AI Art and Dwindling Human Experience

Scientists at Rutgers University are programming AI to create art. After AI programs viewed thousands of artworks they were tasked to create Abstract Expressionist images. The images generated by the AI were then shown next to real artworks from Art Basel, one of the most prestigious art fairs in the world. People were then asked to differentiate the AI images from actual artworks by human artists. Long story short, viewers correctly identified the works by real artists more often than the works by AI. Yet, often, the AI images were indistinguishable from the images by real artists.

But then, “respondents were asked to rate how intentional, visually structured, communicative, and inspiring the images were. They 'rated the images generated by [the computer] higher than those created by real artists, whether in the Abstract Expressionism set or in the Art Basel set.'”

The catty part of me wants to question whether AI images looked more like real art, or Art Basel images looked less like real art? Art Basel is a bit of a carnival and lots of bad art is raised in stature by being seen with the good art. But, this is not the point of the article, nor is it the point of what I am most concerned about – meow.

This incident is one more step down a road that we have been traveling quietly for many decades, maybe even centuries. It is the devaluing of the human experience.

Of course, humans are the pinnacle of development - as far as we are concerned. So, of course, we would be the standard against which AI would be measured. AI is very beneficial in situations in which it helps humans to compensate for disabilities and deficiencies or makes a task easier and safer. But there is another side to AI - creating an alternative to humans.

It is interesting that all the articles I have been reading focus on the timeline for improvements to the AI. They ask where is AI on the road to developing true imagination and how long will it take to be indistinguishable from human creative thought? But none of them ask what the impact is on humans. What happens to humans if a completely separate entity is created that makes human expression no longer unique, or necessary?

As someone who is engaged in expressing his human experience through his art, I always find it puzzling when people want to disregard the human experience. We see this continually in the world around us. We have fake news that is not based in human experience, but manipulated messaging. We have Facebook friends and communities instead of investing in personal relationships and engaging in local human communities. We watch other people's (fictional and non-fictional) experiences on television instead of creating our own. We have alternate reality machines that can put us into a completely convincing alternate world. On top of that, we do a lot of self-medicating via alcohol and drugs. It is as if we don't want to be here. As if we don't want to be ourselves.

I know life is hard for many people and I don't want to make light of that. My life, at times, has been very difficult. But I relish the personal experiences of raising a daughter, being involved in my friend's lives, and being intimate on many levels with a partner.  I enjoy having a mother and sister that live close so we can share new experiences while reminiscing about old. I enjoy creating something on a daily basis. And I appreciate the eventual results of wrestling with the difficult times.

Now, to see an AI program creating “art” is one more example of negating these human experiences and there expression. Yes, Mark, but people find the AI images more engaging. Doesn't that make the AI art more valuable, more...art? This is tantamount to saying news sources are credible because they have stories that appeal to your opinion on issues. We have flipped the dynamic of human experience. Instead of observing the world around us and growing from its alternating between challenging us and supporting us, we expect to impress our opinions onto it so our reality is not challenging. What we are doing is creating a small homogeneous bubble around ourselves thinking it will protect us from pain and struggle. My friend, Barbara McAfee, in her book Full Voice, asks the question, “when did we decide that being anything less than our full selves would make us safer?” It's a great question.

My human experience is not so objectionable that I want to continually run from it. Society-wide, that approach is a race to the bottom, a marathon to a world that will not allow us to reach the finish line. I am trying to live in a world where we value the expression of our full selves instead of leaking our self-loathing into objects meant to replace us instead of amplify us. I want my life to be an oil painting of substance instead of an empty illustration of what I had hoped for.

So, for the foreseeable future, I will keep painting, putting my experience into canvas and panels. I believe that art is an object. It is not an image. Artists imbue their substrate with an energy that lives on and emanates into your home when you hang it on your wall. Then, you add your energy to the art by interacting with it on a daily basis and providing a deeper experiential meaning. In the end, the work has been a conduit for energy and intention, for building memory and knowledge, for sharing experience and meaning, for weaving together the strands of humanity that create a better self.

At some point we will have to put away our AI, our toys, and our distractions and value our experiences, expressions and who we are at our core, if we are going to make it to that finish line.

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Here's the article mentioned above: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/rutgers-artificial-intelligence-art-1019066

Here's another interesting article about the history of AI paintings, which have their beginnings in 1973: https://newatlas.com/creative-ai-algorithmic-art-painting-fool-aaron/36106/

To see my non-AI paintings, visit markgranlund.com.