As long as 27 years ago, the chess computer Deep Blue beat the then world champion and chess grand master Garry Kasparov. Post-defeat, people, including Kasparov himself, suspected the AI of cheating with the help of a human, as the moves it was playing consisted of too much creativity. Today, ironically, the second you play a chess move against someone with too much creativity, people will suspect you of cheating with the help of AI.
In this day and age, how can we not mention ChatGPT and the floodgates it has opened to copious AI chatbots following suit? Quill, Perplexity… even Kahoot has an AI bot now; teachers have began using it to mark assessments to varying degrees of success, lawyers in New York use it to cite cases for their claim filings.
Don’t forget about their partners in crime too; the image generation bots. 100 some years ago over a warm June weekend, Van Gogh painted the painting above, “Starry Night”.
130 years on, AI such as Dall-E lives inside our back pockets as our own personal artist, able to generate this same image of “Starry Night” in 20 seconds max. In fact, this image of Starry Night is not Van Gogh’s work; it’s completely Dall-E generated! And in a similar vein, since the invention of photography and the camera, professional portrait artists specialising in hyper-realistic paintings have gone increasingly out of business.
So, technology has endangered the existence of art; but it has also elevated art to a status that could never have imagined centuries ago.
The aforementioned photography is a great example of the combination of technology and art; digital art on tablets has allowed people to make art on train rides home, in bed while sick and during way-too-long toilet sessions. Film and animation have also emerged as new forms of media giving way to millions of aspiring new-age artists across the world.
At the same time, without art, we probably would not have been able to see this wave of AI and technological advance. We have recorded our history through paintings, passed down our wisdom through stories and connected all over the world through music. Without art, there would be no expressions of love, loss, joy, sorrow; the things which make life so beautiful. We innovate in an attempt to fulfill our constant craving for perfection, yet, is our imperfection not that which defines us as human?
It is easy to split technology in to innovation, and art in to creativity, but I would also argue, is innovation not also an expression of creativity; the process of breaking societal conventions, synthesising new techniques, bringing imagination to life? What part of this process, can you truly say, differs from what Van Gogh went through to paint his Starry Night?
I ask that you not think of technology and art as opposing sides fighting for a place in human history; they are two sides of the same coin, the same coin that has cooperatively built our society in to that we have today.
If you take away anything from this article and this column in the future, this is it.
Now that we’re here, consider that just because technology can do it better, there will still always be a place for humans to shine in the spotlight. This column will be a celebration for the ever-evolving innovations in the world, and a reminder of the imperfections which make them impressive. This column will be a celebration of the innovations that are to come, the innovations which are already with us, the innovations which have led us here, and the very creativity of humankind which has made all of this possible.
Find me diving in to the work of A.I. vs. a historically great art piece of the same medium as this column continues. Next: ChatGPT meets Ted Hughes.
