How Do You Solve a Problem like DALL-E 2?

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (forthcoming)
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Abstract

The arrival of image-making generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs has been met with a broad rebuke: to many, it feels inherently wrong to regard images made using generative AI programs as artworks. I am skeptical of this sentiment, and in what follows I aim to demonstrate why. I suspect AI generated images can be considered artworks; more specifically, that generative AI programs are, in many cases, just another tool artists can use to realize their creative intent. I begin with an overview of how generative AI programs, like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, work. Then, leveraging work by Claire Anscomb, I argue that generative AI programs are a new technique of automatic image-making that affords creative agency to its users, thereby qualifying the images they create as artworks. Finally, I show many of the objections brought against AI artworks—including accusations of plagiarism and artistic devaluation—are due to the social backdrop in which we currently find them, rather than the technology itself. In the end, I aim to open the door to further aesthetic debate concerning AI generated images and art.

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References found in this work

Refining art historically.Jerrold Levinson - 1989 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 47 (1):21-33.
Language and Intelligence.Carlos Montemayor - 2021 - Minds and Machines 31 (4):471-486.
Authors, Intentions and Literary Meaning.Sherri Irvin - 2006 - Philosophy Compass 1 (2):114–128.
Appropriation and Authorship in Contemporary Art.Sherri Irvin - 2005 - British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (2):123-137.

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