Original title: Can Computers Create Art?
The essay compares AI art tools with earlier technologies, such as photography and animation, that automated parts of art-making. Those technologies first worried artists, but later created new creative and professional opportunities. The essay then asks whether an AI system could be credited as an artwork’s author. It argues that art is made by social agents, so computers do not count as authors under our current understanding, while suggesting that this view could change.
Imagine a kitchen where new appliances take over parts of cooking. Cooks may worry that the machines will replace them, yet the tools can also make new dishes and new kinds of work possible. In this paper, photography and animation are the appliances, while AI art tools raise the further question of whether a tool can be treated as the creator rather than the person using it.
Artists and audiences are deciding how AI tools fit into making art, and who gets credit for the result. The essay argues that, under our current understanding, authorship belongs to social agents—so using AI to make an artwork does not by itself make the computer its author.
The abstract describes an essay that surveys earlier technologies, discusses AI art tools, and argues about authorship. It does not report empirical tests or establish how AI tools will be used in practice. Its claim about computers not being authors is tied to our current understanding of art, and the proposed ways that understanding could change are described as hypotheses.
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Can Computers Create Art? — Aaron Hertzmann — Arts — doi:10.3390/arts7020018
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.