When AI Makes Art, Humans Supply the Creative Spark

New products often come with disclaimers, but in April the artificial intelligence company OpenAI issued an unusual warning when it announced a new service called DALL-E 2. The system can generate vivid and realistic photos, paintings, and illustrations in response to a line of text or an uploaded image. One part of OpenAI's release notes cautioned that "the model may increase the efficiency of performing some tasks like photo editing or production of stock photography, which could displace jobs of designers, photographers, models, editors, and artists." So far, that hasn't come to pass. People who have been granted early access to DALL-E have found that it elevates human creativity rather than making it obsolete. Benjamin Von Wong, an artist who creates installations and sculptures, says it has, in fact, increased his productivity. "DALL-E is a wonderful tool for someone like me who cannot draw," says Von Wong, who uses the tool to explore ideas that could later be built into physical works of art.