney but spends weeks developing ideas, iterating prompts, post-producing images, and scoring them with sound. “It’s like Photoshop with more imagination,” he says. “But I put my fingerprint on every frame. I generate thousands of images for a project and then spend time refining them—adding grain, adjusting the lighting, modifying the colours. I do the sound as well, to match the visual tone. That’s how I make it feel like it's mine.” 

Still, Gupta acknowledges the discomfort. AI platforms are trained on massive public datasets scraped from the internet, making influence  difficult to trace. “Sometimes, the result looks close to someone’s style,” he admits. “Even if I didn't intend to copy, the AI might.”

This is where the idea of originality begins to unravel. What does it mean to create something truly original in a system built on borrowed data? “For a long time, art and originality have gone hand in hand,” says Aditya Nain, a professor of ethics at Flame University and Symbiosis School of Economics in Pune.But that association, he believes, is evolving. “The concept of pristine originality is gradually fading from the appreciation of art.”

More importantly, Nain doesn’t think AI is the force behind this shift. “When photography emerged, the entire concept of visual art was reshaped,” he explains. Nain, however, isn’t too alarmist about the shift. “Even with AI, creative and artistic people will find a way to work with its possibilities while bringing something of their own originality to bear,” he shares. 

How Indian artists are adapting to AI Tools in art and design

Artists adapt—they always have. AI might be reshaping the process, but the impulse to make something personal—to leave a trace—persists.

But that’s only part of the story. Not everyone has the time, resources, or infrastructure to engage with AI as part of their creative process. “For me, this is a labour issue,” says Anupam Guha, professor at IIT Bombay and a scholar in AI policy. “The companies which hire artists are going to be using the artwork generated through AI to depress the artist’s wage. This is not about copyright. It’s about labour exploitation.”

Animator and illustrator Nayanika Chatterjee sees the same shift unfolding. She avoids using AI beyond occasional references. “I still don’t see AI art affecting immediate gigs,” she says. “But when clients suggest using AI to bring down costs, that’s a red flag. It tells me they don’t understand the value of my work.”

Siddharth H. Somaiya, a Mumbai-based art educator, co-founder of the IMMERSE Art Fellowship, and Member of the Board of Studies at the Somaiya School of Design, draws a clear line between illustration and what he terms ‘fine art.’ “Graphic design is a service, while fine art depends on patronage,” he explains. “AI might disrupt fields like photography and illustration, but the fine art market is thriving. At least for now, I don’t see AI influencing how these works are valued.”

Garima Jha, an assistant art curator at a contemporary gallery in Delhi, believes that “while AI’s presence in the fine arts isn’t direct yet, the presence is evident in the form of commentary that artists are making.” Chatterjee acknowledges the usefulness of AI when integrated into tools like Photoshop. She’s even used tools like Claude.ai to build systems, and for references—but draws the line at generation. “It can’t replicate emotion. It doesn’t know rhythm, character, or intention. It just mimics.”

And that’s the larger shift. What starts as a debate over authorship and artistic intent quickly reveals a deeper imbalance. The real question then is structural: When art becomes automated, who benefits—and who gets left behind?

Art ownership and copyright challenges in AI-generated work

Guha believes the current conversation is focused on the wrong aspect. The real harm, he argues, doesn’t lie in how the algorithm works—but in how the industry chooses to deploy the algorithm. “Copyright is about ownership. But style, which AI mimics, isn’t protected. Artists won’t win that battle in court.” For him, the issue is structural. “What AI does is create unfair labour conditions. It lets companies replace artists while avoiding the cost of employing them.” The solution, he suggests, isn’t to regulate the code—it’s regulating the labour market. What this entails, explains Guha, is creating safeguards to prevent companies from quietly replacing human artists with AI while evading responsibility for wages or credit.

Somaiya claims, “It’s going to be impossible to spot AI-generated art, and that’s also the point, right?” He adds that spotting AI-generated work isn’t the real issue—it ultimately comes down to the artist’s integrity. Plagiarism is plagiarism, whether it’s done through AI or by hand.

For some creators, the consequences are already personal. “I didn’t create music for months,” says rapper and jingle writer, Naveen Koomar. “I saw people using AI to make songs—complete productions, cloned voices, lyrics, everything.” His clients began using AI as a bargaining chip, leading to a quiet unraveling of confidence. “I started to doubt myself. There’s no USP anymore. Everyone’s an artist now. But lived experience can’t be replicated. ”

Koomar is particularly sceptical of comparisons to tools like Autotune. “Many people justify AI, calling it an extension of software. But it isn’t,” he says. Autotune enhances what already exists—it doesn’t bypass the creative process, he notes. 

Even artists who embrace AI with fewer reservations acknowledge the increasing pressure. Gupta admits that the line between human and machine is blurring fast. “In six months, you’ll see short films made entirely with AI tools. That emotional tell—that thing that lets you know it’s artificial—it’s going to disappear.” Similarly, Jha believes that “there is a clear devaluation of human inputs. Artistic merit is taking a backseat.”

Nain, meanwhile, offers a more tempered outlook. “Maybe we’ll evolve to treat AI as a collaborator,” he says. “And maybe, parallelly, we’ll see a premium placed on non-AI, hand-crafted work. But for most artists, AI will have to be part of the process. There’s no going back.”

For now, many are navigating a fragile middle ground—using AI for efficiency, but resisting full automation.  “AI has already been a supporting tool in editing software, video, and music recordings," says Koomar. He points to editing software and digital audio workstations where AI is used to clean up takes or reduce noise. "It helps you get a better take and supports the process." But the line, he says, is crossed when AI begins to replace the artist entirely. "That’s where I feel it stops being a natural progression."

However, maintaining the balance is still more draining than it appears. “It’s helpful,” admits Chatterjee, “but it’s also exhausting. You feel like you have to keep up, or your work becomes irrelevant.” That’s exactly the anxiety many artists share. The tools, on their own,  are not the enemy—but the terms of engagement matter. Where does collaboration end and co-option begin?

Gupta puts it plainly: “The emotional signature of an artist isn’t just brushstrokes or technique. It’s perspective. It’s a human story. That’s the flavour AI still lacks.”

But for how much longer?

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