EDINBURGH, Sep 9(ABC): At first glance, the series of warped clown faces in a collision of primary colours appears to be the work of a painter – with oily brushstrokes and smudged backgrounds the typical hallmarks.
Yet the images displayed by Scotland-based artist Perry Jonsson on his tablet were in fact created through artificial intelligence (AI) – reflecting a growing trend in the art world. He used a machine learning programme, whereby algorithms take a text prompt and analyse data to produced thousands of images, before selecting and refining his favourite ones.
“They re a bit creepy,” the 31-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation one August morning in an Edinburgh cafe not far the bustle of the world s largest arts festival. “But what I loved was the humanity that shone through, and that s what I was looking for something that felt like an actual artist might paint,” he said, adding that AI allows him to stretch himself creatively despite his lack of drawing ability.
A filmmaker by trade, Jonsson began dabbling in AI-generated artworks this year, and is one of a growing number of people in the creative sector experimenting with software that has sparked debate about the future of art and role of man versus machine.
What began in the 1970s as artists tinkering with the possibilities of computer programming has become a burgeoning business – with AI-generated pieces winning digital arts competitions and fetching huge sums at auction in recent years.
The most famous example, “Edmond de Belamy”, a portrait depicting a blurry image of a man in black shirt and white collar sold at auction for $432,000 (373,541 pounds) in 2018 – despite having carried a presale estimate of $7,000 – $10,000.
However, advances in AI have fuelled concerns over the ethical and legal implications of co-creating art with machines.
“It s very much a wild west,” Jonsson said, adding that he tried to “stay above board” when it comes to using copyrighted works. Yet he said it was difficult to know whether the data used by AI programmes to create his artwork is rights-free.
Some AI art generation tools trawl images and mimic styles by using rights-protected works to create a new piece of art, raising fears among artists of digital theft.
Copyright laws in the United States and the European Union, for example, do not explicitly cover AI-generated art, leaving some artists to ask whether AI will help or hinder creativity.
The growing use of AI to produce magazine covers, posters or creating logos, for example, also throws up the thorny question of whether AI can – or will – eventually replace artists.
Award-winning 3D graphics artist and film maker David OReilly, who writes on the issue, warned that, “everyone who contributes to AI accelerates their own automation”.