Over the past few days I’ve found myself mulling the question of whether AI will destroy art and literature. Initially, I found myself comforted by a thought, articulated by Carrie Jenkins on bluesky, that since the value of art lies not simply in the product but in the process of its creation, art will survive intact. When I contemplate Van Gogh’s Starry Night, I’m not just considering a decontextualized pretty object such as an AI might produce, but something that results from human intention, contemplation and struggle and which flows from a life and its roots. So far, so good.
I was moved to think of Marx’s contrast in The Results of the Immediate Process of Production between Milton, who “produced Paradise Lost as a silkworm produces silk, as the activation of his own nature” and “the literary proletarian of Leipzig who produces books, such as compendia on political economy”. (See Capital vol 1, Penguin edition, p. 1044). The literary proletarian may be threatened by AIs, which can churn out such compendia, or perhaps boilerplate romantic fiction, but a Milton is not. But on further reflection, I think this is a mistake. Not that “Miltons” will entirely disappear but they will be oddities, isolates, like Sabato Rodia who built the Watts Towers.
The thing is, people do value products for their instrisic characteristics, divorced from the histories of the creation and creators. When people go to IKEA to buy a nice lamp or a rug, they are mostly indifferent to who has produced it: they want something that looks good, is affordable, and works. And AI can produce this, thereby depriving thousands of equivalents of the “literary proletarian” of their livelihoods. Sure, a few people might pay a premium for an Anni Albers-designed rug (and more for an original), but most will settle to adorn their home with an AI-produced knock-off at a fraction of the price.
The trouble is, that the elimination of the literary proletarians doesn’t simply leave the Miltons standing, unscathed. Mostly, art does not just emerge from a random genius popping up and producing great works but from a milieu which provides a context and an infrastructure. A network of other producers but also critics, dealers, suppliers, teachers. I believe Howard Becker writes about this in his book Art Works, but though it is on my to-read shelf, I have not yet done so. Some of those people produce output that is “art”, but since “art” is a prestige category, many others produce work that fails to rise to that level but which is merely decorative or entertaining. Many of them will have been trained in art schools or universities but have failed to make it as artists, but without them those schools will become unviable. In short, withouth the wider group of near-misses and engaged supporters it is hard to see where many artists will come from: thanks to AI they will lack a sea in which to hatch and then swim.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Phil 01.02.26 at 9:51 am
I used to know a guy who was a former cabinet-maker. It’s probably true at some level that there will always be a market for well-made, artisan-built bookcases and chests of drawers, but it’s also true that a lot of people will settle for the poorly-made alternative if it’s cheap – and if you can pay a bit more and get something reasonably well-made (the niche that IKEA carved out), the market for hand-made furniture is going to get very small indeed – too small to sustain the trade of cabinet-making.
Perhaps it wasn’t Skynet gaining sentience we needed to worry about!
Lisa H 01.02.26 at 10:05 am
There will likely continue to be people who enjoy the process of creating art and get good at it over time, and who do it as a hobby, don’t you think? In that sense, many art forms might go the way of knitting, lace-making, and other traditional forms of arts and craft. Whether that can produce Miltons, I don’t know. It will probably depend a lot on how much free time people have… if AI could be used to reduce working hours, allowing people more time for hobbies, then who knows. Unfortunately, I don’t see this coming, at the moment…
Ethan 01.02.26 at 10:35 am
Not to sound all relativist here but the most important part of the question for me is considering how the valuation of art is contingent. Furthermore, how we value art I think is more about what we do with it rather than what we think of it.
As you say with the IKEA example, there is a certain pragmatic element to the valuation of art. If it does the job, it does the job. You can even say this of literature, film, visual arts etc. Tolstoy wrote that the definition of art is that which imitates and evokes a certain emotion in the audience. There’s nothing about the context of its creation which is necessary for doing so, which is why AI may suffice in many cases.
I’m also reminded of Bridget Riley arriving in New York, horrified to see her paintings reproduced on clothing and deprived of its “purity”. The base is the augmentation of constant capital, art mechanised and reproduced whether through AI or furniture factories, and the superstructurual effect is indifference to the context of the art’s creation, so much so we often don’t consider clothing or furniture as art, and other forms of art will probably follow that pattern.