The Morning Download: AI's Paint by Numbers

A natural reaction today may be to chalk up the sale of a smudgy-looking portrait as the latest sign that AI, no longer satisfied with taking jobs, is now moving on to creating artwork and general AI is here and don't forget Skynet, etc. But leave it to Artnet, an art market website, to provide a clear description of Generative Adversarial Networks, an AI system of algorithms and two neural networks used to generate photorealistic images. It also put artificial intelligence's potential in context for artists and business practitioners alike. "We would do better to stop asking where the boundary line lies between human artists' agency and that of AI toolsets, and instead start asking whether human artists are using AI to plumb greater conceptual and aesthetic depths than researchers or coders," Artnet writes. In art and in business, everyone would be better served if AI was treated as a tool, with benefits and risks noted.