AI art is not art
My prompt for this AI image: “generate an image of starry night by van gogh, but make it greyscale”
AI art is not, by definition, art.
The definition of art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.” See that? It says “human” creative skill. Not robots. Wikipedia defines art as “a diverse range of cultural activity.” You see? Cultural. AI doesn’t have a culture.
Of course, this argument is ridiculous and disingenuous. Art has much deeper meaning and impact than can be summed up in a dictionary definition. Art is not just a thing that we place on walls or play on stereos. Art is culture manifested, expressed, and challenged. AI can be used in the creation process, and it has already been involved in many works of art we consider meaningful.
But these definitions still linger in my mind. “Human creative skill.” “Cultural activity.” Maybe this is why AI image generation or song generation can feel so empty. It’s not just that we don’t quite get what we imagined in our minds. It’s that we don’t feel any pride in the work we had to do to bring something to life. While successful prompting is a hard-earned skill, will it ever feel as meaningful as learning to play guitar or paint?
We may just see an artistic renaissance soon, birthed out of rebellion against AI images. Art of pure originality, that can’t be predicted, or prompted, or aggregated.
