Word Count: 1273, 10-min read
By Amelia Wyatt
AI generated art has been the hot-button topic of discussion recently, especially as encroaching advancements of AI generated art are feared to replace human artists in the post Chat-GBT era. Does AI art get to call itself ‘art’ in the traditional sense? I find defining where the meaning of art is generated a complex inquiry, human or otherwise. If AI-generated art lacks original intention, but to similar aesthetic ends, does it still bear the title ‘art’? This question tugs to an overarching inquiry behind art philosophy, a question of just where meaning comes from in art. Many situate meaning within the intent of the artist. Certainly, human-created art can express intention through detail. But not all meaning is intentional, nor all intention have profound meaning.
To start, I thought it useful to research different frameworks of thought regarding defining art.
As early as the 4th century, an Aristotelian understanding of art viewed art as an actualization of the innate desire to imitate the world. The role of art is to replicate reality as ‘a copy of a copy’ so to speak, and art should both create catharsis for the creator and imprint a moral lesson on the consumer (Roy). Since the beginning of art itself, art has always been a form of simulated reality (though with a different connotation to simulated reality in the context of AI).
Art is not reality, but an abstraction, and where that divergence splits is where meaning really begins. Art, through its evolution, can be so removed from physical reality as to blur reality instead of clarifying it along moral rationale as Aristotle had hoped. Certainly, movements like l’art for l’art (“art for art’s sake”) in the 19th century are a great example of anti-conventionalism. ‘Art for art’s sake’ rejects any utilitarian understanding of art, and urges that art within itself is its own justification (Art Story). This was in contrast to the rising, Marxist understanding of art as a political arm, to political ends. ‘Art for arts sake’ is not just anti-politics, but also in protest to the long-held standard of art as purposed for spreading religious ideology, especially Christian biblical stories.
So, defining art has never been readily agreed. How do we situate AI generated art within this rickety history?
I want to start coming in the 20th century, where we see the definition of art further schism within the rise of conceptual art. This pop-art, which often focused on anti mass-consumerism criticisms, became en vogue. Here, I think it useful to study Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes to frame the discussion of meaning in art, then relating to where AI fits within this tradition (Roy).
Brillo Boxes, Andy Warhol, 1964
While most art goes about making itself meaningful by exhaling its subject, Warhol distinguishes his art by replicating the mundane almost exactly (except instead of using the exact product, replicating with wooden blocks). This falls within the framework of conceptual art, which appeals to reason above any sense, most acutely asking the consumer to imbue the artwork with meaning that is not apparent at first glance (Poggi). By refusing to create explicit meaning within the art, the consumer’s mind swims to find a rational for Warhol displaying the boxes as subject in the first place, likely leading to conclusions about the souless-ness of mass consumerism associated with Warhol. Yet even Warhol heeded assigning excessive meaning to his art:
If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface: of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it
Andy Warhol
(Mattick)
What conceptual art showcases is the onus of the viewer of art in identifying—and most times, creating—its meaning. If the consumer is the generator of meaning in art, then why does generative AI art still feel lesser to human-made art, if it can equally compel the viewer to commentary, conclusions, or catharsis? As the TA in my tech-ethics class said in a lecture about this subject—why can’t we just look at AI art and be satisfied?
I do not have a satiating answer. If anything, this is a moment where I wish an AI could generate a neat, wholly applicable response. But I do think that dissatisfaction points to an answer itself, which is that there is some essence to art that is beyond mechanical means, that cannot be encapsulated within code, and that exists at the limen of reality and reality’s subjective abstraction.
Creating hard-line definitions between human art and AI generated art is a misnomer, because even AI generated art is always created in the mimicry of the human, artistic tradition. Even the input text has a bias to the human electing the key phrases as alt text, and AI is trained on the infinite data set of art history which then can be simulated.
Yet, creating definitive categories may prove useful soon, especially within questions of intellectual property. The legal parameters of art have always been contested. Between copyright, trademarks, and patents, the de jure definition of art is as follows: limited, original, and specific works can be owned. Copyright, for example, must be tangible; one can’t own an idea, but certainly can own an original speech, poem, book, or piece of fine art (St. Francis Law).
This copyright is limited to the author’s life plus seventy years, but of course, AI doesn’t have a lifespan like a human being. Moreover, like Ricardo in my discussion group pointed out, could an AI have any legitimate entitlement to its intellectual property? The companies pouring millions into the AI’s creation certainly will claim stake, though these types of algorithms are trained on the free data set of human artists’ work. No art is created in isolation, but ownership of art has always been agreed to exist within a legal perimeter that seeks to define mine and yours.
The antiquated idea of owning intellectual property, even within the abridged history of the social internet, just can’t keep up. Within the repost culture of the social internet, trying to ‘own’ a trend, meme, or viral clip is wildly impractical. While some repost accounts such as @fatjewish have run have become illustriously wealthy off disputably ‘stolen’ content, those within government institutions have done little to catch up (Abad-Santos).
Owning art may become a thing of the past. In the age of infinite emulation, I wonder why we choose to separate AI generated art in the lineage of art production. Art itself has always been an imitation of reality since Neanderthals created the first hand stencils in the Maltravieso caves of Spain some 64,000 years ago (Pike). Art (by definition) is form of simulated reality, and AI could be understood as just a more sophisticated tool of this millennia old impulse.
Defining art—by its methods, intention, or execution—I find dangerous, because reducing art to a mechanical methodology makes us no different than the AI from which we claim to be so much different. Perhaps it is the ineffable qualia of art is the grand distinction for which we are all searching between generated and human art, greater than the sum of its parts.
Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Picture by Mariano Cecowski
Citations
Abad-Santos, A. (2015, August 19). The fat jew’s Instagram plagiarism scandal, explained. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2015/8/19/9178145/fat-jew-plagiarism-instagram
Art Story . (n.d.). Art for art’s sake – modern art terms and concepts. The Art Story. https://www.theartstory.org/definition/art-for-art/
Roy, A. (2023, June 22). What is art?. Medium. https://medium.com/illumination/what-is-art-4a1e33d54bd5
Mattick, Paul. “The Andy Warhol of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Andy Warhol.” Critical Inquiry 24, no. 4 (1998): 965–87. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1344114.
Law, St. F. (2021, April 15). Intellectual property rights: Definition and examples. St Francis School of Law. https://stfrancislaw.com/blog/intellectual-property-rights/#:~:text=There%20are%20four%20main%20types,protect%20the%20same%20intangible%20assets.
Pike , A. (n.d.-b). Earliest cave paintings were made by neanderthals. Earliest Cave Paintings Were Made By Neanderthals, Scientists Discover | University of Southampton. https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2018/02/neanderthals-art.page
Poggi, D. (2023, September 4). Andy Warhol. Brillo Boxes (1964). 3 minutos de arte. https://www.3minutosdearte.com/en/fundamental-paintings/andy-warhol-brillo-boxes-1964/