cOur society is fast becoming accustomed to artificial intelligence algorithms that suggest to us what to read, listen to, watch, conditioning our choices mostly unconsciously. On the one hand, there is a growing trust in these new technologies on the part of the public, on the other hand, there is a strong scepticism, if not outright fear.
Today, we are witnessing the flourishing of online AIs that generate text and images, which are easily accessible; the best known examples are ChatGPT and BARD: the former, suitably trained, returns a textual output on the basis of received instructions, the latter offers the user the possibility of choosing between different results produced by a command. But there are many others, some generating new images from either groups of images or textual input, with different characteristics depending on whether they are used in different fields: art, architecture, design, advertising, cinema, science.
Can artificial intelligence therefore replace the artist?
Focusing on the use of AI in the artistic field, we know that, to date, these algorithms have the ability to learn existing data and order information, but do not have the capacity to invent new knowledge or propose new aesthetic theories. Yet the common idea is that AI can replace the artist precisely because of their ability to generate images and texts. However, to date, AIs are and should be considered as tools, precisely because they lack the ability to create new perspectives for humanity from what they learn, which is a distinctive feature of the human brain. It is important to clarify this misunderstanding in order to restore balance to the debate on the use of AI in the field of art (and beyond), since this also affects the way people experience works of art that are claimed to be realised by means of an AI. If the creation of aesthetic theories and works of art is the result of the human brain’s capacity for abstraction, AIs, as things stand, do not have artistic capabilities per se, but can be trained and used to support the artist’s creative process.
