What is AI Art and How it Will Impact the Future?

Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a drastic change in almost all sectors, especially in the creative world. This global impact not only forced many businesses to go online but also triggered a series of shifts away from traditional norms. However, one of the most significant transitions of the outbreak is the use of artificial intelligence in the art industry which has given birth to a new kind of art known as “AI art”.  

Is AI creative? This is a question that many have started to ask because they think that art is something that is created by humans and is influenced by inspiration. Hence, many people feel its creative nature is minimal for artwork. Although some see it as a threat to long-standing traditions while others wonder if it will ultimately benefit them. But, you will agree with me that AI's capabilities are impressive to behold.

Stay tuned as this article will explain the prospects for AI art, its comparison with human creativity, and the promising future of AI in the art world.

What is AI Art?

AI Art can be defined as any type of digital art produced or improved by using AI techniques. It is a creative technique that is often referred to as audio creation and is also linked with visual art such as pictures and videos. As a matter of fact, AI art is known as an artistic model that allows people with little or no creative aptitude to generate an infinite variety of art forms.

Furthermore, AI art is a broad field of art and technology that behold creativity in different forms. For example, “generative art” – a subset of AI art – is a model created by an algorithm that follows predetermined guidelines to produce original images. Having this kind of artistic generative AI tool can assist with the production of abstracts and designs without a waste of time.

Brief History of AI Art

As we all know past activities and present actions play a significant role in predicting the future. Therefore, before we delve into the pros and cons of AI in art and creativity, let’s take a quick look at the history of AI art.

The first known AI art production program that also marks the beginning of AI art history is AARON – a software developed in 1973 by scientific artist Harold Cohen. Harold's program was a symbolic AI assistant designed to assist in the production of black-and-white artistic drawings during his era. However, In 2014 (i.e. 41 years later) the development of Generative adversarial networks (GANs) took place. Although GANs weren't created specifically to generate art, they are now heavily involved in it.

To further advance this discipline, Google launched DeepDream in 2015 which is a CNN experimental approach to AI art that generates graphics in response to a text command. Fast-forward to 2021, Open AI – the creators of CHAT GPT – developed the first widely used text-to-image program called DALL-E. All thanks to the release of the DALL-E program which ignited the spirit of developing AI-generated images. Later on, during the early months of 2022, an open-source development community started creating AI art generators like Leonardo, Midjourney, etc.

Pros and Cons of AI Art

Using AI in art and creativity has grown beyond measure as it has been a vessel unto honor for many renowned artists for their creativity and innovation. However, as we all know, every rose has a thorn, so let us look at some of the benefits and drawbacks of AI artwork.

To begin with, what are the advantages of AI art? Some features of AI art that set it aside are:

• Innovative and Creative Production: When it comes to the aspect of producing original artwork similar to no other, AI art is known to be blessed with these attributes. Its inbuilt algorithm can generate a wide range of innovative works of art that even serve as a source of inspiration for many artists.
• Cheap and Easy to Get: To use or get an AI art program comes with no stress as everybody can gain access to it with the aid of a computer. Apart from that, most of its applications are often available on the Internet at a cost-free rate.
• Generate Art without any Delay: Most artificial intelligence art – particularly the generator art – is known to be an inventive model that produces artwork accurately and efficiently. For example, the Midjourney AI art is one of many that is said to process organic art in a matter of minutes.
• Versatile and Cooperative in Nature: Aside from being an art tool, generative AI is also a program that applies a wide range of disciplines including business. They are software that permits subtle collaboration of human knowledge with technological intelligence.

With the above information, we can see that AI art possesses some crucial features that bring several advancements to the world of art. Now let's also discuss some of its possible drawbacks.

• Lack of Emotion: Many art experts often describe most artificial intelligence art pieces as ones without inspiration or authenticity. Sometimes, they often feel sterile and often appear as stolen or mimicked art.
• Greatly Depends on Technology: On most occasions, concerns about the ingenuity of AI art have always been raised because of its complete reliance on algorithms. Apart from being termed to produce fake artwork, this dependency poses the reduction of creativity and traditional artistic abilities of artists.
• Decrease in Creativity: The use of AI art can also lead to a reduction in human artistry as many will always want to produce art with the aid of the program.

AI Creativity vs Human Creativity

With no more ado, we can see that most of the various pros and cons stated above are invariably explaining some AI art and Human creativity differences. Also, in contrast to human ingenuity, AI is unmatched in its capacity to analyze enormous volumes of data and spot patterns. Its creativity compared with that of humans offers a less distinctive viewpoint and innovative ideas.

Conclusion: The Future of Gen AI in the Art World

Several advancements in generative art are expected to have a big impact on art in the near future. Apart from that, it is believed to challenge our conventional concept of art, and also expand the limits of creativity. Even its historical knowledge demonstrates that advances in AI art are not a threat but rather a means of improving artworks. Therefore, as time goes on, the world of art is believed to undergo a series of revolutions whereby Gen AI and human creativity will work together perfectly and effectively.