In the past year, debates about artificial intelligence have taken over public discourse.
The use of AI in art and content creation raises moral issues. Because many AI are trained on human-created samples (including Aesthetics for Birds!), artists and other creators find it exploitative, some demanding compensation. But there are others who argue that AI will help artists, especially those with accessibility needs.
It raises aesthetic and artistic questions, too. Is AI art actually even art? If it is, could it ever be good art? AI rattles our existing concepts of artistry and creativity. It forces us to rethink the fundamental purpose of art. Perhaps it spells the end of art practices as we know them.
We asked eight scholars working in these areas to comment on the current state of art and AI. Their wide-ranging reflections, from Roland Barthes and Arthur Danto to Taylor Swift and LEGO pieces spilled on the floor, try to uncover what’s most human in art, and why we should care about that at all.
Our contributors are:
- Melissa Avdeeff (she/her), Lecturer of Digital Media, University of Stirling
- Claire Benn (she/her), Assistant Professor, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge
- Lindsay Brainard (she/her), Assistant Professor of Philosophy, The University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Alice Helliwell (she/her), Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Northeastern University London
- Adam Linson (he/him), Assistant Professor of Computing & Communications, Open University (UK) and Co-Director of the Innogen Institute (Open University & University of Edinburgh)
- Elliot Samuel Paul (he/him), Associate Professor of Philosophy, Queen’s University, and
Dustin Stokes (he/him), Professor of Philosophy, University of Utah - Steffen Steinert (he/him), Assistant Professor at the Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section, Delft University of Technology