Before one claims that AI art generators will replace artists, one needs to know how AI images and pieces of art are generated.
We often hear that AI is going to automate away or take over all human tasks, including those in art, film, and other creative industries. This because Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not only affecting industries like business and healthcare, but is also playing an increasing role in the creative industries by ushering in a new era of AI-generated art. AI technologies and tools are often widely accessible to anyone, which is helping to create an entirely new generation of artists.
AI is a supplemental tool that artists can use to explore new creative territories. Before one claims that AI art generators will replace artists, one needs to know how AI images and pieces of art are generated. The digital platforms through which creative people can generate art are proliferating: think of DALL-E, where, for instance, artists can create AI paintings. But the truth is that the use of AI art generators, from DALL-E to OpenAI, do not substitute the work done by artists and represent merely new weapons of expression.
According to Anne Ploin, a researcher at Oxford Internet Institute and a member of a team of researchers analysing the potential implications of artificial intelligence on creative work, AI art generators will not replace human artists. Instead, these programs will supplement their work by enabling them to produce high-quality pieces within a short period of time.
At Arrière-Garde, we truly doubt that AI art generators and AI at large will replace the function and the agency of those who are artistic among the human species. Proof of this is the Latin American artist Sofia Crespo, who created works with the help of artificial intelligence, and is part of the GENERATIVE ART movement: where humans create rules for computers which then use algorithms to generate new forms, ideas, and patterns.
Generative Art has begun to attract huge interest among art collectors—and even bigger price tags at auction. So, not only artists are in control and are managing AI; rather than being controlled or superseded by it, as they have also made of AI a profitable way of creating innovative and cutting-edge art.
US artist and programmer Robbie Barrat, a prodigy still only 22 years old, sold a work called "Nude Portrait#7Frame#64" at Sotheby's in March 2022 for £630,000 ($821,000). That came almost four years after French collective ‘Obvious’ sold a work at Christie's titled ‘Edmond de Belamy’—largely based on Barrat's code—for $432,500.
Drag to the side and check out some works by artist Robbie Barrat
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