Whitney Biannual 2024 AI
Source: Shirley M. Mueller
Art created by artificial intelligence (AI) is currently on display at the 2024 Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial in New York City. The exhibition “Even Better Than the Real Thing” (from March 20th to his August 11th) will feature AI in the first and subsequent exhibits. There are more AI-generated works on display at the museum, but they are not part of the Biennale.
All the art featured at the Biennale is, by definition, new and cutting-edge. The committee's choice to address AI puts it in the position it should be: new, exciting, novel, and for many, uncertain. The rapid advancement of AI has sparked debate over whether it can replace human creativity in the arts. Critics argue that the essence of human creativity cannot be replaced by machines and emphasize the importance of human experience in artistic creation.
research
Exhibiting at AI Exhibition at Whitney Biannual 2024
Source: Shirley M. Mueller
Recently, this conundrum was scientifically studied by Lukas Bereich et al. (July 2023). Their paper is titled “Humans vs. AI: Whether and why we prefer human-created artwork compared to AI-created artwork.” Bellaiche and colleagues investigated whether people prefer human-created art over AI-created art and the underlying reasons for such a preference.
The study consisted of two studies in which participants rated works of art created entirely by AI without their knowledge. These artworks were randomly labeled as either “human-created” or “AI-created” to assess the influence of the labels on participants' aesthetic judgments. The evaluation criteria are liking, beauty, depth, and value.
The results of the first study showed that artworks labeled as human-created were consistently rated higher across all criteria than artworks labeled as AI-created, and thus human-created art It has been shown that there is a bias against To further investigate this bias, the second study expanded the evaluation criteria to include emotional response, story recognition, meaning recognition, effort, and estimated time to create the artwork.
The results of the second study confirmed the first, with human-labeled works once again receiving high marks. However, the second study also revealed that the story associated with a work and the perceived effort behind it significantly influenced ratings. Specifically, works that were thought to involve more human effort or tell a compelling story were rated higher in terms of likeability and beauty. Additionally, participants' attitudes toward AI also influenced their judgments: the more positive participants' attitudes toward AI, the higher their evaluation of the art created by AI, especially in terms of depth and value.
These studies demonstrate a clear bias against works of art created by AI compared to those thought to be created by humans, especially in judgments that go beyond surface-level aesthetic evaluations. This bias is less pronounced for sensory-level judgments such as taste and beauty, where works of art created by AI can almost compete with works created by humans.
In other words, the study suggests that while AI can produce beautiful and beautiful art at a sensory level, it struggles to recreate the deeper communicative aspects of art enriched by human experience. doing. This distinction between sensory and communicative judgments is consistent with dual-process theories of aesthetics, which distinguish between direct sensory processing of works of art and more reflective, meaning-oriented evaluations.
Additionally, Bereish et al.'s study highlights how various factors, such as narrative and perceived effort, may modulate the influence of creator labels on aesthetic judgments. For example, if a work of art is perceived to have a rich story or require a lot of effort, whether it was created by a human or an AI; Your work is more likely to be appreciated. However, these effects are influenced by viewers' attitudes toward her AI, suggesting that as society's attitudes evolve, perceptions of AI-created art may change as well.
Therefore, AI can imitate certain aspects of human artistic creativity, especially in creating visually appealing artwork. They have been less successful in recreating the human-centered elements that contribute to the depth and value of art.
future
The implications of this research are important for understanding the future of art in the age of AI. As AI technologies continue to develop and become more integrated into the creative industries, it will be important to consider how they are perceived and what role they are suitable to play. AI may not be able to replace human artists, but it may serve as a tool that complements human creativity and enhances rather than replaces the artistic process.
conclusion
This study contributes to the ongoing debate about the relationship between AI and human creativity. This emphasizes the enduring value of the human touch in art, which includes not only the production of aesthetically pleasing objects but also the communication of deep human experiences and emotions.