Is AI Art REAL Art?

 The Introduction of AI Generated Art Poses a New Question: is AI Created Art REAL Art?

    Artists and scientists alike have been developing AI that can create art for the past fifty years. Recently, more and more AI systems are effectively creating art from detailed algorithms written by the artists/scientists with a specific outcome in mind. The first ever piece of AI generated art that was auctioned off, "The Portrait of Edmond Belamy" (located below), sold for $432,500. Their creations are appealing, and have an artistic sense to them, but are they really art?

("The Portrait of Edmond Belamy")

Created by tech company Obvious Collective

    I'm going to give a very basic, non-technical rundown of how AI uses the algorithms to develop its pieces. The algorithms represent a general set of "rules" that the AI system should fall under when analyzing and creating art. Within that algorithm, the AI will be trained to recognize and enforce a specific artistic aesthetic based on thousands of images. In turn, the system should then be able to generate its own version of the art, falling within the aesthetic guidelines it was programmed to follow.  The most common class of algorithm utilized in artwork AI is the general adversarial network system (or GAN). The word "adversarial" is used in this class due to the two facets presented in the algorithm: one part of the coding will generate random images, and the other will analyze them according to the aesthetic input, and designate which images align best with the input. 

    In the art world, the most common aesthetics being utilized are: novelty, surprise, complexity, ambiguity, and eccentricity, due to their functions as powerful stimuli. This has remained true for the past couple of decades in the art world. Because of this, within the GAN system of algorithm, many AI's generate images that are distorted in someway. While this was never the original intent of the creators, it has gained a lot of popularity due to the obscure photos that are created. 

                                (AI generated art using the GAN algorithm)

   The general opinion on artwork AI systems is that the AI is able to represent the many facets of artistic aesthetic in its pieces, and that the ability to create its own imagery based on certain contexts constitutes as true art creation. There is a lot of controversy, however, about the validity of the images as true art. While there is a lot of specific intent of the outcome during the creation and programming of the AI systems, there is no human interaction or influence during the actual creation and analysis process that the AI's go through. The machines themselves due the creating based on the input of their creators. These images are often warped or deformed in some way because that is part of the conceptualization of art. They are grasping the concept of ambiguity and demonstrating it in a way that fits with the input it has been given. 

    Ahmed Elgammal goes in depth about his team's creation of the AICAN AI system; an example of an artwork AI that uses the GAN algorithm. Elgammal offers his perspective of this controversy, which very well explains the creator's behind these system's feelings about the matter: "As a scientist, I created the algorithm, but I have no control over what the machine will generate. The machine chooses the style, the subject, the composition, the colors, and the texture. Yes, I set the framework, but the algorithm is fully at the helm when it comes to the elements and the principles of the art it generates. For this reason, in the all exhibitions where the art was shown, I gave credit solely to AICAN for each artwork." Check out his article in the American Scientist to learn more: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/ai-is-blurring-the-definition-of-artist

                                                (Some examples of AICAN developed artwork)

Author's Note:

    Overall, I think that AI generated art constitutes as artwork. It is a pretty crazy phenomena that we have given machines the ability to freely and creatively think and process information in such a way. However, there is one human aspect that these systems are missing. The images that are being created are pleasing, and fall under an artistic category, but are missing one main facet of the creative thinking process: inspiration. Humans are inspired to create by the things, people, places, etc... around them. These machines have the ability to be creative within the contexts they are given, but cannot be inspired by any other forces. This level of production is still a pretty advanced function, and I am very curious to see how Artificial Intelligence continues to be developed in the art world. 

Sources:

Elgammal, Ahmed. “Ai Is Blurring the Definition of Artist.” American Scientist, 14 June 2019, https://www.americanscientist.org/article/ai-is-blurring-the-definition-of-artist.

Choudhury, Ambika, and A Technical Journalist who loves writing about Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. A lover of music. “How AI Has Made Difference in the Art World in 2020.” Analytics India Magazine, 4 Dec. 2020, https://analyticsindiamag.com/how-ai-has-made-difference-in-the-art-world-in-2020/