AI paints a new direction for contemporary art

An art exhibition in New Delhi highlights a new market potential of AI-generated and machine learning techniques for creative industries.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made a huge contribution in the fields of finance, healthcare and logistics. But now the first major artwork exhibition created by AI highlights the potential of this technology spanning into the creative industries.

We’ve already seen some examples of AI used to deliver creative compositions. However, the idea of handing over this role to a learning-capable machine seems strange. Yet this is exactly what a growing group of global artists are doing. Tech-savvy artists are creating machines with the capability to generate artwork independently. They have done this by training neural networks to recognise, evaluate and simulate images. “Gradient Descent”, recently opened at Nature Morte gallery, New Delhi, is one of the first major exhibitions dedicated purely to AI works. Seven international artists working with machine learning techniques have contributed to this work. As a result, it has enabled ” the visual side of the creative task to shift to an algorithm”.

Recently in Paris and Los Angeles, exhibitions with a focus on AI and machine-created art have taken place. Similarly, at Springwise we have seen the British auction house Christie’s New York make history by putting an AI-generated piece on sale for the first time. Artificial intelligence has also been used to evaluate the beauty of landscapes providing a new tool to support policymakers in designing and protecting beautiful environments.