The results of the survey show that people prefer more human involvement in AI -based art

Think of your favorite art work – a painting, a song, a novel, a film or even a video game – and try to remember why it made you a strong impression. Was it the color, the rate of notes, the way the writer made you feel understood, the deep emotion of the actors?

Imagine now that artificial intelligence has created it.

The question may seem casual, but it is the future to which we run. In recent years, AI developers have improved the ability of technology to create art in almost all areas: not just writing, digital art, photos and videos, but also three -dimensional models, dance choreography and architectural conceptions. AI so quickly learning to produce art forms previously considered to be the exclusive field of human ingenuity, we thought it was important to understand how people see this transformation.

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We each addressed this question of different backgrounds. One of us (Béchard) is a fiction journalist and writer who has published novels for 20 years, and the other (Kreiman) is a professor at the Harvard Medical School who is looking for the intersection between biological and artificial systems. Earlier this year, we conducted an investigation into AI art using Prolific, an online platform that pays people to participate in research. The only restriction we have imposed was that the respondents reside in the United States, we scored 150 people. What we have found has not yet been published or evaluated by peers.

The results were striking. The majority of people who participated did not like the idea of ​​the art generated by AI and estimated that human art has an emotional depth that machines cannot or should not reproduce. However, they were open to the art generated by AI as long as there was an artist involved, guiding and strongly encouraging their chosen platform. At a time when we are faced with a deluge of content generated by AI, we believe that IA companies should take into account this data and focus on what people appreciate – rather than creating systems that generate large volumes of art, they should conceive of better tools to give people the power to transmit their unique artistic visions. In doing so, their platforms could make the expression creative more accessible and egalitarian in a world where art creation is delivered with barriers for many people. In this way, AI could emerge as another path for human expression.

We first asked people to name their favorite art work. The answers included JD Salinger’s The recipient in the ryeJrr tolkien The communion of the ringVincent Van Gogh THE Starry and Gustav Klimt The kiss, as well as the musical Hamilton, TV shows Gilmore Girls,, Twin peaks And Game of Thrones, And the music of the Beatles, Metallica and Cat Stevens. Then, we asked how they would feel when they learned that their favorite work of art was generated by AI without humans involved, not even real actors in films. The answers were from indignation to enthusiasm. More than 62% said they would like art less, 32% said their feelings would not change, and almost 5% said they would like it more.

In the comments, a devotee of Good desire to hunt expressed horror, calling the film “a masterpiece of human experience” that no IA could never happen again. “Many have declared thoroughly that the art of AI is not” real “, that it is manipulator, inauthentic and, of course, artificial. Then, there were the pragmatists, who raised their shoulders and argued that if the work touches your soul, why marry the Creator – or his absence? A respondent even welcomed the idea of ​​the television generated by the Watch Insatiable binge: endless episodes projected by algorithms.

However, the reactions are deeper. When asked if there was a difference between the emotional value of human art and AI, 81% said yes, reminding us that we are looking for human experience in art. We want to know if an artist has drawn personal experience or imagination. We stop by reading a book to find out more about its author, and we follow the lives of singers and actors. Art, after all, is a way in which humans communicate. Namely: art “is the most universal and freest form of communication,” said philosopher John Dewey in his book Art as experience; “You think that your pain and your sorrow are unprecedented in the history of the world, but you have read,” said civil rights activist James Baldwin Life Magazine in an interview of 1963.

But if great art is forged by human hope, desire, disappointment and sorrow, what does creativity mean in a world with an increasingly powerful AI? People who use AI, against painting, film or even word processing, artists? We asked for it. Thirteen percent said yes, an additional 13% were not safe, and 31% said no, while 42% selected “Yes, but only if they provide important advice at AI; Otherwise no ”. These answers highlight why so many people, in person and online, complain of “Sloatus” generated by AI. What participants often emphasize is the impersonal nature, almost devoid of AI sense: online publications excited an idea in generic language, the assault of images that say little about the person who publishes them beyond their ability to write a short invitation and to strike the sending. But many respondents from our survey appeared more open to the idea that people use AI as a tool – an electronic pen or a brush – to help bring their artistic vision to the world.

It is important.

Art is not accessible to everyone. Many people with ideas for movies or music or stories may never have the resources to create them – the lyricist who wants to put music to words, the screenwriter who wants to see their lines pronounced on a screen. Artistic supplies and studios are expensive and people can be limited by geography, finances, physical disability or industry guards. Darren Aronofsky, award -winning director of Black swan, Founded the primordial soup of the AI ​​cinema studio to reduce barriers for emerging storytellers and develop scripts that remain not discussed due to high costs and technical limitations. Increasingly, however, consumer AI systems become so powerful that people can create films with them on their phone or office.

In the few years when commercial AI, such as Chatgpt and Midjourney, were available, certain ideas on AI art may have been normalized. When they were asked what types of art were able to create acceptably, more than a third of the respondents listed digital art, which was followed by near poetry and fiction. It is not a coincidence that the first commercial AI systems can quickly generate these types of content, and this is probably what our participants know the most. The observation that mass production decreases value (both perceived and real) is not new. In the book of 1899 Leisure class theoryThe economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen wrote: “The marks of the work of the hands become honorary, and the goods which present these marks take a higher level of level that the corresponding machine product.” We also tend to appreciate difficult tasks – to give more value to a film that required years to create or even simply on handmade clothes. “The effort is used as a heuristic for quality,” wrote the social psychologist Justin Kruger and his colleagues in a 2004 study. We think that digital art, poetry or fiction, rather than having lost their value, require a clearer link with the history of the author so that people are ready to trust them.

On the other hand, the types of art of the AI ​​that the respondents deemed the least acceptable were podcasts, television shows and films – artistic forms which still have trouble imitating convincingly. In recent years, podcasts have climbed in popularity and clearly embody the desire to communicate. Recent surveys have even found that many people prefer looking Podcasts so that they can see the facial expressions and gestures of speakers. Research on the new creative economy shows that the strongest engine of success in podcasting is a clear personality with which the public can connect. That these trends are in response to the recent deluge of impersonal media, we cannot say, but they tell us that even if the artists choose to embrace AI, they should consider doing it as a means of transmitting more clearly the uniqueness of their vision. However, creators must keep copyright in mind when human art is used to train systems and if the AI ​​tools they use generate content such as Deepfakes which inflict damage to people. People should invest in platforms that build guarantees and establish ethical standards, such as the Moonvalley video generation platform, which forms its model using only license data.

In the near future, because AI conquers more artistic areas and creates whole films or indisceable video podcasts from those manufactured by and with humans, what people find acceptable can change. But we know that people always appreciate art as a means of communication and connection, and taking the pulse of what society thinks of the art of AI can help align the developers of AI not only with the artists but with the millions of people who find meaning and a connection in art.

This is an article of opinion and analysis, and the points of view expressed by the author or the authors are not necessarily those of American scientific.