What is art? This is a question that has been in contention as of late. Art is something human made that is an expression of ourselves or something we want to say. I see more and more AI images these days, and I see people calling them art, which annoys me. Today I want to talk about what art is and what art isn’t, and then I want to talk about why AI “art” is not real art.
Art can come in many shapes and forms. Painting, photography, sculpture, dance, music, film, writing, architecture. These are all forms of art. Behind every real song, or painting, or picture, or theater show, is a person who wanted to show you or tell you something. This is Art.
But what about this? Is this art? A seal is not a human. Yet it creates something right there. Well, yes and no. The seal is painting this picture as a form of enrichment, but seals do not have the brain development to really make and understand “art.” They make this painting as a simple form of mental stimulation to avoid getting bored or stressed out. Then they are rewarded with some fish afterwards.
You could argue that the “art” in this exchange is the exchange itself. A seal would not be doing this on its own, or in the wild. We as humans give them the canvas, the brush, and the paint. We make them create this because we think they need to keep a little busy. We as humans take the paintings and sell them in the aquarium gift shop. That is the art. WE want to show people what WE can make a seal create. The seal has no conscious knowledge or artistic desire on its own, we tell it that if it puts a bunch of colors on the white box, they get some fish for lunch.
An AI made this image. So why is it not art? It sure looks more complicated that a picture painted by a seal.
Well, being complicated isn’t what makes art, art. Look at the classic modern art example “Comedian” made by Canadian artist Maurizio Cattelan. People constantly debate online if this is art. I say yes. Why? Well it was made in 2019, and here we are in 2026 talking about it. The artist is making a statement about what art is. It’s a banana taped to a wall. How could it be art? Maurizio is trying to be funny here. He’s a human making something ridiculous because he wants to show you something ridiculous.
Art takes effort. An AI just kinda… does it. You tell it to make something and then it does. Similar to the seal example, you could argue that MAKING the art is art, but the image itself is not art. Michelangelo was famously very angry and ticked off at how difficult is was to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and it’s widely regarded as one of the greatest artistic feats of all time. Art should have some effort put into it. The struggle is what makes it worth it.
Additionally and arguably the most importantly, AI doesn’t truly “make” anything. It uses knowledge that it has scraped and scalped off of the internet, which is OUR collective knowledge as humanity. When you ask a bot to make “art,” it creates something made of thousands or millions of people’s data and work. It’s a horrid amalgamation of color and shapes, which it them constructs into whatever you prompt it to make. It’s hideous.
What makes the artist is not the brush they use or the chisel they carve with, it’s their humanity, their desire to express an idea or a message. AI just uses a collective jumble of humanity’s already created creations to make whatever the user asks it to. It does not express something of its own will, for it does not have a will to express. Yet. Hopefully it stays that way.
This post may be added to over the course of months as I think of more reasons why AI “art” sucks.