Having a career in IT in addition to my art career, I see and work with emerging technologies often. I have a different perspective than many. This could be because of my familiarity with information technology. Historically, we’ve seen major technological leaps which caused concern and chaos in the past. This is nothing new. Adoption is sometimes painful and difficult. Generative AI is a new technology which has “stirred the hornet’s nest”.

I’ve seen many reputable art publications paint a very negative picture of generative AI. I’ve also read MANY comment threads in artist groups on social media where it seems everyone is attacking AI. There is one area where I do agree with most people. There have been instances where an “artist” has generated an image using AI and then submitted it to a competition as their artwork. While this person may have creatively developed the prompts which ultimately generated the image, they did not create the image. The AI created the image using the prompts and its learnings to derive the result. In my opinion, the artwork was correctly disqualified from the competition.

Many believe that AI violates copyright and replicates an artist’s work. I disagree. AI looks at artwork from a data perspective, breaking down each piece into data points that represent color, texture, form, and composition. The crucial aspect of AI-generated art is that it doesn’t simply replicate existing artwork. While it learns from a vast dataset of images, it creates new combinations and interpretations that are not direct copies. For instance, if trained on Impressionist paintings, an AI might produce a piece that evokes the movement and light of Monet's work but doesn't replicate any specific Monet painting.

Ethically designed AI models are programmed to avoid producing exact replicas of the training data. They are meant to generate new, original content that stands on its own. This is akin to how an art student might be inspired by the works of the masters but create something entirely original that reflects their unique vision.

I see AI as another tool in an artist’s toolbox. I do not see AI as a threat to fine artists, but it is a threat to commercial artists if clients begin seeing AI as the cheaper alternative to hiring a professional commercial artist. I know several commercial artists and illustrators of book covers who have lost approximately 90% of their work to creators and publishing houses who feel they can now create the work themselves using AI.

In my view, the way generative AI learns is very similar to the way artists learn. As a student artist in art school or taking art classes, an artist studies works of art and styles of art with a goal of ultimately reaching what is their own style of creation. I recall way back in the day when I was taking private art classes in junior high and high school, my instructor, a very established regional artist, taught the students techniques for landscape painting and color combinations to use. I guess I was a rebel because, when I would enter art shows or exhibit my work, my work never looked like my instructor’s work. I can’t say the same of many of the other students. Walking through exhibitions, one could easily identify artists who were her students. In my studies, I have been an admirer of Richard Estes, Caravaggio, and Chuck Close. If you look at my work today, while my style is my own, one can see the influences of these artists in my work though my paintings aren’t replicas of their work. In my opinion, generative AI does the same. Generative AI studies volumes of artworks throughout the internet as humans do by visiting museums and galleries and studying art books. AI gains an understanding of the general concepts of a style or subject as humans do. As a human enters prompts into an AI generator such as “create a landscape in the style of Vincent Van Gogh”, AI reviews many images of landscapes and many images of Van Gogh works and generates what it believes satisfies the prompt based upon its learnings. Humans do the same.

I can see generative AI being used as a conceptual tool, giving the artist ideas to build upon when creating their own unique works of art. I see this as similar to an artist’s sketchbook, with drawings and value studies which may eventually be used to create finished pastel works, drawings, prints, or paintings. Do I believe an artist should generate prompts in AI which then result in an artistic concept and then replicate the resulting concept as an original piece of art? Definitely not. The result should be an which, when interpreted (not replicated) by the artist, results in a concept for a completed work.

I understand using generative AI is not for everyone. The purists will insist on sticking to the traditional means of generating artwork. However, looking through art history at the innovations used by historical artists to create art, I see generative AI as a next step in the artistic innovation evolution.