Recent analysis by the IMF warns that AI will “affect almost 40 percent of jobs around the world.” It got me thinking whether my job is at risk. Can AI replace the work of portrait painters?
To answer this question, first you have to look at what special skills portrait painters can offer, and then compare them with what AI is good at.
Creativity
Creativity is supposed to be what artists are good at. You go to an artist because you want them to produce something original – something that you couldn’t imagine yourself. You want to be surprised.
Aidan Meller is the inventor of Ai-Da, an ultra-realistic artist robot. He contends that the artwork produced by his creation is very creative because “the algorithmic nature of it means that we actually don’t know what the output is going to be.” Basically, it can surprise us.
A study by Dr. Ahmed Elgammal, director of the Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Rutgers University, found that humans had great difficulty telling if an abstract artwork was created by a human or by AI. The artwork above was created by his creation, AICAN.
So if you measure creativity by the ability to surprise – to create the unexpected, or just to produce an aesthetically pleasing composition, then maybe it’s no longer the sole preserve of human artists.
Making Marks
What I love about oil painting is the variety of marks you can make. From thick impasto to the thinnest glaze, each brush stroke can describe form, tone and colour. They can be bold and expressive, or quietly nuanced.
Imperfections can also add something meaningful to a painting. It might be an underdrawing or corrected lines showing through, giving evidence of the creative process. It could be stray hairs from the artist’s brush or even his curious cat. Monet’s The Beach at Trouville is covered in sand grains that were blown off the beach as he painted.
AI can already produce passable photographic impressions of an oil painting. But that is all they are – impressions. When people commission a portrait from me, they are not interested in digital files. They want an actual painting, complete with knobbly surface and stray hairs.
Empathy
Sitting for a portrait can be quite a personal experience. As an artist I prefer to have an initial in person sitting. I make drawings during this time, but most importantly I engage with the sitter, talking to them, trying to understand them, and forming a connection with them. What I learn from these observations inform the whole process of creating a portrait. It requires a degree of empathy that no algorithm can replicate.
AI will clearly have a huge impact on the creative industry, but I don’t see it as a threat to my art practice. Not yet anyway.
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