The incursion of artificial intelligence into the field of art has sparked considerable outrage, shock, and debate. AI-generated works can be remarkably high-quality and widely accessible. At first glance, they may even imitate the works of human artists. The central theme of this thesis is, therefore, a critical examination of whether AI-generated products can possess artistic value.
To explore this question, I draw upon conceptual analyses by key thinkers in the philosophy and sociology of art, including the formalist Clive Bell, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and a group of psychologists led by Todd M. Thrash. For the analysis of creativity and artificial intelligence, I engage with the works of philosophers such as Margaret Boden, John Searle, Jonathan C. Flowers, and Trystan Goetze.
I argue that while artificial intelligence can produce creative outputs, the process by which it generates them cannot itself be considered creative, as AI lacks an understanding of the true meanings of the symbols it manipulates. AI’s creativity is thus confined to situations with confined contexts, such as those found in the positive sciences or chess.
Due to this fundamental limitation, I demonstrate that artificial intelligence does not create artistically significant works. Rather, it merely reorganizes potentially significant artistic components derived from human-authored works.
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