Team 16

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Virtual Artistic

Creations

Such an impact that AI development has had has affected different industries and the art world cannot
be the exception. At the beginning, many of us including us reacted negatively when seeing digital art
being created by machines (Boden, 2014). In the end, the biggest question remains unanswered-can a
machine develop what really comes from the depth of the heart, what makes art - the unedited feeling,
the individual touch?

We felt the latter was absurd, for antinomy alone follows from the traditional idea of art as an
expression of the soul, something personal and unique, that we thought could be a manifestation of
the absolute. In other words, although we found that to be one of the main components, we read more
research articles and discovered the limitations of that method.

The example, taken from Leonardo the digital art's mouthpiece and published in the magazine, shows
that the designers have always depended on the tools and technology as the means of expressing
themselves (Oliveira, 2019). From chisels and brushes to photography and videos, these instruments
have leapfrogged the boundaries and offered new means of expression. AI thus becomes one of many
artistry gadgets in our armamentarium, but it is a mighty tool with an immense potential.

This capacity is also mentioned by Margaret Boden, who is a distinguished scholar of artificial
intelligence. Boden is of the view that AI, acting as a 'computational muse', can execute tasks such as
the coming up with ideas and exploring artistic possibilities that humans cannot even imagine (Boden,
2014). This coincides with our own discoveries of AI-generated graphics and music produced by AI,
that are both creative and technique far exceeding human power. They lead to the whole new world of
art.

However, another study titled AI in Society cautions against the idea AI as an independent creator and
on the other hand redefines the significance of human cooperation (Bostrom & Yudkowsky, 2014). In
the text that supports the study with the work of artists like Mario Klingemann around the subject, the
researcher asserts that the most effective AI art occurs as the result of a mutually beneficial
partnership between the human and machine. AI can do tedious jobs like pictures production,
whatever artists do is acting and their expressions, direction, and what they intend to show.

This partnership model correlates with our view that AI is most useful when it acts as a tool that
augments artistic human creativity, rather than a replacement. It settles the questions which we talked
about before related to the lack of feelings in the machine-made art. With its human touch, AI art can
go from a marvel of technical accomplishment to a heartfelt story.

Nevertheless, the ethical issues, discussed in an article called "AI, Bias and accountability’" published
in Minds and Machines, should not be simply ignored (Selbst et al., 2020). The biases detected in the
Team 16

data used to train AI algorithms would lead to biased outputs in art. Furthermore, the democratization
of AI technologies such as the one which have been researched by James Bridle raise questions
concerning the value which is assigned to human creativity and the possibility that traditional
knowledge will be undervalued (Bridle, 2021).

In the end, our inquest into the purpose of AI in the digital art processes has been a journey of
exploration and debunking. The advent of AI gives expression to all the new vistas of art. However,
the real worth of AI comes into play when it works as a partner of human artists. Such partnerships
should not only be welcomed but also ethical dilemmas should be resolved as well to utilize the full
power of AI in the art industry, so that technology supports harnessed instead of replacing the human
creative endeavour.

References:

1. Boden, M. A. (2014). Computer music and the mind: Exploring the creative process in music, art, and science.
Springer.
2. Bridle, J. (2021). New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future. Verso.
3. Bostrom, N., & Yudkowsky, E. (2014). The smarter they get, the more they need us. Foreign Affairs, 93(2), 38-47.
4. Oliveira, M. (2019). The role of technology in artistic creation: A historical perspective. In Leonardo Electronic
Almanac (Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 157-164). MIT Press.
5. Selbst, A. D., Boyd, D., & Gebru, T. (2020). Fairness concerns with algorithmic control. ACM Transactions on
Information Systems (TOIS), 38(4), 1-36.