What is an artist? In the age of artificial intelligence, machine learning and text-to-image tools, it’s questionable. Anyone with a computer can generate stunning images in seconds thanks to tools like Mid journey, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and Craiyon. These algorithmic programs, which work with text prompts and data sets, are already starting to shift the creative economy. In August 2022, an American game designer named Jason Allen won first place at the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition. His award-winning work – which has been described as ‘Renaissance meets steampunk’ – was created using Mid journey. And even though the category in which Allen came first was ‘digital arts/digitally-manipulated photography’, it left a lot of people in the creative world angry, questioning whether this kind of AI-generated art could replace human artists.
“There’s no doubt that the whole visual world is totally oversaturated with imagery. I know a lot of people who do AI art. I see it on Instagram or Facebook and some of the images have stuck in my head,” says Roger Ballen, an American artist who lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. “So, I think they’re successful from the point of view of conveying an aesthetic message from one person to another. And how they were able to achieve this, is this important or not important?”
This story is from the December 2022 - January 2023 edition of Forbes Africa.
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This story is from the December 2022 - January 2023 edition of Forbes Africa.
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