Since the arrival of industrialization, technological advances have been evolving, leaving great improvements in working conditions: cuts in our working hours due to the reduction in production costs, deflation of products that to date we cannot imagine being more economical. and greater ease in carrying out jobs that in the past were highly complex. This was the global reality that our societies experienced in the last century.
Currently, technological advances have focused on the development of artificial intelligence, an imitation of human intelligence but with inhuman potential. Becoming helpful in creating artistic pieces, texts, songs and even films. Threatening the extinction of art and its professionals. On this occasion, we will talk only about painting and illustration so as not to go into more detail than necessary.
I don’t know what vision of the future we have, but let’s imagine for a moment that art is reduced to the use of an algorithm capable of copying any existing artistic style. Styles that, by the way, are created by human beings with years of practice and hard work. Everything that had value at the time would begin to be a banal piece created with the ease of a few. clicks. And art is inherent to merit, you cannot appreciate an artistic piece without praising the mind that created it; There is an enormous personal burden behind each work, a technique that took years to perfect and of course, there is a piece of the soul of its creator. Painting and illustration are an abstract language but loaded with symbolism, it is a whole language that can be seen between strokes and color palettes.
If that human factor disappeared from the paintings, we would have a piece without any type of value. Taking this into account, there is no way to conceive of a future where artificial intelligence and art can coexist in harmony. It is completely dystopian to think about the extinction of art, but what sense would museums or history books have then, if our entire cultural legacy were created by an algorithm that, like a zamuro, has been fed by real artists buried by the trivialization of their work. What would it be like to be an artist?
The most tragic thing about the matter, there is no way to sue those who use artificial intelligence, copyright laws do not have the capacity to protect the styles of each artist, a legal loophole that allows users of the main providers of these services, use their creations for commercial purposes without obtaining any repercussions. The need then arises for a possible update of our copyright laws to be debated, nothing that does not happen from time to time, only that on this occasion many careers are hanging by a thread that deserves to be prioritized.
Technology is becoming cheaper and more accessible, it is becoming easier to buy a cell phone, which leads us to consider the ease with which these services can be accessed and supplant the career of a school artist in a matter of minutes. The future is uncertain, but if we make art such a simple and meritless concept, we will be facing the disappearance of human expression through art and its techniques. I repeat, if we separate merit from art, we are only left with mediocrity. Let’s think if that is the mark we want to leave in our history. We then have to lay the foundations for fair legislation so that in the future we continue to leave artistic traces.
