Cultural Commentary: AI art is not art

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is far from neutral, and unlike holding a pen or pointing a lens, its results are absent of the effort and emotion that gives human-made art its weight. The empty imitation of skill and the actual use of every creation produced online devalues the work of artists. Alongside this, it takes jobs from them.

AI can now mimic artistic skills that once took lifetimes to learn. Artists spend years honing these skills so they can stand proud of their personal, creative journeys. 

And while AI art is similar to digital art, it’s important to make a distinction between the two. What is seen on screens can be genuine artwork. Humanism is what makes art impress upon us. Where human effort, skill, creativity, intention, or an original vision is behind a work, this very essence is present. Multimodal forms of art can be made with digital tools and still be full of real craftsmanship and feeling. These works still require real thoughtfulness and dedication. Artists can take years mastering digital art software, and even then, they’re only one part of the finished product. AI skips all this groundwork and creates results without lived experience. 

As AI training data often pulls from protected material, many artists readily label the practice as outright stealing. Not metaphorical theft. For The Guardian, Dan Milmo covered the backlash against high-profile auctions using AI images created from real human-made works. When systems run on uncredited creations, ongoing “mass theft” is hard to deny. This is an evident problem for career artists, but the issue runs much deeper than that. There does not need to be conflict involving legal copyright ownership and unpermitted resale for a moral pitfall to exist. The auction scandal is, in my view, is just one example of how we lack safeguards against putting AI productions before the human craftsmanship AI is all a blend of. 

In stealing artists’ work, AI steals their money too. Both intrinsic value and market prices have plummeted. Buyers’ willingness to pay decreases when the ingenuity of art is on the rise. So those selling their authentic works are unable to receive the true value it is worth. What makes artwork so impactful to us is where it comes from. There are real feelings, ideas, and intentions artists have when making art. But with AI, art can be born from nothing more than typing a prompt into a generative bot. 

This is an issue playing out right here on campus. Using AI for flyers, posts, or images feels quick and costs nothing. Yet swapping real student designs with machine-made ones, as the ualberta subreddit presents, quietly says that student skill doesn’t deserve support. If schools, contests, and professional environments all want to accept AI as standard for creative tasks, no matter how big or small, they will nudge people toward seeing artwork as something thoughtlessly brought to life and tossed away just as quickly. With that, people are robbed of opportunities and recognition for their artwork.

Rules around AI use at the University of Alberta come through a plan called “Framework for the Responsible Use of AI.” The policy largely aims to have AI support thinking, but never take its place. Yet, there is a contradiction between the messaging students are receiving about AI, and what is being practiced. AI tools are preached to only be operational supports, yet some of the university’s graphic designs are AI-generated.

One comment on a post from the reddit forum epitomizes how this practice is problematic when there is an abundance of “capable and willing students who need experience.” A “between the lines” understanding can be drawn by mere posters and flyers: valuing human effort is simply a formality, and if it can be produced easier with AI, then it will be. At the U of A, AI is strictly restricted to being a crutch that never replaces the stride. However, what is practiced on campus undermines this AI usage doctrine. AI is utilized where convenient and sometimes even prioritized over giving students opportunities to create. Multiple student accounts of seeing AI generated posters across campus can tell us that students, particularly those studying arts and design, are being overlooked.

The thinking it takes to produce original artwork is getting farmed out to algorithms. This is made possible by the dismissal of cultural stewardship. When expression arrives pre-chewed by software, we are allowed to claim copying as making, and redefine art as the antithesis to humanism.