The future of AI art

What is the future of AI art? This is a question very much on the minds of the creative community. Are humans that special?

This was a message I heard loud and clear when researching this article: a sense of disbelief that AI software, however sophisticated, will ever match the creativity of a real-life person. But Gavin MacArthur, Creative Director at immersive experiences company Pixel Artworks, sounds a note of caution.

“It seems a very human trait to overestimate the importance of the human mind in the creative process,” he says. “We say that machines can’t be creative, maybe not in the same way as us, but machines may be able to follow very similar paths to achieve creative output. They won’t use their senses to explore a world before creating something new, but AI will have access to a digital library vastly greater than what any one person can experience. It will very likely create content that the end user simply can’t distinguish whether it was made by a human or machine. And will the audience even care if that experience moves them?”

That doesn’t make Gavin a doomsayer, though: “The creative industry isn’t under threat from AI,” he believes. “But specific roles or tasks that are currently done by humans are likely to be picked up by machines, as we’ve seen with copywriting and ChatGPT.”  He believes that’s something we simply can’t run from. “It’s part of the constant evolution of technology and how our industry can embrace and embed it in the creative process,” he argues. “The skill and creative balance are knowing how to use AI and where it will achieve the desired impact.”