The Case for Human Art in A Post AI World
Art has always coexisted with humanity. Perhaps even defined us. We find art blooming in the most unexpected places and dire situations, from prisons to warzones, from physical ruins to financial ones. And it blooms through the whole range of human emotion, through suffering and rage, happiness and surprise, fear, and awe. We often create it out of nothing but ourselves and that magical spark within us.
Some may say that art is precisely the thing that separates us from the rest of the animal world. A solely human endeavor. Not so human anymore though, with AI art making leaps and bounds in recent times, creating pieces that win competitions and put most human artists to shame (and worry). And yet, is there something within art that we can keep for ourselves? Perhaps it is so.
Brief History of Art
Throughout history, art has been made for many different reasons and purposes. We can divide this art into many concrete periods, each with its own distinct flavor and zeitgeist. I, however, would like to focus on a few specific periods and artists.
Ancient Greek Art — Hellenistic Period (c. 323–31 BCE)
Greek Art during the Hellenistic period emphasized the realism and emotion of things. The goal was to capture the beauty of the world and the human form. In sculpture, Hellenistic pieces often feature dynamic, twisting poses and intense emotions.
The same can be most likely said for paintings during this period, but sadly many of them did not survive for us to recover.
The goals of Hellenistic artists were surely multifaceted but one clearly permeated this period — the desire to capture as much human complexity as possible. Here, art was all about skill. This type of art, while beautiful, will most likely not stand the test of AI. Tools like Midjourney are already known to produce beautiful realistic paintings. With the right prompt, one can craft pieces as beautiful as this one.
And although these are limited to mostly digital 2d paintings, progress is being made in the 3d field as well. Stable Diffusion for instance is another similar AI generation tool to Midjourney (except with open-source models and code). Currently, there is active progress in connecting this tool with Blender — a 3d modeling software. In a similar way, I believe most “realms” of art (music, painting, sculpture, etc…) will be conquered eventually, at least in the sense of realism. In a purely skill-based game, humans will inevitably lose. This is due to the way AI works. Right now, AI is trained to imitate humans and we reward imitation which is more impressive and closer to us.
Medieval Art (c. 500–1400 CE)
This era saw the rise of Christianity and Islamic art, both of which focused on religious themes. Byzantine art is known for its intricate mosaics, while Gothic art featured stained glass windows and tall cathedrals. Islamic art is known for its geometric patterns and calligraphy. The goal of this art was largely to teach and spread the teachings of religion. To glorify God, establish moral frameworks, and impart the stories of God to regular people who undoubtedly could not read them.
It could be argued that such art, art made with a purpose other than aesthetics, is safe from AI. I would agree, to an extent. However, just as AI can create ultra-realistic, aesthetic art, it can also make religious art. The only difference is that we now need a human to decide what exactly it is that this art will portray and accomplish. So while the human artist now has no worries regarding the brush strokes and the composition, the message inside the art is still under the human domain. This is due to the fact that for now at least, AI is still a tool without goals and desires of its own. We have to give it purpose, and so insofar as we are the creative being in the pairing, we can at least know that the creative spark behind art will remain ours.
For now, this is largely what AI art is. It has allowed regular humans to create beautiful art with almost zero time investment. Whether the human is considered an artist, or merely the consumer, is up to interpretation.
William Blake
William Blake (1757–1827) was a largely unknown artist during the Romantic period that is now considered to be one of the most influential artists of his time. During William’s life, however, his art was seen as bizarre and outlandish. His peers shied away from his peculiar personality and especially from his peculiar paintings.
His paintings, however, touched something deep within humanity itself. They explored the human psyche and depicted mystical scenes of grandeur, chaos, and beauty. Their very essence was imbued with meaning, and it was as if the paintings themselves were opening to us the mind of William Blake, and through him, the mind itself.
Saturn Devouring His Son by Goya, The Old Guitarist by Picasso, and Tivadar’s Old Fisherman... Each of these paintings is executed beautifully and skillfully, and each tells us a story. But, they do something more.
They show us the nature of the artists themselves, and through this revealing of that which cannot be said, they teach us something deep about ourselves.
We as humans alone can do this. The beauty in such visionary art lies in precisely the fact that it was sprouted from another similar, flawed, human brain. AI might imitate such great works eventually, but the insight and meaning will be lost when the ideas don’t come from within us.
That’s not to say that art made with the help of AI has no significance. In fact, I’ll venture to say that most of the significance and meaning captured in most human art can be similarly captured in art made with the help of AI. However, art whose purpose is to reveal and provide insight into the human psyche can only be produced by the human psyche itself.
