Artificial Intelligence and the question of creativity: Art, data and the sociocultural archive of AI-imaginations

Abstract

Increasingly artificial intelligence (AI) is employed by artists for creative purposes. At the same time, AI causes significant concerns among creative professionals in terms of copyright violations and possible job loss. To understand how it may be possible to (co)create with AI this article will enter into conversation with Indian artist Harshit Agrawal who is both a designer with Adobe and an artist who works with AI for creative purposes. Introducing the concept of the sociocultural archive comprising AI imaginations as they have featured in popular culture, this article suggests that when we seek to understand how we now live, work and create with AI in the ‘present’, we must also interrogate how this was once envisioned in the ‘past’. This will facilitate a more productive approach to AI for the ‘future’.