Alex Liu with Rick Fleeter

Roope Rainisto’s “Sunday Service” from Life in West America.

Another Industrial Design student from the Rhode Island School of Design, Shagun Jain, introduced me to the concept of designing with Artificial Intelligence engines such as Midjourney at the beginning of this semester. This new idea piqued my curiosity about the current state of AI regarding art and design.

During my research, Rick Fleeter introduced me to George Hoqqanen, an AI researcher and writer, and we discussed the technical and philosophical aspects of my prompt which greatly influenced my conclusion. Instead of exclusively focusing on the conceptual and theoretical, George suggested that I ground my piece in my own subjectivity, hence the change in perspective in Part V.

This piece would likely be useless if AI was fed enough data about everything. It would go through history and be able to accurately determine the factors that result in Great Art and provide directions to replicate it.

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I grew up familiar with art. The greats, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Monet, Picasso, et cetera., were taught to me through a variety of children’s educational television programs, reasonably so; they represent the foundation of society regardless of one’s cultural background. Art is the most important indication of humanity.

Artificial intelligence is arguably the most impactful and controversial topic in today’s modern world. Its quick evolutionary quality has caused it to enter the lives of every person on the planet. While undeniably useful, it can also be catastrophically dangerous. Oxford researchers Michael Cohen and Michael Osborne concluded in a study that it is likely AI will terminate humanity.

If Artificial Intelligence can create or evaluate Great Art, what distinguishes it from humanity?

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