Abstract
This paper investigates the transformative influence of generative AI on the arts, connecting it with Walter Benjamin's insights regarding the aura of art in the mechanical reproduction era. It scrutinizes how generative AI not only redefines art's traditional aura but also introduces a dynamic interplay between technological liberation and dependency. The analysis extends to the democratization of artistic expression and its broader societal impacts, highlighting a shift in art creation, perception, and interpretation in the digital age. This research encapsulates the evolving nature of authenticity, creativity, and human–machine collaboration, marking a significant paradigm shift in art's conception and its role in society.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The author confrms that the data generated or analyzed during this study are available within this article.
References
Arbiza GM (2020) A critique of contemporary artificial intelligence art: who is ‘Edmond De Belamy’? AusArt 8(1):49–64. https://doi.org/10.1387/ausart.21490
Arias-Rosales A (2022) The perceived value of human-AI collaboration in early shape exploration: an exploratory assessment. PLoS ONE 17(9):e0274496. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274496
Barthes R (1977) Image, Music, Text. (S. Heath, Trans.). Hill and Wang, New York
Beheshti A, Yang J, Sheng QZ, Benatallah B, Casati F, Dustdar S, Nezhad HM, Zhang X, Xue S (2023). Process GPT. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICWS60048.2023.00099
Belting H (1997) Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Benjamin W (2008) The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility, and other writings on media. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Boden MA (2004) The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. Routledge, London
Braidotti R (2016) Posthuman critical theory. In: Banerji D, Paranjape M, ed. Critical posthumanism and planetary futures. Springer, New York, pp 13–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3637-5_2
Buck-Morss S (1992) Aesthetics and anaesthetics: Walter Benjamin’s artwork essay reconsidered. 62: 3–41. https://doi.org/10.2307/778700
Capraro V et al (2023) The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and policy making. SSRN Electr J. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4666103
Chatterjee A (2022) Art in an age of artificial intelligence. Front Psychol 13:1024449. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1024449
Corby J (2022) Imagine: posthuman tragedy and the aura of AI-produced art. CounterText 8(3):435–455. https://doi.org/10.3366/count.2022.0283
Coventry R (2023) Heidegger and poetry in the digital age: New aesthetics and technologies. Bloomsbury Acad London. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350347830
Fernández-Castrillo C (2023) The AI work of art in the age of its co-creation. Magazen 4(2):357–383. https://doi.org/10.30687/mag/2724-3923/2023/02/008
Ferrando F (2019) Philosophical Posthumanism. Bloomsbury Academic, London
Gadamer HG (1975) Hermeneutics and Social Science Cultural Hermeneutics 2(4):307–316. https://doi.org/10.1177/019145377500200402
Gemtou E (2010) Subjectivity in art history and art criticism. Rupkatha J Interdisc Stud Human 2:2–13. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v2n1.02
Hakopian MF (2024) Art histories from nowhere: on the coloniality of experiments in art and artificial intelligence. AI & Soc 39:29–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01768-0
Haraway D (2006) A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late 20th century. In: J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (ed) The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments, Springer, New York, pp 117–158. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3803-7_4
Horton CB Jr, White MW, Iyengar SS (2023) Bias against AI art can enhance perceptions of human creativity. Sci Rep 13:19001. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-45202-3
Huang R, Sturm B (2021) Reframing “Aura”: Authenticity in the application of AI to Irish traditional music. In Proceedings of the AI Music Creativity Conference. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-326347
Hutson J, Harper-Nichols M (2023) Generative AI and algorithmic art: disrupting the framing of meaning and rethinking the subject-object dilemma. Global J Comp Sci Technol 23(1):55–61. https://doi.org/10.34257/GJCSTDVOL23IS1PG55
Ihde D (1990) Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Jenkins H (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU Press, New York
Jiang HH, Brown L, Cheng J, Khan M, Gupta A, Workman D, Hanna A, Flowers J, Gebru T (2023) AI art and its impact on artists. In: Proceedings of the 2023 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES '23) https://doi.org/10.1145/3600211.3604681
Jothen P (2014) Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood: The Art of Subjectivity. Routledge, London
Kraaijeveld SR (2024) AI-generated art and fiction: signifying everything, meaning nothing? AI & Soc. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01829-4
Lee HK (2022) Rethinking creativity: creative industries, AI and everyday creativity. Media Cult Soc 44(3):601–612. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221077009
Liu W, Tao F (2022) Art definition and accelerated experience: temporal dimension of AI artworks. Philosophies 7(6):127. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7060127
Mackenzie A (2013) Programming subjects in the regime of anticipation: software studies and subjectivity. Subjectivity 6:391–405. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2013.12
McNamara T (2023) Artificial intelligence and the emergence of co-creativism in contemporary art. INSAM J Contemp Music Art Technol 11:12–38. https://doi.org/10.51191/issn.2637-1898.2023.6.11.12
Mengze, Y. (2023) Research on artificial intelligence art image synthesis algorithm based on generation model. 2023 2nd International Conference on 3D Immersion, Interaction and Multi-sensory Experiences (ICDIIME), Madrid, Spain: 102–106. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDIIME59043.2023.00026.
Noble SU (2018) Algorithms of Oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. NYU Press, New York
Parisi L (2019) The Alien Subject of AI Subjectivity 12:27–48. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-018-00064-3
Park S. (2023) Theodor W. Adorno, artificial intelligence, and democracy in the postdigital era. Postdigital Science and Education 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-023-00424-6
Risse M (2023) Political Theory and the Digital Age. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Riva G, Wiederhold BK, Succi S (2022) Zero sales resistance: the dark side of big data and artificial intelligence. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw 25(3):169–173. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2022.0035
Rona-Tas A (2020) Predicting the future: art and algorithms. Soc Econ Rev 18(3):893–911. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwaa040
Schmidt D (2007) Aesthetics and subjectivity. In: G. Figal (ed) Hans-Georg Gadamer: Wahrheit und Methode. Akademie Verlag, Berlin, pp 29–43. https://doi.org/10.1524/9783050050195.29
Schröter J (2019) Artificial intelligence and the democratization of art. In A. Sudmann (ed) The democratization of artificial intelligence: Net politics in the era of learning algorithms. Transcript, Bielefeld, pp 297–311. https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/13546
Susskind R, Susskind D (2016) The future of the professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Wagner C (2020) The democratization of art. Media and the art of publishing on art. Art Style Art Cult Int Mag 5:93–113. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6371473
West R, Burbano A (2020) AI, arts & design: Questioning learning machines. Artnodes 26:1–9. https://doi.org/10.7238/a.v0i26.3390
Wiener N (1964) God & Golem Inc: A comment on certain points where cybernetics impinges on religion. MIT Press, Cambridge
Wingström R, Hautala J, Lundman R (2022) (2022) Redefining creativity in the era of AI? Perspectives of computer scientists and new media artists. Creat Res J 10(1080/10400419):2107850
Yan L, Martínez-Maldonado R, Gašević D (2023) Generative artificial intelligence in learning analytics: Contextualising opportunities and challenges through the learning analytics cycle. LAK '24: Proceedings of the 14th Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference: 101–111. https://doi.org/10.1145/3636555.3636856
Zeilinger M (2023) The politics of visual indeterminacy in abstract AI art. Leonardo 56(1):76–80. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02291
Funding
No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Ethics approval
This paper does not include research involving human subjects.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Park, S. The work of art in the age of generative AI: aura, liberation, and democratization. AI & Soc (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-01948-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-01948-6