Since 2020, we’ve seen an increasing use of AI from ChatGPT all the way to Vogue magazine. It’s everywhere. However there are some specific places where it is really growing. Recently it has been in the arts industry.
AI art is made by having images and words fed to them so they can generate things related to what is given to them. This concept really started showing in the 2010’s. In 2013, a program came out called The Painting Fool which had been made by Simon Colton and it was made to simulate a human’s creativity. It wasn’t just to copy images but to use words put into it to create new images by scanning articles and taking key words. For example, it had scanned an article about Afghanistan and extracted key words and found images connected to them. Another big development in the 2010’s happened in 2018 when an AI generated piece of art was sold for $432,500 at an auction. Then in 2020 there was an increase in use of it because more user-friendly and advanced models came out so more people had access.
In today’s day and age, because of how accessible it is, many more people are using it to create things. A big one is in visual art. On Canva and Photoshop there are options to put in words into an AI so they can make designs for you. Another one is in music. If you look, Spotify allows people to publish songs made by artificial intelligence like the AI generated Drake/The Weeknd song made in 2023.
But what do people think about this? Well, it is very divided. According to an article from CBS News, over 400 actors, actresses, musicians, directors and more signed a letter against the relaxed rules that people have about AI. The programs could seriously jeopardize their jobs and there is also a concern of identity theft if people can use their voices or likenesses for their own purposes.
Artificial intelligence in the art industry is a growing field from The Painting Fool to music on Spotify and is becoming a threat to lots of artists, actresses, musicians and more. For some it is a tool for digital creativity or to make art easier. If it keeps developing it could be seen not only outside of school but in it as well. The question is, will we let that happen or will human creativity outweigh it?