This article was automatically translated from the original Turkish version.
It is possible to say that technology has transformed every aspect of life and altered the dynamics of many situations. Today, images generated by artificial intelligence, music composed by algorithms, and even poems written by machines already exist. Given that this phenomenon is ongoing, it is not extraordinary to state that art has also been affected by this change.
First, in 2018, a painting titled “Edmon de Belamy,” created by artificial intelligence, attracted worldwide attention when it sold for $432,000 at an auction. The painting, known as “Portrait of Edmond Belamy,” was produced by a Paris-based art collective called Obvius.
The team consisting of Hugo Caselles-Dupré, Pierre Fautrel, and Gauthier Vernier generated the portrait using the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) method.
Some art enthusiasts have rejected this development, arguing that art should be created solely through human emotion and experience. On the other hand, others who support the evolution of technology argue that art must also evolve in response to these changes and advocate for the advancement of AI-assisted art.
Moreover, it has been suggested that artificial intelligence could potentially generate aesthetic value in art.
Although these debates began with the exhibition of AI-assisted paintings, a similar transformation is now taking place in the world of music. For instance, AI systems are producing pieces across various musical genres, composing original compositions, and even generating songs without any human voice input.
Although listeners often fail to recognize them as such, and some may even describe them as “made by human hands,” many music producers admit that the majority of their compositions are created using AI-assisted systems.
This transformation in art is not limited to painting and music; it is also finding its place in sculpture and even in our cultural tradition of “textile manufacturing.”
For example, the theoretical modeling of the warp-threading system used in weaving machines has been developed and is now managed by an AI-assisted system.
Indeed, while the integration of artificial intelligence into art has sparked debates about the impact of advancing technology, we can assert that art is developing a new mode of expression through human-machine collaboration. Can robots also create art? If art is understood as the creation of aesthetic form and beautiful sound, then this remains challenging.
However, technically, it is possible for robots to produce works of art.
Nevertheless, it remains a subject of debate whether human emotion is essential. Since robot-generated art is based on algorithms, learned data sets, and copied styles, claiming that robots directly create art and imbue it with aesthetic value invites controversy.
In short, robots can produce art using AI-assisted systems, but they cannot imbue it with aesthetic value or reflect human emotion, experience, and thought. Therefore, it is very difficult to assert that robots directly create art.
In fact, today this phenomenon is often described by art enthusiasts not as art itself, but as events driven primarily by commercial interests.