Is Human Art Dead?
Defining art is a challenging task. Subjectivity, whether from the artist or the audience, plays a central role in the creation and reception of art. This subjectivity, in my opinion, makes it impossible to formulate a rigorous and universal definition. However, dictionaries cannot simply omit a term because it is complex. Here is one of the most common definitions of art:
“Expression or application of human creative skill and imagination (...) producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.””
So, we learn that art is not necessarily beautiful, but it must evoke some form of emotional response. We also learn that art is a human activity. This last point, in particular, is not a requirement in all dictionaries and encyclopedias. It's easy to understand why. Until now, the question of non-human art had never presented itself with such force. Attempts have been made to teach painting to elephants or drawing to monkeys, but it is the emergence of generative AI that now challenges some foundations of artistic creation. The question is simple: can machines make art? And if so, is human art on borrowed time?
Can machines make art?
The three images below have two things in common. They were all created by Artificial Intelligence, and they all won first prizes in an art competition.
These images were not created by humans and would not qualify as art according to our definition. Yet, they clearly elicited genuine emotional responses from a panel of experts, judging by the awards they received. Naturally, none of the jury members suspected that these were actually created by artificial intelligence, even though the authors did not hide this fact when submitting them. In conclusion, if it's not art, it certainly looks a lot like it! Enough to deceive experts.
However, upon closer inspection, one can find some flaws and inconsistencies in these creations. Slight anomalies in the eyes, imperfections in the hands. But nothing that cannot be rectified soon with the rapid advancements of algorithms.
So, should we change our definition of art? If human art and artificial art are indistinguishable, what is left for human art? Or, to put it another way, what would artificial art lack that human art possesses?
Where does humanity hide?
If there is added value to human art, where does it reside? Probably not in the finished product, or at least not for long, as we have seen. So where?
“Une Orange sur le sol”, Ernest Rancourt
The artwork above is titled "An Orange on the Floor." It was created by the painter Ernest Rancourt in 1964. The artist, at the age of 30, depicted a simple orange on the floor of his living room. About the artwork, he says:
“It was a Thursday morning, and the weather was beautiful. Alexandre, my youngest brother, had just turned 5. He had gone to the orchard to pick some oranges for breakfast. I can still see him skipping along the path through the garden. He was born deaf but never complained about it. On the contrary, I can’t imagine anyone more optimistic and joyful than Alexandre.
He didn’t hear the commotion; he didn’t hear our calls. My mother led my sister and me into the hiding place behind the living room wall, safe. A small hole in the moldings allowed me to see the room and a part of the garden. I heard my mother’s screams, two gunshots, and then I saw my brother running back into the living room with his basket full of oranges. He cast a pleading glance toward the wall; he must have known we were there. A third gunshot somewhere behind him, and he didn’t even scream. His gaze became vacant, his basket dropped, and so did he.
The angle no longer allowed me to see him. I could only see an orange that had rolled forward. The soldiers took his and my mother’s bodies away. They searched the house. I kept my hand over my sister’s mouth to stifle her sobs. They didn’t find us. That’s the last memory I have of my brother and my mother... an orange on the floor.”
Suddenly, the artwork takes on a different dimension, doesn't it? The images generated by AI at the beginning of this article are well-executed, but they lack a story. Their emotional power is diminished, if not obliterated. Ernest Rancourt's story, on the other hand, transports us. We share his childhood fears, his trauma, we imagine his distress, and we understand the significance this artwork holds for him. The universality of emotions easily connects our human experiences. This is likely the connection we seek in art, what gives it its value, and what makes AI art seem so hollow.
If you are interested in the fascinating life of this painter, I invite you to do further research on him. You will find that he never existed. "An Orange on the Floor" was created by an AI, as was most of the poignant story I transcribed for you.
Disappointed? I understand. But if AI can generate artworks so convincingly, you can well imagine that it can also invent moving stories to accompany them.
It's interesting to reflect on what you felt just before you felt betrayed. If Ernest's story is fictitious, the emotions it made you feel are very real. Does that have no value, then? I believe it does. At least as much as magic...
What is the purpose of magic?
As a child, I was fascinated by magic. And like any child, I was disappointed to learn that it doesn't actually exist. The magician's skill merely deceives our eyes, and the term "illusionist" is probably more appropriate. True magic seems to die once we know the trick. However, that doesn't prevent us from marveling at the spectacle, admiring the artist's dexterity, and getting carried away by the story they tell.
Whether it's a magic show, a play, a movie, a series, a novel, a painting, or a song, art is false. Even when a work is inspired by reality, it is, at best, a partial, stylized, and often exaggerated representation of a sometimes highly fantasized subjective experience.
But the masses flock to consume this falsehood. And this falsehood is useful. The ability of art to generate emotions and trigger reflection makes it an extremely powerful tool. Thus, art can take you on journeys, help you escape from painful situations, give you courage and strength, move you. Art can make people dream, save lives, and inspire entire populations. In its own way, art changes the world.
So why would we deprive ourselves of such potential just because the initial deception was perpetrated by AI rather than a human? Why reject the beautiful and the wonderful, right?
And yet, we can't help but feel that something is amiss. Human art undeniably has that extra something... Since we've explored the finished work and the viewer, it's time to delve into the artist's perspective. But before we do that, let's take a detour through the garden!
French garden vs. English garden
The French garden is characterized by order and symmetry, squares, circles, parallels. Think of Versailles. The English garden, on the other hand, is more organic in its aesthetics, with a wild, disordered look. One might almost believe that nature was allowed to run its course, even though the setting was carefully planned and ordered.
Both types of gardens require work and talent, but the English garden raises a question. Can nature create art? Over centuries, the primary forest established a certain harmony by placing the iris under the willow, the willow by the river, and the stone in the middle of the current. Does this same landscape, faithfully reproduced by an architect in a castle's park, hold more value?
Natural forces are at work that have shaped the forest, of course. But the fact that the walker finds a specific arrangement particularly harmonious is accidental. It is not the forest's purpose to please the walker. However, it is the one of the artist who designs the park's gardens. In the English garden, if the willow is there and not ten meters further, it's because someone wanted it that way. A human decided that the final result would be pleasing, made the decision to plant it there, and probably hoped that this vision of beauty would be shared by many.
Viewed from this angle, it's the intention that is the origin of art. The artist becomes an architect of emotions, deciding what to make the audience feel, when, and in what way. Artistic creation becomes the vehicle for the artist's emotions to reach their audience. This idea seems to echo Paul Cézanne's quote:
“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”
Revisiting the Orange
When I asked Midjourney to create a painting representing an orange on the floor, I was the starting point. The intention. I roughly knew the story I wanted to tell you. I knew I was going to lie to you. In directing and adjusting Ernest Rancourt's false narrative produced by ChatGPT, I thought deeply. I wanted a young child, an innocent soul. I wanted his death to be unfair because the injustice of death seemed like a universally relatable emotion. I thought that if I had empathy for the protagonist, you would too. Assisted by AI, I hoped I succeeded in my mission to make you reconsider this seemingly mundane painting.
I might have succeeded; I might have failed. It's for you to tell me. Nevertheless, AI was more of an instrument than the mastermind here. It's not the brush that makes art but the painter. And if the brush occasionally slips, curves unexpectedly, or even falls from the artist's hand, it is still the artist who decides whether it's a fortunate accident or a canvas to be thrown in the trash.
As long as the brush has no inherent intention, it is considered not to create art. Similarly, as long as AI does not feel the need to create and share art, the desire to tell a story, as long as there are no artificial emotions to connect to ours, we will struggle to consider AI as an artist. Whether such emotions and intentions will one day be accessible to AI (unless they already are) may be the subject of another article.
So, do we have our answer? "Art can be made with AI, but AI doesn't make art." If this sentence troubles you, try replacing AI with the word brush, and you'll see that it works.
Certainly, but there remains one final question I promised to answer. Are the days of human art numbered? To address this last point, I invite you to recall the first time you engaged in a creative activity. Was it with modeling clay? Perhaps drawing?
Why do children draw?
An experiment that has become famous in the field of psychological sciences was conducted in 1971 by psychologist Edward Deci. Children were invited to draw, either without a reward or receiving rewards in the form of stickers. Researchers observed that children who received rewards were less likely to draw for fun when the rewards were no longer offered. In other words, the intrinsic motivation of children to draw was altered by the introduction of extrinsic rewards.
What intrigues me is not so much the alteration of intrinsic motivation as its mere existence. From a very young age, we use artistic creation as a means of expression or as a pastime. The advent of generative AI doesn't change that. Art is not just a finish line; it's a journey, a process, that can be very enriching.
We can create to de-stress, to pass the time, to improve, to externalize certain emotions, to convey a message. The process can be joyful, melancholic, hopeful, pessimistic, slow, or fast.
If the process of creation makes you happy, AI has nothing to take away from that. Just continue to make art as you see fit. If art is your means of expression, AI will never be able to express your ideas better than you can. We have discussed the impact that art can have on the world. Why deprive the world of the impact that only you can impart?
Let's not allow AI to alter our intrinsic (and very human) motivation to create just because it might deprive us of extrinsic rewards, such as winning a competition's first prize, for example.
I don't believe that human art is on its deathbed. On the contrary, I believe that Artificial Intelligence opens up new avenues of creation and reminds us why art has been so closely tied to human history, from the 45,000-year-old cave paintings in Indonesian caves to the seemingly insignificant image of an orange on the floor generated by a computer.
Note: I chose not to dwell on the financial aspect for people who make a living from art. But the question is real. If it's not the end of human art, is it the end of lucrative human art? I haven't thought about this question enough or talked to enough people to provide a meaningful opinion on the matter. However, I would say that given the importance we place on the hidden human experience behind the artwork, we could move toward a mechanism of "proof of experience" that distinguishes human art from artificial art, giving them distinct places in the art market and allowing them to coexist harmoniously.