AI and arts – it is such a vast and fascinating topic that I intend to keep writing about this. Let’s see where I will go with this.
This topic fascinates (and worries) me because arts are the souls of human beings. Without art, we lose one of the most important markers as a unique species. With art, we feel our existence.
But what about art generated by AI?
The Entropy of Creativity
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in creative fields presents an entropy paradox: it exponentially increases the volume of artistic content, yet it also risks homogenizing artistic expression by reinforcing familiar patterns. AI’s ability to generate vast quantities of new images, music, and literature suggests a future of boundless creativity, but its reliance on pre-existing works raises concerns about whether it truly fosters innovation.
Across the visual arts, music, film, and literature, AI has already disrupted traditional creative processes. Tools such as DALL·E, Midjourney, OpenAI’s Jukebox, and ChatGPT are producing high-quality content that challenges the roles of human artists, writers, and musicians. While some argue that AI democratizes creativity by making artistic tools accessible to everyone, others worry that AI-generated content will dilute originality, devalue human artistry, and ultimately lead to cultural stagnation.
Here I make an attempt to explore, with the help of AI, the cultural and social effects of AI-generated art, analyzing real-world examples and case studies to assess whether AI is an ally to human creativity or a force of artistic entropy.
The Entropy Effect: Does AI Expand or Limit Creative Possibilities?
In information theory, entropy refers to the degree of randomness or unpredictability in a system. In an artistic context, a high-entropy culture is one in which new and unexpected creative ideas constantly emerge, while a low-entropy culture is one dominated by repetitive and formulaic content. AI sits at the heart of this debate because it can generate massive amounts of art but is trained on existing works, meaning its output often reflects patterns from past human creativity rather than forging entirely new artistic directions.
A study published in AI & Society found that while AI-generated art appears innovative, it often reinforces existing artistic trends rather than breaking new ground (McLoughlin 2024). For instance, platforms such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion have been widely criticized for producing a uniform “AI aesthetic”, characterized by hyper-detailed, digitally enhanced realism. The prevalence of this aesthetic across AI-generated art contests and digital galleries suggests that AI favors pattern recognition over true unpredictability.
However, some argue that AI can increase cultural entropy when used creatively by human artists. The musician Holly Herndon, for instance, created “Spawn,” an AI voice model trained on her own voice. Instead of merely copying past compositions, Herndon used the AI to explore new sonic landscapes, resulting in an album that was both AI-assisted and deeply personal. This case suggests that AI’s role in art depends on how it is used—it can either reinforce existing structures or serve as a tool for genuine artistic experimentation.
Case Study: AI-Generated Music and the Future of Popular Hits
The impact of AI on music is particularly significant. While AI-generated music is not yet dominant in the mainstream industry, experiments have shown that it can replicate and even surpass human compositions in technical proficiency.
In 2023, an AI-generated track titled “Heart on My Sleeve”, mimicking the voices of Drake and The Weeknd, went viral on Spotify, TikTok, and YouTube (Roose 2023). The song, created using AI voice cloning technology, was streamed millions of times before being taken down due to copyright concerns. The fact that audiences could not initially distinguish the AI-generated song from real music suggests that AI is already capable of producing music indistinguishable from human-made compositions.
However, while AI can generate commercially viable tracks, its ability to create culturally significant music remains in question. Music history is shaped by human experience, struggle, and social movements—as seen in jazz, punk rock, and hip-hop, all of which emerged from deep cultural and political contexts. AI lacks subjective human experiences, which raises the question: Can AI-generated music ever capture the emotional and political weight of an album like Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly or Nina Simone’s protest songs?
While AI can generate music that sounds like a hit, it lacks the lived experience and social consciousness that define truly groundbreaking music. The risk, then, is that AI could lead to a low-entropy music culture, where songs are optimized for engagement but lack deeper artistic meaning.
Case Study: AI in Film and Gaming – Enhancing or Replacing Human Creativity?
AI-generated content has also entered film and video game development, leading to new creative possibilities as well as ethical concerns.
In 2023, Marvel’s TV series Secret Invasion became the first major Hollywood production to feature an AI-generated opening credit sequence (McMillan 2023). The decision was met with backlash from both fans and artists, who felt that Marvel prioritized cost-cutting over hiring human illustrators. While AI-generated imagery can save time and money, it also raises concerns about whether studios will devalue human artistry in favor of automated production.
Similarly, in the gaming industry, AI is increasingly used to generate background environments, character animations, and even dialogue. Ubisoft introduced “Ghostwriter,” an AI tool that generates minor NPC (non-playable character) dialogue, allowing game developers to focus on main storylines. While this improves efficiency, it also raises concerns about the loss of hand-crafted storytelling in gaming. Will AI-generated dialogues feel generic and formulaic, stripping games of the personal touch that makes them emotionally compelling?
A study in the ACM Digital Library warns that relying too much on AI-generated scripts and artwork could lead to the loss of creative unpredictability, making video games and films more formulaic and less distinctive over time (McCosker and Wilken 2023). This suggests that while AI can enhance creativity, its overuse could reduce artistic diversity, reinforcing industry trends rather than allowing true innovation.
AI and the Human Condition: Can AI Art Be Meaningful?
At the heart of the AI art debate is a deeper philosophical question: Can AI-generated art hold meaning?
Art has historically been a reflection of human experience, emotion, and cultural narratives. A song written by an artist who has endured heartbreak carries an authenticity that an AI-generated love song, pieced together from data, lacks. Similarly, paintings that depict war, grief, or triumph carry a historical and personal weight that AI, which lacks human consciousness, cannot replicate.
However, research from AI & Society suggests that audience perception plays a crucial role in artistic meaning. If people believe a piece of art was created by a human, they attribute more emotional depth to it than if they know it was made by AI (McLoughlin 2024). This suggests that AI art may never be fully accepted as equal to human art, simply because viewers recognize the absence of human intent behind it.
Final Thoughts: The Future of AI and Art
AI-generated art is here to stay, but its impact depends on how it is integrated into the creative process. AI can enhance artistic exploration, but if used irresponsibly, it risks leading to a culture of mass-produced, low-entropy content optimized for engagement rather than artistic significance.
The challenge is not whether AI can create technically proficient art—it clearly can. The real question is whether society will continue to value human-created works for their uniqueness, emotional resonance, and cultural significance.
I believe that we, human beings as a mortal species, will continue to try to increase the entropy of arts by creating more unique pieces of art and music to awake our senses. There will be a lot more AI infused in the creation processes, and it remains to be seen whether AI can create soul-touching arts like the Mona Lisa, or the Flower Duet, or the Four Seasons, or the Starry Night…
References
Gutiérrez Paitan, Luis, et al. AI in Music: Examining the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Emulating Human Creativity and Its Impact on the Music Industry. University of Virginia, 2020.
McCosker, Anthony, and Rowan Wilken. “AI, Art, and Cultural Production: How Anthropomorphizing AI Can Undermine Creativity.” ACM Digital Library, 2023.
McLoughlin, Lewis. “AI and the Expansion of Creative Boundaries: A New Framework for Understanding Artistic Innovation.” AI & Society 39, no. 1 (2024): 231-254.
McMillan, Graeme. “Marvel’s ‘Secret Invasion’ AI Intro Sparks Backlash.” Hollywood Reporter, June 23, 2023.
OpenAI. Jukebox: A Neural Network for Music Generation. OpenAI Research, 2023.
Roose, Kevin. “AI-Generated Song by ‘Drake’ and ‘The Weeknd’ Goes Viral—Before It’s Taken Down.” The New York Times, April 18, 2023.
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