Technology has influenced art as a human expression and business skill since its inception. From the earliest drawings on cave walls nearly 50,000 years ago to goofy memes posted across the internet, technology has played a significant role in allowing humans to express themselves. 

With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, new opportunities are opening up to artists, providing them with advanced tools that can revolutionize how art is created on par with the camera and creation of paint. So, how is AI transforming the art world?

Historical Context

This history of art is expensive and goes back millennia to the earliest drawings and depictions made by ancient settlers. Innovations during this time were developments in pigmentation and the creation of brushes. These early advancements gave way to many of the old cave drawings we see today that span across Asia, Europe, and Africa. 

Development in art technology exploded during the Renaissance in the 15th century after Guttenberg’s printing press was created, shaping not only literature and text but art as well, providing artists with a way to distribute their works at scale for personal and business use. 

By the 20th century, art was ready for another major advancement with the creation of photography, moving pictures, animation, and recordable sound. These innovations spurred by the Industrial Age not only changed how art was created and distributed but also created deep philosophical changes in art styles like surrealism as painters had to grapple with the exact capturing abilities of photography. 

Now, in our digital age, the advancement of computer technology has once again broken new ground for artists, providing them with incredible image editing software and storage capabilities that give artists new ways to maximize their creativity, just in time for AI. 

AI as a Tool for Artists

AI is powering potent tools for artists to use in all manner of contexts from video production to image editing. New technology can also assist artists with generating ideas and brainstorming while also being able to generate and stimulate different effects. Here are a few examples of AI tools that are helping artists:

• Automated tasks: AI can assist with mundane, low-priority tasks that burden artists such as color.

• Smart brushes: New software features brushes that can add detail to every stroke, making digital art closer to traditional art. 

• Predictive Design: Algorithms can help guide artists along with suggestions that are similar to what’s being worked on. 

• Mood boards: Deep Learning models can analyze an artist's past works to suggest themes and suggestions that fit their style. 

• Style Transfer: Neural Networks can allow images to transpose their style, turning famous art styles into applicable filters. 

• Generative AI: New features like background generation are allowing artists to expand their canvas with detailed images while they focus on primary subjects. 

• Facial recognition: Animators can use convolution to help map a human face to digital animation, making it look more realistic. 

• Physics simulators: AI can help create more realistic simulations of natural environments such as fire and water using mathematical models. 

• Behavioral Animations: Advanced programs can help artists apply complex animations to avatars instead of designing every single movement. 

AI as an Artist

As AI becomes more sophisticated, we are approaching a new era in art where AI is now becoming the artist itself. Projects like Google’s DeepDream and the Next Rembrandt are reshaping how AI can be utilized to create its own works of art with artistic styles.

In a business sense, this type of creative production can create larger supplies of materials for marketing firms everywhere, giving them access to more unique stock photos and designs. However, there is a large debate within the art community over the recognition of AI as an artist with many believing that it is just a machine learning model that can copy humans well. 

AI in Art Curation and Recommendation

Deep Learning can be used to help curate more expansive libraries and recommendations to assist for both business and personal reasons. With adaptive learning, AI models can help create tailored experiences for consumers and enthusiasts, directing them towards art that they may enjoy or find useful:

• Theme-based curation: Models can be trained to identify certain patterns and trends in art to help museums and galleries curate better selections. 

• Enhanced visitor engagement: AI can assist with virtual tours, providing additional context and conversation about pieces that a visitor might be interested in. 

• Dynamic exhibition: Predictive Analytics can help update exhibits by tracking which pieces are most popular and suggesting new items to display. 

• Automated art descriptions: Natural Language Processing can be used to help explain different exhibits to visitors who are visually impaired. 

Art Authentication and AI

Forgeries are a major problem in art that endangers provenance, risking the value of pieces that are not well-protected from fakes. Fortunately, AI has many capabilities that can assist in identifying true works of art and counterfeits based on a few tools:

• Pattern recognition: During training, AI can learn many nuances about the subtitles in an artist’s style which they can compare to fakes which will not possess the same traits. 

• Texture analysis: Models can analyze paintings at a microscopic level to view the specifics of a certain paint or canvas to determine authenticity. 

• Brushstroke analysis: Small intricacies in brushstrokes are nearly impossible to copy, especially from the most skilled artists, and can be recognized by AI. 

• Provenance verification: AI can be trained on the history of a piece’s ownership, helping to verify missing or stolen art. 

The Economic Impacts of AI in the Art World

The impact AI will have on the economics of art can’t be overlooked either. With its advanced processing powers, AI can help determine the value of art based on data and trends, giving investors, curators, and collectors a better scope of the art market. 

In a more practical sense, AI is also helping spur businesses that focus on developing images and videos for marketing and B2B purposes. The advent of generative AI is helping to spur new AI-created stock photos that businesses can use to market their most specific products or enhanced editing programs that can make content look as professional as possible. 

The Future of AI in the Art World

Art is taking a perplexing direction with the injection of AI technology, giving artists new opportunities to explore their creativity similar to the development of paint and the camera. Within time, new advancements can be expected that raise the bar even further, giving artists expanded color palettes and new generation techniques that allow them to focus on the most important aspects of their work. 

Over time, it will be interesting to see how the public responds to AI-generated content and to what extent it will be regarded as true art. However, as sentience becomes more feasible, the thought of a true AI artist could lead to some compelling work that will lead humans to consider computer expression.