As a self-identified “creative,” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat skeptical about the idea of AI-assisted art. But unlike what some click-baiting media outlets might tell you, artificial intelligence isn’t out to steal your job. Instead, these AI exist as a way to explore the possibilities creation and to be a collaborative player in the world of art and other fields alike.
Technologies like drawing tablets and online music mixers have been around for a while now and have been used as tools in order to create something that may have been either more difficult or not possible at all without it, but a person still makes the art. AI created art is just that, art created by the AI. Ben Dickson’s article, “The Artist in the Machine: The bigger picture of AI and creativity,” takes a look at some of the way artificial intelligence is being utilized in creative ways, as described in Arthur I. Miller’s book, The Artist in the Machine. What Dickson argues is that AI are capable of creating “art” but whether the works are complete, creative, and worthy as art is as subjective as art itself.
AI are tools in the same way a drawing tablet is. Dickson says, on the creative process, “as long as we think of creativity as pure information processing, it’s easy to envision artificial intelligence as replacing it in its entirety.” But that way of looking at the creative process can be a bit reductionist. Human ideas — and therefore art — aren’t always solutions to problems; sometimes they are organic and without purpose.
If we look at jobs outside the art world, artificial intelligence is already being utilized and companies are looking to churn out more technology in the near future. This isn’t surprising though, and it can often be a good thing. AI can be utilized in field like journalism for the purpose of data collection and factual reporting, and in manufacturing for the purpose of improving production. Even in my own job, working at home as a writing consultant for my university, I sometimes turn to Siri on my phone to answer a quick question that may have taken longer to type into a search bar. Online grammar checkers and citation machines, while not always being a hundred percent correct, are also great starting resources for writers.
I don’t see going to Siri the same as going to a friend for an answer or advice. When we talk about AI replacing humans the conversation often goes to a fearful one — fear of losing work, fear of AI taking over. If we understand that AI can function as tools to help ease tasks for humans, instead of looking to AI to replace things like human compassion and connection.
Like Dickson said on AI created art, “we don’t have any evidence that shows human creativity can also be encoded in dumb, information processing algorithms. But like previous successes in AI, we might find surprises in our own creations.” An all or nothing, black and white view on the utilization of AI across different fields does more to halt our exploration of the pros and cons of the technologies than it does to progress it. Technophobes and technochauvinists alike are sure to find that the best course of action is a collaborative one: seeing what AI can do before making moves to destroy or capitalize on it.