Recorded Music, Alice Neel and why we don’t have to fear AI art

Teachers are worried about pupils using ChatGPT to write essays. A beta version of the Bing chatbot professed her love for a journalist. Concerns have grown over generators stealing art styles from real artists to create works based on user prompts. One question seems to be on repeat- should we be worried about AI taking jobs? And in the art field specifically- will AI art make artists a thing of the past? Hold on reader, and I’ll explain why I don’t think we need to worry. As long as people have things they want to express, they will create, and as long as people find meaning in the expression and view points of other people, that art will be studied, appreciated, purchased.

Technology has taken some jobs from artists without AI art (kind of)

There’s already a lot of technology “taking the role” of artists. Most of the artwork in the average person’s home are mass produced prints. A real artist designed these but they are now sold for less than if that person created unique pieces for each person who has a copy of it.

There’s also a lot of paintings that are mostly reproduced with a few paint brush strokes used to look more authentic- you find this especially in touristy areas where people are likely to make an impulse art purchasing.

Does this mean printing technology has taken away jobs from artists? In some cases, perhaps. In many cases though, these prints aren’t taking away jobs from artists because the people buying them wouldn’t have been able to afford original art in the first place. Rather than stealing from that marketplace, printed works would simply be adding to a market that didn’t really exist in the first place. Prints have created a marketplace for art for people who historically wouldn’t have been able to buy art for their homes.

We can learn about the future of AI art from the history of recorded music

A recent podcast episode 1942: The Day the Music Stopped told the story of the musician strike that occurred off the back of inventing recorded music. Before recorded music, radios would have to hire bands to play live, cinemas hired musicians to play music during silent films, and any restaurant that wanted a musical atmosphere would have to hire local singers and bands to do so. After the proliferation of the record, many of these jobs were replaced because it’s easier and cheaper to play a recorded piece of music over and over. Now, this is something we don’t think about very much. Why not?

To some extent regulation has caught up with technology. In most places, you can’t play recorded music in a commercial setting without having a license that pays the musicians some money for their music being played. Although that wouldn’t be anywhere as much as they would be paid for playing live, recorded music also means their music can be played more often and in more places than they could be in at once.

But there’s another aspect to this. Despite having easy access to recorded music, humans have not lost their value of live performed music. We recognise that music played in the moment, which isn’t perfect and is off the cuff, has added benefit and added atmosphere to recorded music.

Whilst some restaurants do play recorded music, they often still pay life performers for this value. Concerts by musicians are some of their biggest money-makers because people recognise the added value of a real human Taylor Swift, Beyonce, or their favourite performer playing live and are happy to pay more for that than for a music subscription service.

If anything, the existence of recorded music may simply mean that we just listen to a lot more music. At no other time in history would I be able to listen to music throughout my work day to keep me focused (unless I was a very very wealthy person) and still go out after work to listen to some live jazz.

In the same way, technology like AI art won’t replace human artists. Reproduced prints and machine made paintings are less expensive, but that fact doesn’t dissuade people with means to see an additional value in unique works of art created by an artist. Reproduced art may mean that more people have access to art and can adorn their homes with beautiful things where they cannot afford original works of art.

The Invention of Cameras and Alice Neel’s Portrait Paintings

Another example of this idea at play is the work of Alice Neel. Alice Neel was an American portrait painter whose body of work spanned from the 1930s to 1980s. Recently, I heard a quote describing her at an exhibit of her work at the Barbican Centre in London. The commentator pointed out that her paintings was appreciated even in an age of photography. If you look at any of Neel’s works, you’ll be struck by how non-photograph like they are.

Her unique modernist approach to painting people with an emphasis on their exaggerated flaws and individual looks does what most would deem the opposite of photoshopping someone to look better. Instead of adjusting a man’s uneven moustache, she might make it more uneven, or make it uneven where it wasn’t because she thought that was more fitting to his psychological profile. Alice Neel said of her work:

“I do not pose my sitters. I do not deliberate and then concoct… Before painting, when I talk to the person, they unconsciously assume their most characteristic pose, which in a way involves all their character and social standing - what the world has done to them and their retaliation.”

Neel’s artistic perspective left a mark on people. Seeing her work at the Barbican, I wanted to know more about how she viewed life and the people around her. The way she chose to paint and why she chose to paint like that was what grabs people about her. Asked by an AI generator, technology could reproduce a painting similar in style to Neel, but that wouldn’t stop me from being interested in Neel’s specific artistic perspective and choices which go beyond “the prompt told me to.” At the time, Neel could have chosen to photograph her sitters. (And indeed, photography itself requires a lot of artistic choice by the artist and could be equally as interesting.) But she didn’t. It’s that choice and the other choices she made as an artist, that makes her work interesting.

When we developed ways to create increasingly perfect methods of capturing the world via photography, this did not erase our ability to appreciate painting. Instead, we have both.

Bring it on, AI art

This comes to the heart of why AI art doesn’t scare me. There are real ethical considerations when it comes to the regulation of this new technology. With the advent of recorded music, we had to adjust to paying musicians for using their recorded music in certain settings. Similarly, we will need to develop processes for providing financial recompense for artists work being used to feed AI and create a system where artists must opt-in to be used to train AI technology.

There might be other ways we need to adjust as a society such as ensuring one declares properly when they’ve used AI in their work and how. And as always, we could do a better job of teaching culture to value the work of artists- especially smaller artists and artisans who may be more directly competing with less expensive art in the marketplace.

But we don’t have to be alarmed. Throughout history, technological progress changes things. But in the end, humans will continue to value the unique perspectives of artists creating new work. We are able to continue live performance despite recorded music and audiences valued Alice Neel’s portraits despite an age where portraits were easily taken with a camera. As long as people find meaning in the expression and view points of other people, that art will be continually valued (and paid for).

If you’re one of those people who still values human art, may I wholeheartedly recommend Alice Neel: Off the Griddle at the Barbican through 21 May, 2023.