Art IA: Death of the creative industry, or its saviour?

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With the advent of AI-generated art and the proliferation of tools such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E, questions have sprung up in creative industry circles.

Is this a temporary trend? Or an essential tool for creative communication?

A cursory glance through any magazine gives an ominous glimpse of capitalist conformity. The ad might have been comfortable riffing on itself. For an industry always on the lookout for new ideas, its ability to look beyond itself deserves to be honed. AI art engines and their ability to draw on visual data far beyond the Jericho walled garden of advertising sameness just might be the conduit creatives need to spark new ideas, new ways of thinking and sparking new connections and ways of telling stories.

Creative communication can be complex. It can also be extremely monotonous, often executed for targeted consumer profiles living life in linear phases. But it can also be inspiring and evocative: Designed for emotional, fiery humans who care about real, messy lives far outside well-defined psycho-graphic patterns of behavior.

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Add to that the idea that we are all used to shortcuts. Everything seems to have auto-correct, auto-order, auto-all these days. So could we see AI art engines in a similar vein? Like some weird "creative autofill".

In an industry that prides itself on passion and original thinking, auto-generated visuals in the service of self-defined psychographics can be alarming.

However, viewing these artistic AI tools as “visual search engines” and “concept connectors” might shed more light on the debate. Unlike the quasi-mathematical mapping of a scheduled media buy, it is impossible to predict what an AI art engine will produce. Harnessing this unpredictability and the startling connections that AI art engines can glean from creative sources far outside the known, self-referential cheat codes of the ad game is where AI art can finding its purpose for advertising creatives.

The American philosopher John Dewey writes that “science states meanings; art expresses them. In doing so, Dewey prescribes clear roles for both in the creative process. But in the ongoing debate over the place of generative AI art, could the roles be reversed? Can human art articulate meanings and then allow science to express them, creating something entirely new and thoughtful?

Campaigns were created and art prizes were given out, all with much outcry and discussion. But so far the focus has been on what AI art engines can produce as a result. Little has been explored about what he can inspire. And therein lies the next step in the evolution of using AI art – from creative auto-fill to full-on-tap inspiration.

Taraka 'TK' Tennakoon is Associate Artistic Director at AKQA.

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