How Theories of Art Can Inform Debates About AI

Abstract

Debates about artificial intelligence (AI) tend to swing between the optimistic and the apocalyptic. I propose a less binary approach that frames conversations about AI from the perspectives of theories of art and creativity. Whether we agree that AI is artificial or intelligent, whether it should be constrained or liberated, we cannot deny its influence on literary, artistic, and innovative production. AI may be described as simply a new tool to produce art and science, like the camera or the microscope, or it may transform art and science, the way the internet transformed global communication. Either way, these debates about AI concern its relationship to treasured human activity, and thus, this Essay asserts, they have something to learn from philosophies of art and aesthetics. Copyright law may be the most obvious legal regime to address some of AI's effects on creative practices, but copyright cannot and should not solve the problems AI raises for artists and authors. Better automation (improved technology) or more precise laws (targeting harms) inadequately address the problems generative-AI pose. Instead, art history and aesthetic theory-and its attention to literature, painting, poetry, music or any other art form (or "artifice")-provide better frameworks for thinking about the challenges and opportunities of generative-AI because of their focus on struggles over our common humanity.