Will AI Be the Death of Art?

“I am sensitive to beauty. We don’t speak of beauty anymore. In art criticism, we don’t mention beauty. It is out of fashion. But it isn’t really beauty. It’s an inner sense, and it makes us happy. It’s not complicated. We need it.”

-Etel Adnan

There’s been a lot of news about AI recently. A lot of hand-wringing in the art community. That it will be the death of art. Why paint when AI will be able to produce something just as realistic? Will there even still be a market for human-made art? Does Art go beyond the limitations of an AI prompt?

AI can do so much, emulate so many styles and subjects, and it’s always improving. The faraway horizon is coming closer. If you unknowingly liked an image generated by AI, what would be your reaction when you found out? Would you feel tricked? Would it matter? Or is the image itself the only thing that matters? What does it mean for us when a computer can generate images of comparable veracity and (potentially) physical beauty to what a human can do?

All of which is compelling to think about academically, but dodges the crux of the conversation to me, because it focuses solely on the relationship between the final product and the viewer, and not at all on the experience of the artist making art. As I see it, there are two sides to the Art coin- the viewer (the consumer)of art, and the maker. And how AI may relate to each is different.

I don’t think that AI-generated images are the death of Art, because someone must still “be behind the curtain, pulling the strings” imagining and refining the thing. But it could be the death of painting as a mass-media commercial endeavor. There’s something to unpack there. Yet even then, what does that mean to us as painters, as fine artists? Why are we painting? And what are we really selling?

What Am I Experiencing? How Am I Experiencing It?

We live in a very product-focused culture. We are interested in the results of actions, but not so much in the process. If you experience joy making something, but you know it’s not the Mona Lisa, the public mentality is often “What’s the point?” That experience is not what is valued. But, as the person living the experiences which I go through, it is the only essential thing.

I had been thinking about this, about the power and inner value of making art (long before we get to the final product), about how making art can heal and connect us… to the world, to each other, to ourselves... when I came across an interview with artist Etel Adnan. She was close to the end of her life at the time, and in it, she spoke slowly and with great clarity about the act of making art.

“(Art) is more than shapes and color. It’s more than what you see. It’s a total inner world,” she said. “If you feel something strongly, it comes out if you want it or not. You can’t escape that. So I do respond to the beauty of the place, of people, of language, of color. And if I feel, it comes whether I want it or not. When we work, our whole being participates in what we do. It’s more than just thinking. It’s who you are… (that) you cannot escape from. It’s going to follow you like your shadow. And it will come out. So, let it come out.”

It is that experience— releasing yourself, funneling yourself— which AI cannot replicate. It cannot feel for me. It cannot experience making art for me. It cannot experience for me the connection making art creates between myself and a place, between myself and others, where I am channeling a live current through myself into the painting.

Beyond that, if we look at the situation just as a viewer and not as the maker, a painting created by AI cannot even be a conduit to that making-experience. It’s hollow on the other side. There is no experience for me to connect to through the art itself.

The Value of Participation

We live in a culture where not many people really make art. It’s sort of like how people used to learn to play instruments, but now most of us just listen to the music others make. We don’t make art so much ourselves, but rather experience the art of others. As I said before, the act of making isn’t particularly valued. If it was, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion about AI. Businesses would want to pay for the privilege of hiring that painter behind the image, because it would have value to the consumer.

Instead, a lot of consumers think of art only as a noun— a thing you hang on your wall for decoration, or put on your website, or use in advertising. And of course it is all those things. But it is also, or rather firstly— a practice, a verb, a way of seeing, a way of relating to the world. This disconnect has long-reaching effects, particularly when we begin to discuss the public perception of AI-generated art. If you have no appreciation for how art is created, if you’re only interested in the final product, why shouldn’t AI art be just as “good” as what we, as humans, create?

The more that people paint, the more the experience of making art is understood, and the more the product starts to have value first as a conduit to the experience of making it— to another human, to a place. Not as an object alone, like an orphan, but as pathway back to the creative act. Etel touches on this too in the interview too, speaking of the works of Van Gogh.

“If you look attentively, you can see his inner problems. His fights. You know him intimately, more through his canvases than if you were talking to him.”

This is what art made by humans can offer.

Image-Makers versus Painters?

Of course, sometimes a business just wants an image. And I guess AI will eventually be able to offer that. I think about how box stores like Blockbuster strangled mom and pop video stores out of business, only to be itself removed by Amazon. It’s the same story for big bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Nobles. What did they all offer, besides cheaper prices and a larger selection of common titles? They sure didn’t offer service, that’s for sure. And I guess we, as Americans, didn’t really care. Why? Because almost all of us went to Blockbuster or Borders or Kmart instead. The proof is in the pudding. I think it’s something similar with AI, in terms of what it offers. Cheap, more readily available images.

And on one hand, that sounds practically apocalyptic. But is it really very different from CGI rigs used by Pixar taking over for hand-drawn Disney animation? Or manufactured furniture replacing handmade tables and chairs? Or cellphones and Photoshop filters taking over for manual cameras and developing negatives in the dark room? Or that we’ve moved on from (the fantastic, lovely, tactile experience) of letterpress printing, and instead can cheaply and ubiquitously format and print a novel or book of poetry from our own home?

In each example, the manual craft of doing something disappears and is replaced by a simpler, easier, cheaper tool. Does it mean no one animates by hand anymore, or that no one makes handmade furniture, or that no one does letterpress printing? No, not at all! But it does change things. Instead, it becomes a fine art- something you do for the pleasure of it, that is less efficient and (potentially) more expensive than the typical way, and which select consumers like because they appreciate the special handmade skill of its creation.

So, perhaps there will come a point when we’ll have someone professionally called an Imager or an Image-maker or whatnot, and they’ll give all the thoughtful prompts to an AI that are needed to create various images for commercial purposes. And a fine artist will be a rarer breed, someone who paints (Literally with actual paint!! Amazing!! On real, old-timey paper?!?!) for the joy and solace we find in the act of creation, in the pleasure of the materials.

The Object is What Remains

I love paintings. I own my fair share. I love going to museums. I sell them! LOL! So I don’t want to suggest that the objects of art-making (paintings) don’t have value. Quite the opposite in fact. They’re wonderful. Magical even, sometimes.

But I know, too, that paintings are like the impression a wave leaves on the beach. The curve of foam and the impression of its body on the sand. It is not the wave itself. It’s not the experience of being the wave. The process of art making is where art’s real magic lies- both as a maker, and as a viewer. AI can’t replicate that. Just like it can’t dance or sing for us- only we ourselves can do that with our own bodies.

So, my deepest response to this conversation about AI is to lean into the inherent value the experience of making art provides. What makes it special is that we’ve painted it, with our own hands holding a brush, in a certain time and place in our lives. Specificity.

Why do those who can afford to, buy handmade soaps or baskets or furniture? Because they provide special scents and options unavailable otherwise. Because the buyer wants to support creators making something unique. Why do LPs outsell CDs (and are growing in sales), when everyone could just listen to music electronically on their phone? Because some folks want the experience an LP provides- to open it up, the tactile experience of putting a needle on a record and looking at the physical album art, the thoughtfulness of stopping and really focusing on music. Why do people still go to see live theater? Why do teens still want to learn to act?

Similarly, I feel we, as artists, should be thinking- What does creating art offer me? What is special to me that I can share through my art, that AI could never know about? What goes beyond an AI prompt?

If you want a pug smoking a cigar for your business logo, done in the style of so-and-so, perhaps AI is legitimately for you. AI is about prompts and emulating what has already happened, already been done. But if you want to hike into the redwoods and paint plein air, or sit on the bluff above the ocean and feel the wind while you really, really pay attention, or to recreate a special moment you have in a photo that no one else knows about… well, then art will never die.

What is the experience you want to have when making art? What is the experience you want to connect to when you purchase art?