Essay // On Artificial Intelligence and human interaction with art.

Text and Artwork by Chester Carr, 28th March 2022

(The images above are AI generated variations of a digital sculpt)

Technology has been looming as a threat to trained artists for a while now, but it’s only recently that artificial intelligence has appeared as a true contender for creative dominance. Over the last few weeks an AI script called ‘Disco Diffusion’ has been causing a stir amongst digital artists. It is a script that can create artwork based on a user input such as - ‘Vincent Van Gogh, a colourful painting of a clock.’ With the click of a button the software will generate an image that looks eerily close to something Van Gogh himself might have painted. Artificial art is still in its infancy and as such, most works created using ‘Disco Diffusion’ appear more like psychedelic nightmares than impressionist studies, but AI capabilities are advancing fast.

For the working artist, the threat of such programmes might seem obvious. Industry by its very nature will take the cheapest and fastest route to attaining its output, and thus as technology evolves, art jobs will inevitably decline and the value of commercial artists will fall.

But what of the non commercial artist - the expressionist?

The rise of AI might also mean that conveying the madness of the human mind is no longer a hard won skill. It might mean that anyone - with just a few words, can see their visions and dreams come to life on a screen, and can share their dreams with the world. This might seem to some like a wonderful development of human achievement, but for those who have built their identity around being an artist these developments in technology might come with a cold wave of fear.
And I feel this fear - or at least my ego feels this fear. It pictures its inevitable doom because it has built itself upon artistic accomplishments, and to see a computer surpass it in skill is enough to send it spiralling into despair.
It fears that art itself will be denigrated to a playground of unconstrained madness - a fractal infinity of unbridled taste. When a machine can create a ‘painting’ that is as pleasing to the eye as something painted by a person, surely this diminishes the value of human accomplishment?

But when I brush my ego aside and look deeper into what the advance of AI technology might provide for the artist, I see a brighter future because art is not attached to aesthetics alone. It cannot survive without the milk of humanity. Art is a tool for human beings to make sense out of the madness that is reality. I would argue that it is not ‘art’ itself that will change with technology, but rather the way we interact with art. Perhaps ‘art’ might become more akin to a form of ritual - an exploration of the human mind rather than a means of expression.

So after much thinking I have decided to look upon artificial art as a new universe of madness which I can explore and curate and turn into coherent stories that touch upon my own humanity, and which I can in turn share with others in the hopes that it might touch upon theirs as well.

Having now spent some time experimenting with ‘Disco Diffusion, I am starting to understand how it can be controlled and manipulated to achieve more clarity in its output. Although it can generate work based on just a written prompt, it can also make abstract ‘paintings’ from a pencil sketch or scribble. This means it is possible to control the output by going back to traditional means of mark making and reducing the time it takes to turn a sketch into a presentable vision. The increasing ease of creative expression further bridges the gap between the internal mind and the external image. Given time, these softwares will become easier to use and more accessible. They will give people who might not consider themselves as capable artists a chance to fully express their ideas. So although it might seem like AI has the potential to unleash madness on the world, it might also help us all form a richer understanding of humanity and each other.

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