Why Artists will never be replaced by Artificial Intelligence

Will Human Creativity always be favored over Computational Creativity?

You may have heard about automation becoming commonplace in a range of previously human jobs; the scope of what the machines can do faster and more efficiently than us increases with each passing day. Jobs that were believed to remain exclusive to humans — those jobs that involve creativity and artistic judgement — are already being invaded (or augmented, as will be highlighted through the course of this article) by machine learning and AI.

This question is the first step toward establishing whether a piece of art created by a machine that possesses ‘artificial’ intelligence can effectively be termed an ‘original’ piece of art. In order to make this demarcation, there needs to exist a universally-accepted definition of art. However —

— there is no single definition of art.

Art can be any entity or form that invites human reflection and contemplation, with no mention of the means through which the artwork was produced. Other definitions may underscore the importance of the means or of the human touch — an inherent, individual skill and creativity without the application of which a piece of art cannot qualify as art.

The definition of art provided by the Dictionary.com effectively establishes the importance of the ‘human’ quality in art. According to Dictionary.com, art is ‘the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.’ There are numerous terms in this definition that make it innately human. For instance, the emphasis on ‘human creative skill and imagination’, imagination being the keyword, underscores the necessity of an individual’s contribution to the creation of art. Furthermore, it may be imperative for there to be a purpose or strong emotions or other similar motivations for the viewer to feel emotional power from the artwork, which may consequently require a human source. However, the researchers at AAIL, through their aforementioned Turing test, have also proved that an input of human emotion is not required for the viewers to feel that a piece of art is evocative.

Although AI can produce images that are on par or exceed the level of a human artist’s comprehension of creativity, there does not have to be any replacement of human ingenuity. On the contrary, AI can and should be viewed as a tool to augment human endeavors in the field of creativity, as it does in any other field. Similar to the idea of a paintbrush, AI facilitates artistic expression by being the means to an end. AI is one of the inflection points in the evolution of artistic expression through the centuries. It may even lead to unforeseen domains of elevated human creativity with the partnership of a machine in the near future.

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