Can Artificial Intelligence Kill Creativity?
When Jason Allen, a video game designer, won the Colorado State Fair's Fine Arts Competition in the Digital Arts/Digitally-Manipulated Photography category with his piece 'Théâtre D'opéra Spatial', which was created with the help of the most popular artificial intelligence program Midjourney, a polemic arose about the state of art today, its future, and whether it is actually 'dying before our eyes'.
The winner of the contest simply explained that he wanted to stand out, emphasizing that he believes other contestants would do the same if only they knew such an option was available to them. In addition, Allen says, he used not only Midjourney but also Adobe Photoshop in the process to get a piece he was completely satisfied with.
In his work application, it was clearly emphasized that the image in question was created with the help of the mentioned AI program, the functioning of which he did not want to explain, considering that it would be equivalent to explaining how Adobe Illustrator works. All in all, the designer believes that he has nothing to apologize for, and it must be admitted that "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial" looks really fascinating.
Programs like Midjourney, which create an image with the help of text (text-to-image AI generator), are becoming more and more popular - the best proof of how they are slowly but surely becoming mainstream is their appearance in the currently most popular application - TikTok. Users have an AI greenscreen option at their disposal, with the help of which anyone can play with words to get a unique work that can then be used as a background for the video itself. If we look at this from the point of view of content creators, this option is more than welcome.
Everything that is new is foreign at the very beginning, and fear of the unknown is the oldest and strongest type of fear. Which is why we probably can't even blame artists who are worried about being replaced by a machine at some point. Still, Allen's action may just be a prelude to a scenario that doesn't necessarily have to be bad.
Andrija Grković, content & creative team lead of the Smartpoint Adria agency, points out that people from creative industries have always accepted new software with a certain amount of suspicion and wondered whether using it is the right way, whether it will kill creativity or open new horizons:
"Both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, as well as bootstrap solutions for web design, received partly negative comments, but they depended on the angle from which their appearance and development was viewed. If someone needs a quick solution, he can use certain software and its predefined solutions, but if they need an authentic and original solution adapted to the client, brand, market needs, target audience, campaign, it is necessary to extract the essence of all those segments and translate them into a solution that will properly convey the desired message. This by no means excludes the use of software - they are there to enable us to realize our idea as easily and precisely as possible."
Of course, it is always possible to find reasons for concern. AI art can be an ethical and copyright nightmare, and its programs are considered "intellectual property laundering machines."
Since artificial intelligence in this case works according to the principle of adopting and analyzing over five billion different photos, images, and other (digital) works found on the Internet, on the basis of which a "unique" creation is created, it is difficult to draw a line between what belongs to whom. Everything that exists on the Internet, even if it is protected by copyright, AI can use without any authorization - even if the works have a watermark or other mark of the author, such programs simply remove them during creation.
Some artists go even further, stating that the problem is actually moral in nature. We all look for inspiration in someone else's creativity, and when all the ideas are combined into one, it is possible to come up with a good solution. But even then, AI programs owe something to artists, but it is difficult to regulate this issue and set clear boundaries.
Given that text-to-image AI generator programs are mostly free to some extent but quite enough to be available to everyone, a lot of abuse is already happening. First of all, the Stable Diffusion program is under attack, known for creating extremely realistic and fake photos of celebrities, including Emma Watson, Natalie Portman, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift. Stable Diffusion is also criticized for the lack of "filters" that would regulate the creation of pornographic content whose victims are almost exclusively women. This kind of deepfake content incites violence, and in the worst case, it can imply that someone has committed a crime that actually wasn't.
However, probably the biggest concern that the application of artificial intelligence in the creative industries creates is the issue of replacing artists and their jobs with machines and programs that will be able to do everything they do - maybe even better. Many fear that AI is not there to make the job of creators easier, but to destroy what they have learned and perfected for years, in just ten seconds.
Predictably, this can be particularly problematic for designers and illustrators who are at the very beginning of their careers because few of them, at least financially, can probably replace a single text-to-image AI generator. However, as good as the AI works already look, they still need to be tweaked at least a little by the artist himself. But, bearing in mind that in many industries speed and quantity are more valued than quality, it is assumed that many will also accept "good enough" - just to invest less money.
On the other hand, Andrija Grković reminds us that some experts predict that the appearance of software that can do something good in the future in some industries will eliminate a certain percentage of positions, and he believes that this is quite certain. However, creatives can rest easy - at least that's how it seems, at least for now:
"The paradigm of creativity has not changed since we defined this term, and even before that - it was always people who came up with ideas. Children are the most creative inhabitants of the planet. Tools, machines, software, served and serve only as aids and another means for the game. Midjourney, for example, provides conceptual, rather complicated solutions, with a lot of detail, which is why their application in marketing campaigns and the marketing industry may be questionable at the moment. Just as Adobe Photoshop has improved, so will AI programs, thanks to which they will certainly find their use in the future, but I am convinced that the role of the creative person and the person who needs to come up with a solution, even then, will not change significantly - until the machines learn to play."
So, can artificial intelligence really kill art and creativity, and can its programs replace humans?
Philosophically speaking, art is a matter of humanity. Technology, however advanced, cannot create art as such - its works will always be a compilation of other human-made works, created with the help of an algorithm. Therefore, no machine or software can be original, which is, in a way, the essence of art and creativity.
AI does what it is told - if we can describe it, AI will be able to draw it. Artificial intelligence only imitates human intelligence, but it does not fundamentally understand the terms you enter in the request - it will statistically use everything it has "learned" from the available material, the author of which is still not itself. Technology today is indeed amazing, fascinating, and useful, but it is not creative in the way people understand creativity - it cannot feel what it creates, and without emotions, we can hardly talk about any kind of art.
Artificial intelligence will never be able to replace humans as long as it works with the help of humans and humans' input. Any progress in this sense should be seen not as a danger but as an opportunity for new and different ways of creative expression, as a tool with which we can achieve more and be even better at what we do. That is why the future of art is not to defeat AI but to collaborate with it, to accept changes and implement them to the extent that they do not threaten human creativity. Also, artists themselves will be the ones to decide how they want to work - independently or with the assistance of artificial intelligence as their assistant.
AI can help artists with the initial idea – it can come up with different options that can serve as inspiration faster; it will be useful in creative optimization since it can understand how certain visuals affect certain groups of people and their emotions, and it will also help with bias identification - once the AI learns what to pay attention to, it will warn you every time you create something that goes against the views or needs of your audience.
"In the creative industries, the essence of any employee is to make their irreplaceability in the whole system as great as possible. Anyone can use and customize templates. But if you have an original, creative idea, if you have a team behind you researching topics and gathering data and information, it completely changes the way you are viewed as a professional. That's the point," Andrija believes.
He adds that in this industry, it is also important to do what we love, to try to be as good as possible at it, and not to give up when we don't feel "creative enough" - we often come up with the best ideas and solutions at the moment when it seems to us that our search is aimless and that we will not succeed.
David Holz, the founder of the AI program Midjourney, believes that artificial intelligence can only contribute to the development of art in the future. He likens this to how people did not stop walking when cars were invented; cars simply facilitated movement and contributed to the improvement of society as a whole. Similarly, if painting has survived despite the development of photography, it is certain that art will also survive the development of AI and every subsequent technological invention.
Concluding this discussion, Andrija made the following point: "Software is here and will always be here - in fact, many of them provide really good solutions. However, having enough money and skills to use them means nothing if you do not have experience, a large number of projects behind you, broader knowledge, interests, and if you do not work on all segments of your creativity every day. Creativity also involves reading books, traveling, socializing with people, looking for solutions, and no software can replace that yet."
Finally, we must address an interesting question: if we are not artists because we only type words into a text-to-image AI generator, and an artist is not an artificial intelligence either because it cannot work alone or understand and feel what it creates, then who is the artist? It can be said that it is actually all of humanity, everyone who has ever created any work from which artificial intelligence has learned and integrated into itself. Bearing all this in mind, is it right to see as an enemy what we ourselves have created and in whose development are we participating?
For Netokracija website text written by: Ivana Tomić, Smartpoint Adria Brand Specialist
Photo: Théâtre D’opéra Spatial, commons.wikimedia.org