In April 2024, the Rhode Island School of Design held a two-day symposium, “Debates in AI.” At the symposium, artists presented a range of opinions on the role, aesthetics, and ethics of AI in the visual arts.
Some artists, such as Molly Crabapple, expressed opposition to AI as a technology that “sucks the lifeblood out of living artists.” Others, like Trevor Paglen and Stephanie Dinkins, talked about the ways they incorporate AI tools into their creative process. Dinkins pointed out that, as a Black artist, creating with AI can “fill in the gaps about Blackness” that exist in current AI systems. “I think about,” Dinkins said, “how these systems will fail us if we do not lend them our nuanced details.” The writer Cory Doctorow was on hand to present his ideas for fairness and compensation of artists whose work is used to train AI.
I’ve watched the RISD debates, interviewed artist Yann Oehl, and come to appreciate a great deal of visual art crafted with AI tools. These experiences have left me with what Buddhist might call “right view”: I do not have a rigid opinion on AI in the visual arts. Instead, I feel curious, interested, and concerned.
I am curious about the methods and intentions of visual artists who use AI, because I feel the difference between art and objectionable “slop” uses of AI lies in the method and intention of the maker. I am interested in the way that language templates images in visual art, via the use of verbal prompts; there may be some inspiration for poetry here, since the modern poem is visual as well as aural.
And I am concerned about a lot: the rights of artists whose work trains AI; the digital divide where income level determines access to AI tools; the way AI functions as a wealth pump to the tech oligarchy; the bubble economy AI seems to be creating; and most of all, the environmental impact of AI. Its massive data centers strain the water and energy resources of poor communities. It uses overwhelming amounts of electricity, which translates to an overwhelming use of fossil fuels. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported earlier this year that the power requirements of data centers in North America increased from 2,688 megawatts at the end of 2022 to 5,341 megawatts at the end of 2023, driven greatly by AI. I don’t think we talk enough about the environment-busting effects of AI. I am glad that, in our interview, Yann Oehl spoke so eloquently about this problem and put it in a key context: we have no serious plan in this society for how to limit and prioritize energy use across the board—and that stinks.
Back in the day, I studied philosophy, and I usually end up on a philosophical problem. The one I’m mulling over right now is ancient: what constitutes aesthetic judgment? Do we judge a work of art beautiful, meaningful, moving, amusing, or sobering based on the work itself? Or do we judge it on the basis of how it was created? We can ask this of any visual art that uses an intermediary tool, like a camera or a computer. We can also ask it of any art that incorporates randomness in its creation, from Pollack’s splatter canvases to an unexpected AI-generated iteration. I don’t have an answer. But it feels good to be living in the questions.
Work to Explore
All the talks from RISD’s 2024 symposium are available at the “Debates in AI” home page.
ArtRewards has published a clear, succinct essay that covers the ethical conundrums of AI in the visual arts—”The Ethics of AI-Generated Art” (2025)
Works by two artists who use AI tools are available on their websites—Stephanie Dinkins and Elisa Giardina Papa.
Artist Refik Anadol, who had exhibited his AI-based work at MoMA, is opening DataLand, a museum of AI arts, in Los Angeles.
—Dana Delibovi
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