Lee was proud to be named after Lee Krasner, the famous artist and partner to Jackson Pollock. She used that inspiration as an artist majoring in painting in her final year of college. She has always been fascinated by blending traditional art techniques with new tools and technologies. Evidence of this could be seen in her art studio, which was often messy with canvases that were blank, in process, and finished hanging on the wall. One of her friends stopped by her studio and introduced her to a new tool he had just discovered. He called it an AI art generator and boldly said that the future of art-making would allow for endless possibilities.

Later at night, when she was home, Lee uploaded photos of her paintings to this tool to see how it would interpret and change her work. She was stunned by what she saw. The images somehow retained what seemed to be the essence of her style but also transformed them in ways that she didn't even imagine while she was painting them. She decided to add these to her upcoming exhibition, which she was now calling "Synthesis."

She marched on making more digital and painted works leading up to the show. When she showed her classmates what she had been working on, she began receiving challenging questions from them and her professors. They asked her if she was the author of the works, which were created by an algorithm that had been trained on thousands upon thousands of works by unknown artists, be considered your original works?" Questions like these force us to consider the nature of creativity and what role the artist has if artificial intelligence is used as a tool in these ways.

Lee found herself torn between two perspectives. On one hand, she felt a solid connection to the pieces generated by the AI tool. After all, she chose which original paintings to input, she curated what the AI tool output, and she made intential choices about which pieces to include in her exhibition. Could she consider her creative decision-making a form of authorship? But she couldn't ignore that the AI tool had transformed her work in ways she hadn't anticipated or had any control over. Was she a curator or facilitator rather than a creator?

She contacted a local tech startup specializing in making these kinds of AI art tools. She was surprised they invited her to collaborate to develop a new AI model they were developing, which could be trained specifically on her artistic style. This experience helped her to see how humans and AI tools could collaborate more deeply. By actually participating in the AI's development, Lee thought she could have more control over the final output. This raised new questions about what separates human and machine creativity and if artistic styles would become homogenized.

Lee felt uninformed, so she began reading books about originality in art and how art often has an aura that changes whenever it's reproduced repeatedly. Lisa saw a similarity with our dilemma and wondered if AI reproduction would also affect the aura of her work. Lee also looked into the complex legal and ethical landscape of AI-generated content and felt unsure whether or not she was contributing to a growing problem.

Nevertheless, Lee showed those images generated by AI. She felt like she had a more evolved point of view, so she added a story about what she learned about authorship and originality in the age of AI next to each of the images. The exhibition led to a lot of dialogue between her classmates, instructors, and the public, who came about the evolving relationship between AI and human creativity.

What do you think?

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Maya dreamed of becoming the next Ellen Lupton or Paula Scher, but she was only in her first year of a two-year communication design program. She had a lot to learn and took each project very seriously. She wanted to start learning how AI tools could play a part in her projects, so Maya focused on this for her final project. Her goal was to create an emotionally rich portrayal of her family with the help of several AI tools she and her classmates were experimenting with.

Maya was charged with pushing the boundaries of creativity by using these tools, and her journey began. I researched how personal challenges helped artists create more meaningful work. She reflected on the notion that genuine emotional depth in art stems from the vulnerabilities and experiences of that artist. She wondered how an AI tool, which didn't have any personal experiences to draw from, could come close to achieving something like this.

To get started, Maya attended webinars featuring speakers from different design studios, creative labs, and academic institutions. All of them discussed advancements in AI and created imagery that could replicate the kind of human emotions that appear transformative in art and design. She was even more inspired and so continued experimenting furiously with these tools. Her graphic narratives began taking shape, and she sought ways to evoke feelings like nostalgia, joy, and sadness to mimic human emotions.

Maya was excited about what she was producing and eager to show her classmates some of the progress she had made. However, they immediately commented that her work lacked " soul." She wondered if it was impossible not to have her touch as part of each step of the creative process. Is that what it would take for the piece to have soul?

As Maya considered these questions, she met a couple of artists at a gallery who challenged her perspective. They said that so-called emotional depth in a painting or musical score doesn’t solely rely on the artist's personal experiences but also on how the viewers interpret it and the emotional connection they build with it. These artists use AI to generate illustrations that deliberately lack context and allow viewers to, as they put it,  “project their own emotions and experiences onto the pieces.” They said this approach might create deeper emotional connections since each viewer's experience with their work would become unique and personal.

This new perspective forced Maya to reconsider her point of view. She wondered if AI could be used as more than just a tool for replication but also as a way to create more open-ended emotional experiences. Still, she couldn't shake her belief in the value of an artist's personal touch. Maya realized that this debate was far from over.

She started to think that AI could mimic only certain parts of emotional depth. It couldn't produce the feeling of imperfect human touch, and it can't have the unique perspective that human-created art and design have and that people genuinely resonate with. AI renderings just don't have that sense of human imperfection.

In her final presentation, she shared these aspects of her journey, which showcased not just the pieces she had created but also the AI works that she wrestled with. She was quick to point out the differences between the two versions and argued that AI can be very useful in the creative process but that details like authenticity and human resonance are, at this point, impossible to reproduce.

What do you think?

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Katya has been painting since before she can remember, and she has a particular affinity for Ukrainian paintings since that's her home country. A friend of hers had just told her about a tool powered by artificial intelligence. Her friend promised that the tool could generate any photograph she wanted based on a simple command she gave it. She was skeptical but also eager to see if it could come close to approximating some of her favorite paintings. 

After she briefly explored the tool, she quickly realized it could capture the feeling of some of her favorite works of art. The results felt unique but also similar to the painting she referenced. She was excited about this and decided to share it on social media. There, she gained a lot of attention and comments from those in her extended network. It was a rush to receive so much attention.

She became concerned when an artist contacted her, saying that one of the AI-generated paintings looked similar to their own work, which was inspired by the same classic painting that Katya used as a reference in the AI tool. The artist suggested that Katya was infringing on their intellectual property rights and that Katya's work derived value from how they interpreted the original painting. 

This was confusing to Katya, so she contacted her teachers for help. Her painting professor pointed her toward the complex details of intellectual property rights pertaining to AI artwork. While traditional IP law does protect authorship for those original works of art that AI works modeled, this raises questions about which work is original and which is a derivation, and about which is a creation and which imitates the creation. 

To resolve the dispute, Katya discussed this with the artist who accused her. She explained her artistic process and the role of AI as a tool in her creativity. They debated questions such as: Is AI-generated art that draws on existing works transformative enough to be considered original? Who holds the copyright in such casesᅳthe AI, the user who provided the prompt, or the creators of the original works that inspired that training data? 

As she continued to delve into the issue, Katya discovered that the debate around AI-generated art extended far beyond her personal experience. ⁤⁤She came across artists who use AI to enhance their creativity and push their artistic expression. She argued that AI is simply another medium, like oil paints or digital software, and that humans' ability to craft prompts and curate results shows their true artistry.

Katya also found advocates for traditional artistry, who believe that AI tools will devalue human creativity and diminish labor. Those with this point of view worried that mass-produced AI art would flood the market and make it harder for human artists to make a living. ⁤⁤This forced Katya to reflect on the implications of AI in creative industries and consider not just the legal aspects of using these kinds of tools but also the economic impact on the artists. 

Katya and the artist who accused her came to a mutual understanding. They both acknowledge that there's a lot of gray area for interpretation and that better intellectual property laws are needed to help them and others with the murky challenges caused by AI tools. This is an important lesson for Katya.

What do you think?

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