Art created by AI - also known as generative art - has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with and perceive artistic works, and the very definition of art itself.

This makes art and creativity more accessible to everybody. I can pick up one of these tools and create something in ways I couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago.

But how are artists interacting with this technology? Since I’m working and writing for a generative art project, I thought I’d go straight to the source and ask Eyal Alef Ophir, an artist who has been working at the interface between cognitive science and creativity for over a decade, and who is now Head of Creative at the generative art project Artificial Artist. I asked Eyal how he sees this new method of creating art.

The artist Eyal Alef Ophir with one of his artworks, a portrait composed of thousands of rubick cubes.

How is working with generative art different from previous technological tools that you worked with in the past?

"It is clear that generative art is a big step forward, both technologically and conceptually, but pinpointing what is exactly new about it can be harder than it initially seems," he replied. "For a few decades now, artists have used computers and algorithms in art - whether they view them as tools or as collaborators. In my own work, I'm constantly looking for emergent beauty and meaning in the border between messy human randomness and the seemingly cold strictness of algorithms. However, generative art fascinates me as it takes it a big step forward. The inner workings of the AI is not fully clear even to its developers. Instead of using rules, we train the generative model in the heart of the Artificial Artist in a way that is closer to how the human mind learns and there is no easy way to define the process behind the artworks it creates. As humans, we can’t help but to project ourselves into our creations - if we can say that our AI "learned" or that it "knows" something, why not think also in terms of "feel" and "intend"? Therefore, working with the Artificial Artist raises some inevitable questions about the nature of being human, and it is tempting to think of it (him? her?) as an emergent creative "agent" and not just a tool."

Can AI really be considered creative? This question has sparked a lot of debate in recent years, and it gets quite philosophical. If we can create artworks that are visually indistinguishable from classic artworks - does it mean we have managed to create art that is truly post human?

Although GAN models, like the Artificial Artist, have a substantial amount of autonomy, there is still a long chain of human work and creativity behind it. First of all, the whole history of art that any AI tool is trained on is made out of artworks created by flesh and blood artists. Secondly, other humans designed the training protocol, and then we also need to decide on which artworks to train it with, and what prior information to give the model about them. Lastly, the person using the Artificial Artist elevates the output of the Artificial Artist to become an Artwork, simply by choosing it and seeing something valuable in it. In that sense, the artistic focus shifts away from human creation to human curation. That’s why I view the Artificial Artist neither as a tool nor a completely alien form of artist, but as a collaborator that can link people without a classic artistic background to the incredible amount of human creation and meaning that came before it.

Can artworks created by an AI really be regarded as art in the absence of a human painter that gives them meaning?

Luckily, we no longer live in a world where institutions and professionals have the power to tell us what is considered art and what isn’t, and we can find definitions that are a bit more personal or fluid. I think that being able to develop a connection with the art in your life is crucial - it can be done by taking part in creating it, naming it, or the sense of knowing that you have something that is one of a kind and created just for you.

As opposed to some AI art initiatives that focus on the digital aspect of the artworks, or even as a mere investment in a market of NFTs, Artificial Artist has an emphasis on creating one-of-a-kind physical artworks. Why is that?

When you create a digital work, so often it gets forgotten. Maybe you share it, use it as a background, but within a day or two you've moved on to the next thing. I want my art to live in the real world, and not serve as a virtual means for investment. From my experience with my own art, which is usually very manual and labour intensive, I know that a sense of meaning, ownership and connection to an artwork is something that is built over time through deliberate intention and actions, like sharing with others or interacting with a physical object, and I hope to make this experience available to more people.

So, Eyal, what does the future hold for generative art? Should traditional artists be worried?

The invention of cameras initially raised concerns that they might make painting redundant. But instead of replacing older forms of art, photography broadend the limits of what is considered art in ways that people back then could never predict. I believe that the same thing goes for AI and specifically generative art. The ongoing discussion regarding generative art pushes the borders of what is considered art, making room for more types of creations and, more importantly, more types of people. In that sense, we can say that it has a comparable effect to modern art, which expanded the traditional understanding of what is considered art. I am really excited to see what everyday artists will come up with using these tools, and what types of human-AI collaborations we are yet to discover.