What is an artist’s style? Is it just a set of techniques, strokes and colors or the ideas behind it? So what sets Picasso apart from others: his Cubist ways or the way he describes the Guernica tragedy?
The sum of both is undoubtedly what defines an artist. Therefore, no one can steal from such blessed figures as Van Gogh, Warhol or Klimt. Their identities are so recognizable that they are the ones who add value to their work.
But for a short time, the evolution of technology from emerging artists like Simon Stålenhag or Manuel M. Romero may take a very significant part of what sets them apart. We are talking about artificial intelligence and its possibilities when copying the technical part of an artistic style that makes them unique.
What began a few years ago with the Ai-DA painting robot that raised the question of whether creativity is merely human quality has now led to increasingly refined AIs such as DALL-E, Stable Diffusion or Midjourney. Digital consciences, fed by millions of data and copying the technical style of an artist with enough food, can produce new works according to him. Works that the creator of the style does not profit financially, but rather the owner or commissioner of artificial intelligence.
“For example, if you show pictures of Picasso to an AI, it can reproduce the way he does things. If you add millions of data about cats, buildings, beaches…anything you can think of, and technically, anything you want, you have a machine that can create a Picasso-style painting,” explains professor Andrés Guadamuz of the University of Sussex, who specializes in Intellectual Property.
We take the test and ask the Midjourney AI, which is the easiest to use, to create a composition. Reminiscent of a wish to a genius, the formula begins: “Imagine a yellowish field with windmills, where Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and the giant Shrek are in the styles of Picasso and Van Gogh.” We only ask for a portrait of the DreamWorks character from Warhol and Dalí.
In less than 30 seconds, four versions appear for us to choose from for each of our requests, and while they’re not perfect, it’s easy to identify which artist they correspond to.
But while it may seem obvious which visual paradigm they correspond to, none of these images belong to Dalí, Warhol, Van Gogh or Picasso, but rather Alberto Muñoz, who ordered it from Midjourney. The style does not belong to anyone, but there are works that have emerged.
Thus, with the technology fed in accordance with the style sought, it is no longer necessary to have the technical ability to create, but only the idea and an artificial intelligence that can realize it. The creator of the aesthetic has no right to demand anything even if these works are commodified.