Even as artificial intelligence threatens to transform various industries and render some professions obsolete, many artists see their craft as potentially benefiting from new AI-powered styles and techniques.
A survey of more than 3,000 visual artists living in Germany found that 43% see AI as an opportunity. At the same time, many have reservations and fears, and 56% fear that they could lose sources of income, while 53% even see the livelihood of visual artists at risk.
And yet there remains a great deal of curiosity about AI in the art scene, as in many other industries.
"42% of the artists surveyed have already had their own artistic experience with AI in the creation of works, of which 50% use AI tools to find ideas and 39% use them to develop new works," the study organizers announced on Monday.
More than 1,000 recipients of art works were also surveyed. Of these, 64% show an interest in works that have been created partially or even entirely with AI applications.
There is broad agreement among creatives and consumers regarding "mandatory labelling of products created with or by AI," with 85% of artists and 83% of art recipients in favour of this.
The survey was commissioned by the contemporary art foundation Stiftung Kunstfonds and Initiative Urheberrecht, an authors' rights group. It was conducted by business consultancy Goldmedia with more than 3,000 artists from fields such as painting, sculpture, video art, graphics, photography and performance.
Karin Lingl from the Stiftung Kunstfonds said that even more than art itself, AI is conquering "the areas that mediate art, which jeopardizes jobs and commissions in the entire art industry, in museums, publishing houses, galleries and the press."
"We need to develop an awareness of authenticity in order to be able to check and assess the credibility of images."
Katharina Uppenbrink from the authors' rights group said the use of protected works and services by AI applications must "lead to appropriate remuneration for creatives," either within the framework of licensing models or laws.
The AI chatbot ChatGPT in particular triggered a hype around AI a year ago. Expectations range from unlimited possibilities in the digital world to fears of the extinction of humanity.
Powerful AI software is also capable of creating deceptively real photos and videos as well as images or collages in the style of earlier works of art. AI is trained with huge amounts of information and then creates products that could also be made by humans. The principle behind this is that it works with probabilities.
