culture

Is it really “art” if AI makes it?

George Washington University
Art & AI Lab, Rutgers
Genesis
Response
Penultimate
Finale

Ronald W. Dworkin

George Washington University

January 31st, 2022
To answer this question, one must first define art.
Some might say art involves the act of creation, as opposed to mere productive work. For example, a shoe is made by putting pieces of leather together. Although the leather can be put together in different ways, the shoe is still an article of leather, and is thought of as such. A painting, in contrast, is made of pigments and canvas, but it is not thought of as just a pigment-and-canvas object. The painting creates an illusion within the viewer’s imagination. It creates a whole new world.
If this were the definition of art, then AI could create art, because AI can apply pigments to a canvas and create an illusion. But this is not the definition of art.
Some might say art necessitates a brilliant medium. Thus, a Raphael Madonna is art because it is technically complex and detailed, compared to a Madonna painted by me. If this were the definition of art, then AI could create art, because AI can produce a complex and detailed Madonna. But this is not the definition of art.
Some might say art is beautiful. Hudson River School landscapes, for example, are beautiful. If this were the definition of art, then AI could create art, because AI can make beautiful objects. Philosopher Edmund Burke equated beauty with smooth lines. At the very least, AI can make smooth lines; therefore AI can make art. But this is not the definition of art. If it were, then it would negate much non-representational art as art, for such art is often not beautiful. Besides, beauty’s definition for the last two centuries has often been whatever pleases the upper classes at the moment, and whatever pleases them keeps changing. Somehow art’s definition should be more constant and enduring.
I subscribe to Tolstoy’s definition of art. Art is the activity whereby people communicate to other people, through some medium, feelings about life that they have experienced previously, such that other people experience those feelings in their own right and are affected by them. This explains why so much so-called abstract art these days is not really art, or even bad art. Such work communicates nothing to viewers, who are left confused and unmoved. Simple American folk art, on the other hand, is often art, as the artist communicates to others some feeling he or she experienced in the past. The Shaker song, “Tis a gift to be simple” is art.
Using this definition, AI cannot create art. AI has no mind with which to feel, and therefore no feeling to communicate to others. Even if AI could fake a feeling, it would be faking something in the present rather than drawing on a feeling once experienced. Again, not art. Thus, AI can entertain and make entertaining products, complex products, products that encourage illusion, and even beautiful products, but it cannot make art.
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