Being subscribed for Arthur C Clarke Center for Human Imagination newsletters, I have seen an upcoming workshop that changed the course of my research. Bridging the Gap between Subjective and Computational Measurements of Machine Creativity aimed to provoke a discussion between artists, engineers and academics (most of them being experts in more than one field) on what creativity is and how can we measure it.
As interesting and entertaining as the overall workshop was, here are my more specific observations and analysis that fuelled my subsequent research.
- AI-generated art is a very niche field, only a handful of people around the world are actually involved in it and even less are doing research in that area
With more art galleries hosting AI artists’, and recreations of artworks by late artists (examples with Rembrandt and Beethoven) popularising AI art and the introduction of NFTs, enhancing the trading of digital art, AI-generated art is gradually making its way in the overall art scene. However as there are no huge implications, currently it is still a vastly unexplored area that in my opinion hides a huge potential.
- In order to create AI art (or an AI-art generator), one needs to have an engineering background or at least a very good technical understanding.
Without understanding of the basic principles of machine learning – neural networks, weights on the different nodes and training data sets, one cannot just easily create AI art. It requires both an artistic idea / approach and technical knowledge.
- There are very polarised opinions in many areas and during the discussion time there were two camps formed: “artists” vs “engineers”.
We have all heard about “human vs machine” debate. Well, interestingly there was nothing like this here – it was the good old “human vs human” debate, where “artists” were confronting “engineers” and vice versa for lack of support and clarity in each-others fields.
- Most of the regular workshop participants – neither defined as artists or engineers (like me) encountered some misunderstandings in 1) what the artwork actually is 2) where is the dividing line between the human and the machine creativity.
An obvious sign that AI-generated art is not very easily perceived by the public (or even other AI artists). It needs an explanation. Is the art only what is visually perceived or is it also in the making? Observing the other participants and myself – there was one major feeling – alienation from the art works.
This workshop was a very heavy encounter with AI-generated art and it made me realise that during my research so far, I have always gravitated around AI, trying to utilise it through a different perspective, but never actually getting into the core. Diving right into it, putting it into an actual focus of my research is what I really want to do.