Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now starting to produce human-like work. So a friend emphasised in an online chat about arts and AI.
However, she asked the discussants, “What does that mean?” Then, responding to her question, she quickly said: “I think when the dust settles, it will be considered as one of the tools, like photography, as well as a technique, like a collage.”
She went on and asked another question: “What does that mean for arts in East Africa?”
Then, in a reflective mood, she answered: “Not much at the moment. AI is still incapable of operating either through the national or any other identity-centred lenses.”
Another friend responded: “My take is that the trend is what matters. This depends on how early or long we can be at its cutting edge. It will be too late if Africans wait for it to be relevant to them. And this might mean that others will have shaped it for Africa.”
These comments triggered many questions like, what is art? And how does AI matter, and what impact can it have on African arts?
Art is the expression of human creativity. Art has always been central to self-expression in Africa.
Works of art contribute an ever-greater share to economic development and high-value growth as African artists attain greater recognition globally.
However, one line of argument goes AI is threatening the personal element of creativity. The relationship between art and AI is becoming complicated.
Some artists are fearful that they will be replaced by AI. Yet others are hopeful that AI, on the contrary, will facilitate their work and make them more productive and better known and appreciated globally.
Either way, AI in art will continue to cause controversy.
However, some academics argue that art is much broader than the fields, which could even theoretically be covered by AI.
What about individual emotions, ideas and concepts artists strive to put across in the creation process? Here the argument is that AI lacks the human soul to do what humans are capable of.
Therefore, they believe that AI is an enabler, just like cameras, a tool. But AI is not just an enabler. It can be used to simulate human intelligence by teaching machines to learn through sets of rules called algorithms.
These algorithms can assist computers in generating artwork through a process approaching a creative process.
Even though AI generators (software) have been around since 1960, demand and supply have grown in the past decade.
The algorithms are now becoming ever more intelligent. They can generate works of art based on the information fed into the computer.
As a result, anyone can create the images they want by providing a textual description.
One of the latest generators, ChatGPT, released last November, has astounded everybody with how closely and realistically the images it generated matched the descriptions provided.
It is a significant departure from earlier generators, which had hits and misses.
Some in the art community are up in arms to stop such development.
Many other artists are also worried about what might happen to their jobs.
However, many designers and artists have also been experimenting with new technology to see how they might use it to their advantage.
Proponents of AI in art win the battle as the adoption rate grows.
The addition of AI in social media platforms such as TikTok is softening the opponents from a different angle. The platform can transform an individual’s photo into some form of art.
For example, uploading a picture into TikTok’s AI Time Machine can provide a photography history of the person from childhood through to old age in either photo or art form, thus erasing the human element in art.
How will AI play a role in African art? AI comes with new opportunities that we have not explored yet.
Take, for example, the recent Rusinga Festival, an annual celebration of the Abasuba people and their culture, language, and artefacts on Rusinga Island.
Everything that defines Abasuba could dissipate due to their assimilation into the larger Luo community.
AI is the only gateway to Suba’s cultural survival from the past and future.
Since their language is about to be extinct, just like the El-Molo, Kinare, Kore, Lorkoti and Sogoo in Kenya, AI’s natural language processing could revive and sustain these languages.
Further, AI Time Machines could save these festivals and their dynamic imagery for future generations.
Real art should not be afraid of the new AI tools.
The role of African art institutions, including ambitious art museums, is to preserve and research the imagery of African art, from traditional to modern, creating analogue and digital collections and descriptions of artists, artworks, and art movements, so that new digital universes have enough data about African art to give it the place it deserves in the collective human imagination, digital or otherwise.
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