Uploaded February 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
When is art, not art? What if it’s made by a robot? Is the human perspective a prerequisite for creating human culture, or could our creative industries soon be outsourced to machines?
The cultural applications of artificial intelligence are exploding in sophistication, with paintings, poetry, music and even cinema being created via machine learning. Are we entering an ‘AI renaissance’, where human art and culture will be created autonomously by machines? Or is art a uniquely human endeavour, and such algorithmic ‘artists’ are just pretenders who create picturesque but ultimately meaningless media?
When is art, not art? What if it’s made by a robot? Is the human perspective a prerequisite for creating human culture, or could our creative industries soon be outsourced to machines?
The cultural applications of artificial intelligence are exploding in sophistication, with paintings, poetry, music and even cinema being created via machine learning. Are we entering an ‘AI renaissance’, where human art and culture will be created autonomously by machines? Or is art a uniquely human endeavour, and such algorithmic ‘artists’ are just pretenders who create picturesque but ultimately meaningless media?
